With just £40 per week allocated for food shopping for her and her partner, Lauren says she resorted to eating Tesco pate and white bread for every meal in order to save cash – but it came with a big catch.
A pub manager clawed her way out of £8,000-worth of debt by eating this one Tesco snack for EVERY meal – but there was one major catch.
Lauren Finn found herself in debt at the age of 26 following a combination of a failed business venture and overspending.
The 28-year-old says her debt worsened after she broke her leg and was left unable to work so had to rely on statutory sick pay.
By August 2024 Lauren’s debt had accumulated to an eye-watering £7,800 and it was then she realised she needed to take drastic action or risk it ‘looming over her forever’.
With just £40 per week allocated for food shopping for her and her partner, Lauren says she resorted to eating Tesco pate and white bread for every meal in order to save cash.
In addition to munching on the spreadable Brussels pate, Lauren sold her clothes online, moved in with her partner to save money on rent, sold her car and took the bus rather than the tube.
As a result, Lauren managed to clear the debt within eight months.
Although it managed to boost her finances Lauren admitted on social media it wasn’t a good diet, revealing she went from a size 12 to a size 18/20 in eight months.
Now, Lauren is using her TikTok page to help raise awareness of debt and ditch the stigma surrounding it.
Lauren, from Putney, south west London, said: “I started a business when I came out of university but it just didn’t work out – from that I got into about £1,000 debt.
“I then went into full-time work where I was just spending all of my wage and more because nobody taught me about budgeting. I racked up £3,000 [of debt] by the time I was 26.
“Then I had an accident where I broke my leg, which left me unable to work for eight months.
“From that I went on statutory sick pay. Obviously living in London that pays for nothing so I racked up about £7,800 debt by the end of it. It was having a massive impact on me mentally.
“I was 26 at the time and it’s around that time when all your friends start to buy houses and have children.
“I was so mentally drained that I was just drinking and partying even though I was in debt, just to numb that feeling of being so behind.
“I had no idea how I was going to get out of it.”
After deciding she was going to clear the debt in August 2024, Lauren says she resorted to eating 40p Tesco pate and white bread for every meal.
Lauren said: “I was living off pate and bread.
“I think at the time it was literally 40p for the pate and I would just get pate and the cheapest bread and that’s what I would eat because it was just so cheap.
“I was with my partner at the time and he was still in university so he didn’t have any money so we had £40 between the two of us every week to buy food.
“I chose the pate because it was cheap and I liked it. Cheese was too expensive, ham you didn’t get as much, and it had more flavour to it than just bread and butter.
“It massively impacted my weight eating that way.
“At the time I was on crutches and I wasn’t able to work, the two of them coincided to this really poor diet and not exercising at all because I’d broken my leg and my kneecap.
“The two of them combined meant I went from a size 12 to a size 18/20 and I did that in the course of eight months to a year.”
Trying to save money in as many ways as possible, Lauren also sold her car, stopped going out partying, and moved in with her partner in order to save on rent.
Lauren said: “I saved most of my wage that I could and I stopped going out, I stopped drinking.
“I was getting a £1.75 bus to work rather than a £6 tube, I also sold my car for £800.
“My partner was living in university halls with three other men, so I moved in there [to save money on rent].
“There were online games where if you played them for long enough you would earn money and you could cash it out for an online gift card.
“I would use it to buy food or clothes that I needed for work, and I had a cat as well so I was using that [the gift cards] to purchase cat food.
“I’d probably play them [the games] for 40 or 50 hours to get £20 – I was playing them from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep.
“I was doing 10 hours a day on these games, I was desperate to earn the money.”
After a ‘stressful’ eight months of scrimping and saving, Lauren had completely cleared the debt by April 2025.
Lauren said: “It was really stressful but previous to getting in debt I was going out too much with my friends, partying too much, it really changed my mindset.
“It went from ‘oh my God, how am I going to curb my spending? I feel like I deserve the things I’m buying myself’ to ‘sort this out and change your mindset, because this debt is going to be looming over you forever if you don’t change’.
“Although it was scary and although it was hard, it’s way better than the mindset I was in while I was getting into that debt.
“It was the most amazing feeling when the debt was cleared – the first thing I did was book a holiday.”
Lauren is now using her TikTok account to try and help break the stigma surrounding debt.
Lauren said: “I think people need to learn that what they see online is not the full picture.
“A lot of people do have debt, they just don’t speak about it.
“I think the more that we normalise not having all the money and that pressure to always go out or to always be at events – I think as soon as we eliminate that, people will feel more free.
“Especially in my generation, people feel like they have to show they have money and they’re not struggling and it’s okay to be struggling.”