2012

It's almost time for Live Below the Line 2012 - Well, I say it's almost time, actually there's still about 3 months to go, but we've already signed up and are ready to go.

For those who didn't follow us last year the basic idea is that from the 7th-11th of may we are going to live on less than £1 a day. This is supposed to simulate the extreme poverty that 1.4 billion people around the world live in.

Our experience last year told us that it is achievable, but not at all pleasurable. There's absolutely no wiggle room, and you can't afford to get sick as there's not budget for any medicines.

So what can you buy with £1 a day?

Not a bus ticket, not formula milk for a baby and certainly not a magnum ice cream.

We could afford Salt and Pepper Sandwiches, Strawberry Thai Chicken risotto and plain rice.

But the reality is, as hard as we found this, we still aren't even close to experiencing poverty like many others do. We are only budgeting £1 a day for food and drink. We haven't included living costs like heating, rent and travel (luckily we live where we work, but this isn't true for many).

We also aren't going to be including the children until they are much older and able to understand what's happening. This means that we get to spend the whole £1 on ourselves each day, where plenty of mothers around the world have to go hungry to be able to feed their starving children.

There are a few things we'd like you to consider doing this year.

1. Taking part in Live Below the Line yourself. You can read the rules and sign up here.
2. Consider sponsoring one or both of us (we're raising money for the same charity, but can't help getting competitive about it!)
3. Just follow our blog. Raising awareness of extreme poverty is one of the reasons we are taking on this challenge, so we'd love for you to keep reading and share with us in this experience.

Blog posts might be sporadic over the next three months, but we promise to update at least daily during the challenge.

If you do decide to get involved and want to blog your experiences too, let us know so we can link up.

Is foraging allowed?

Today I made probably our most expensive meal of the week at nearly 40p a portion!! It's okay though, as Matt and I were both well under budget with breakfasts at less than 20p each.

I made us something I'm reluctant to call risotto, and more like soupy-rice. I did open a packet of tofu (which is where the expense came from) and we had Thai chicken cup of soup and rice with tofu and....

...Some foraged herbs. That's okay though, right? I didn't pay for them, and really if I was poverty stricken and the school was growing lemon balm right outside my front door I would definitely have some. And realistically, if we were to do this in the autumn, The kids and I'd definitely be spending afternoons at the priory country park eating blackberries.



I was quite proud of my creation until I tasted it.



Unfortunately the soup had far too much chilli in it (mental note, one sachet between two would have been fine, there was no need to add a second) and although there was a carton of creme fraiche taunting me in the fridge, I knew I couldn't have it as it wasn't on budget. So I used strawberry yoghurt.

I know, not the best combo, but you've gotta work with what you got.

Anyhow, it actually didn't taste too bad, and made some pretty sizeable portions. It's probably a bigger lunch than I'd normally eat (but equally decidedly less tasty) so I should be okay with something small for dinner. Not sure about Matt though. He's looking pretty hungry most of the time.

Finally, The most challenging thing so far has been watching Will drink delicious Welches white grape pear juice that I so desperately want for myself.


- Kj
Xxx

Budgeting issues

Turns out we've been doing this whole below the line thing wrong. It's still salvageable, but it's not quite what I thought it would be.

We just read the rules (why didn't we do that before we agreed to sign up?) and you have to budget £5 for what goes in your shopping cart to last you five days. You can't buy a bag of rice and say 'I'll only use half' and count it as half the price. Although they do recommend buddying up with someone so that your shopping goes further (eg you and a friend could buy the rice together and pay half each).

So....

Matt and I have £10 to share and we have to factor in WHOLE cartons of anything we've used so far. I suddenly resent the fact that he used peanut butter that has cost us £1.67 and I don't even eat it!!



Luckily I'm a very forgiving person. I probably won't hold it against him - for too long.

Working out what we've used so far means that we have spent:
Peanut butter £1.67
Bread 2 loaves £1.00
Butter £1.10
Cup of soups £1.00
Potatoes £1.49
Yoghurt £0.50
Rice £0.98
Kefir £0.15
Banana £0.11
---------------------------
£8.00

We've got £2.00 left.

I want to spend £1.60 of it on 350g of tofu. Matt might not be keen, but then he did use peanut butter...

- Kj
Xxx