Day 1 nearly complete

Well, day 1 is nearly over. (just a yoghurty snack to come)

We have overcome our rules related difficulties.

I had 2 DELICIOUS PEANUT BUTTER sandwiches, and it looks like i'm gonna be eating a whole lot more!

I admit that I am feeling hungrier than I thought I would. What a weakling. But, despite watching all around me tucking into some fabulous ices courtesy of your friend and mine Mr Whippy, we are within budget and going to stay the course.

The bonus is it has helped my hydration no end. Who knew water could be a snack too?

Lunch, just 10g of peanut butter this time but complimented with a banana:

Dinner: (notice I had to watch Will scoffing chips whilst I had my 2 fairly plain tatoes)

SO day total:
Breakfast: 2 pieces of toast (7p) + 20g Peanut butter (8p)= 15p
Lunch: 2 slices bread (7p) + 10g peanut butter (4p) + 1 banana (11p) = 18p
Dinner: 2 potatoes (22p) + butter (2 knobs)/salt/pepper/italian seasoning/pizza spice (11p) = 33p
Snack: homemade yoghurt 50ml (3p)

Day total = 69p

Day one complete food diary - KJ

Here is my total food diary for today!

Breakfast

Toast x 2 with butter 12p

Large glass Kefir 1p

Lunch

Cup of soup (thai chicken yummy) 8p

one piece of toast 3.5p

Dinner

Jacket potato 11p

Salt & Pepper 1p

Butter 5p

Large glass Kefir 1p

Snacks

60ml homemade yoghurt 3p

Total cost of todays food = 45.5p

Well under budget. Unfortunately, there's nothing else I want, given that we can only eat more off the list we already have and I don't fancy plain rice!

The new budgeting rules have scuppered my plans for rationing Ribena as the bottle cost nearly £4 so there is no way I can work it into our budget. I'm getting withdrawal just thinking about it...

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

Ice creams

We took a lovely trip to the park this morning. Unfortunately it would have been a day an a half's budget to buy an ice cream, so we had to miss out.




- Kj
Xxx

Day 1 Breakfast

So here it is:

Breakfast:

Matt:

2 slices of bread = 7p (I love 2 loaves for 1.50 at Tesco now!)
20g Peanut Butter = 8p
2 Pints of tapwater
Total = 15p (18p added to later in the day. This is a piece of cake....)

KJ:

2 slices of toast (7p) + 5g of butter (5p) = 12p!

Upcoming difficulties.....

About to go to the park and try to walk past the ice cream van. Even a Minimilk is 60p, hoping we don't sell out 2 days food for a Magnum...

Final day update

Matt here,

Just to update on yesterday's final day of above the line living.

At Matt and Mickey's house I had 4 cupcakes and a crispy creme donut and 2 glasses of squash and a cuppa. I didn't ask how much they cost!

After dinner we had some of KJ's home made truffles. I have to admit at this point that I may have stolen 2 of my son's jellybabies at quarter to twelve as a final luxury. Does that make me a bad parent?

Anyway bring it on.

My expectations are that it will not be that difficult. But I must admit that I am slightly embarrassed at how indulgent our lifestyle has become. If this week can add a bit of perspective to ours and other people's lives I will be happy.

Of course I will no doubt be proved wrong and be complaining about how starving I am by Wednesday.

Lets see....

(Eating our final dinner with Adam and Riika and a beer..)

Our Final Decadent Day of 'Above the Line' Living

So today is our final day of living 'above the line' before our challenge begins. I thought it would be interesting to share what we have eaten as a comparison for the rest of the week so that you don't assume we all eat very little anyway.

We aren't including the kids in the challenge (horrifyingly we wouldn't even be able to afford formula for Elisha, let alone any food!) so here is what Matt and I ate so far today:

Matt

eggs x 2 - 40p

toast (with butter) x 3 - 21p

Bread x 2 - 7p

butter - 5p

cheese - 40p

onion - 15p

sweet chilli sauce - 12p

Krispy Kreme donut -83p

Hunters chicken casserole - £3

roasted veg - 40p

Potato au gratin - 75p

Toy story easter egg - £1.50

Ribena - 10p

Red Wine - 62p

Total = £8.60

KJ

egg - 20p

toast (with butter)x 2 - 12p

Krispy Kreme donut -83p

passionfruit kefir - 5p

Hunters chicken casserole - £3

roasted veg - 40p

Potato au gratin - 75p

Red wine - 62p

Total = £5.97

This is of course, assuming that we don't eat anything else today (I've factored in dinner which is already in the slow cooker). If we do, obviously I'll have to update.

We probably will as we are going to someone's house for tea and cakes this afternoon. How do you factor in how much a cake someone else made cost? Is it rude to ask them how much they paid for it?

Probably yes.

I'll just have to make an educated guess...