Solo mum Chantelle Brown is fighting to manage the rising cost of keeping her six children in school.
Ms Brown, who lives in a State house in Onekawa with her six children - ranging from a 1-year-old to a 13-year-old - said household costs had risen on all fronts.
"Everything's gone up. Rent's gone up and food has skyrocketed.
"Basic kai like milk and bread is becoming unaffordable ... Milk is rationed in our house, which is ironic considering all the cows we have [in New Zealand]."
There was also a raft of costs associated with sending her children to school, including uniforms, stationery, field trips and school lunches.
The Government's KickStart breakfast scheme gave some respite, providing free cereal and milk at Maraenui Bilingual School on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays mornings, but not on Fridays, or crucially, on Mondays, Ms Brown said.
"Monday's the most crucial day of the week.
"A lot of people are broke after the weekend."
To cover the KickStart scheme's off-days, Ms Brown and other local parents, in conjunction with local Mana Party members and Nga Raukura o Maraenui, created "Feed the Kids," a breakfast programme of their own.
About 60 people turned up at Maraenui shopping centre for a free serving of porridge on the first day of the programme last Friday morning.
"It wasn't just school kids - adults, too. Anyone who was in need was there."
But despite the palpable success of breakfast programmes, school lunches were another matter. "School lunches are my biggest cost of all."
It was a struggle to fill her children's lunch boxes and the cheapest lunch options in supermarkets were processed foods such as potato chips.
"It's cheaper to eat junk than it is to eat healthy."
Ms Brown is on a benefit and receives about $300 from Winz a week.
She is completing a degree in teaching at EIT and will be a qualified teacher in two years.
She said she needed the qualification to provide for her family, as unskilled work was unreliable.
"I know I need my degree, so I can have a career and provide for my kids.
"The only jobs [in Hawke's Bay] for people that aren't skilled is orchard work and picking work, but that's seasonal."
In the meantime, she has found creative ways of managing the ongoing costs of her children's schooling.
She makes carpooling arrangements with other parents to keep petrol costs involved with her children's sporting events in check.
"When I see one person in a car I think, 'That's a waste of petrol'."
For school lunches, she receives fruit from her relatives' fruit trees, trades homegrown vegetables for eggs from her cousin's chicken coop.
She can't remember the last time she went shopping for clothes - her children are fine with hand-me-downs.
"You just learn to be really resourceful.
"People living in poverty, that's how they live - they share."