It's over... for now...

It’s Saturday morning and I’m writing this over a nice cup of coffee accompanying Marmite and egg on toast. It feels pretty decadent to be eating a meal I have no idea of the cost of.

My week of ‘Living Below the Line’ is over, so what have I learned?
It certainly seems to be possible to get enough to eat on a pound a day. I wasn’t really any hungrier than I am usually before a meal, at any time. However I did lose about two pounds over the five days, so my suspicion that I wasn’t getting enough calories seems to be correct. I’m also painfully aware that it was possible to live on a fiver for food over this time because in reality I have access to more money than this.

The cheap ‘value’ products came from an out of town Tesco, which I drove to – at a non-negligible cost given the budget and the cost of petrol (approximately two pounds, I think). My local co-op, which I could walk to, doesn’t offer this sort of bargain-basement ‘value’ stuff. I bought in bulk, meaning I had to have the assets to pay upfront. And I had a refrigerator, running on electricity, to preserve the perishable goods I bought.

It had an impact on my social interactions, in that I was unable to meet friends and colleagues for coffee or go down the pub, without feeling I was drawing attention to myself.

Over a longer period, or with more people grouped together to share food, it might have been possible to have a more varied diet – I couldn’t buy veg in small enough quantities for my budget and so I was getting at best three portions of fruit and veg a day. Even so, over the long term I think it would have been difficult to get enough vitamins and minerals. It’d be interesting to do a more detailed study. I have certainly also consumed a huge amount of refined starchy foods.

However, for me it has certainly been a very worthwhile exercise, and not just because of the money I have raised, thanks to the generosity of my friends, family, and colleagues. It’s got me to genuinely think about what it’s like to be very poor, both in this country and abroad. And whilst the money was very welcome and very necessary, this was what it was really all about for me. So I’m planning not to finish this exercise at all, but to have a ‘pound a day’ day once a month from now on. If I come up with any better recipes… I’ll post them…. J

Nearly at the finishing line...

Today is Friday - pub night. Normally if I was on a health kick and not wanting to drink I'd drink fizzy water but there's no way my budget stretches to that. Besides which, it feels like the extravagance to end all extravagances after this week. So rather than sit selfconsciously with a glass of tap water I'd decided to stay in. However my dear friends have adjourned to someone's house, so it looks like I'll be sitting slightly less selfconsciously with a glass of tap water round at a friend's. Thanks girls :)

It's the last day, and I'm already promising myself what I'm going to have for breakfast tomorrow... I even managed to burn my porridge Goldilocks-style this morning, so I feel I've earned it!

More tomorrow...

Three pounds twenty-five

Today I woke up and put my back out. I spent the first hour of the day lying on the floor trying to find a comfortable position before finally going out and buying some ibuprofen - which really helped.

 

£3.25

 

That's what my painkillers cost - just over three days' food allowance. Four days in, that's how I've taken to measuring everything, and it's really sobering to look at things in those terms. Go hungry, or treat the pain. I'm lucky that I genuinely can't imagine what it must be like to make those choices.

 

On more mundane matters, I'm pretty sick of my diet of rice, pasta, lentils and porridge. I don't eat meat anyway, so that's no loss, but the sheer repetitiveness borne out of having to buy in bulk to achieve the price point means my diet is not exciting. By far my worst meal of the three is lunch - pasta, special offer 'greek style' cheese, and chives and marjoram from the garden. I'm no fan of pasta salad at the best of times and it's not improved that the budget doesn't stretch to any dressing. Here it is... as photogenic as I could make it.....

 

 

 

Next year I will have to make more effort to work vegetables into the menu!

 

 

https://www.livebelowtheline.com/uk-what-is-extreme-poverty



The Half-Way Point...

I'm now half way through the challenge and I'm still, if I'm honest, not really feeling that hungry. However I am feeling other effects - slightly headachy (missing my morning coffee?) and not a little woolly-headed - concentration has been an issue. It could be coincidence, but at the moment I'm putting it down to lack of nutrients. I am, however, drinking a lot of water, which has to be good for me.

Of course, the challenge doesn't include water - to really be an authentic taste of how those in extreme poverty live, I'd likely have to walk some way to fetch water, perhaps of dubious quality. Instead I get to open a tap in the wall, and know it's safe. For me this is perhaps our greatest luxury.

I have a friend coming round later. Usually we crack open a bottle of wine but tonight she's agreed to join me on the water diet. I've put a jugful in the fridge, to make it more palatable, an option which I'm guessing none of the 1.2 billion who live in extreme poverty have...

https://www.livebelowtheline.com/uk-what-is-extreme-poverty