anyone taking up the live below the line challenge?

zebedee29

Hi guys

i cant seem to find the thread zippychick is referring to.....cacn anyone help?

many thanks in advance

zebedee

r.a.i.n.b.o.w

raphanius wrote: »

In todays mysupermarket email there was an appeal to get involved with the live below the (poverty) line challenge. the idea is to eat for less than £1 a day for 5 days to highlight the problem of food poverty in the UK. Its backed by christian aid and the salvation army. I know there are people on here already living on a low food budget and many below the poverty line but it may appeal to some to take part. there are some recipes on the site that could be useful. mysupermarket has done a suggested supermarket shelf of low priced goods. when i looked at mine most of the items had a star against them because they are regular purchases!

anyway heres the link so you can have a look for yourselves.

Just a quicky as I'm passing through, but wanted to say that I'm on about 80p per person per day, thanks to Weezl (and team!) :T

Reverbe

barbarawright wrote: »

Interesting article in today's Guardian about someone taking up a challenge to eat on a £1 a day (he seems to have to buy new food rather than using up what's in the cupboard)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/28/food-and-drink-poverty?INTCMP=SRCH

Why didnt he make a soup?

Plus a chicken does me more than 2 meals.. I usually find I can get 2 main meals,a curry with the drum sticks that lasts for 2 meals,2 snacks of a wing each, and the carcass strippings in a soup. the other week I got one for 2.80 which is about what I used to pay for one.

zippychick

zebedee29 wrote: »

Hi guys

i cant seem to find the thread zippychick is referring to.....cacn anyone help?

many thanks in advance

zebedee

What are you trying to find Zeb

Rachel021967

Well I'm 16 minutes into the challenge. I found the shopping harder than I thought. I will mainly be living off pasta, potato, kidney beans, carrots, nettles, neighbours leaks, bananas, tin of peaches and 2 lots of value yoghurts. I've also bought 2 boxes of stock cubes and a small tub of mixed herbs. We also have a plentiful supply of rosemary. I'm hoping that a family friend will sell me 3 eggs from her chickens with the remaining 30p.
Tomorrows breakfast is 100g pasta with yoghurt. Lunch will be potato, leek and nettle soup. Dinner and Tuesday's lunch will be 200g of pasta, nettles, carrots and kidney beans in an onion gravy.
Drink will be water. Thats the hardest part as I live on fizzy drink. However, if this week can break the habit, all the better.

Doom_and_Gloom

Well my one week of this challenge is starting today!

I have been drinking water since I got up an hour ago now. I forgot to ask my partner to buy the basic tea :doh:and I don't want to cheat and use what we have in at the moment. So water is all I have at the moment. It feels like the tea we already have is taunting me :rotfl:.

I can't have breakfast until my partner wakes up as it involves the hob which I can't use safely - I didn't think this through very well did I :think:. On the same kind of note can the fruity pancakes be cooked and stored in the fridge for the next day or so? If they can that would be helpful.

Day 1
Breakfast - fruity pancakes.
Lunch - Kidney bean and vegetable soup with bread.
Dinner - bean curry.
Drinks - water and (when my partner buys it later today) tea with soya milk

rachbc

My challenge is starting today - I had a blitz of the cupboards and fridge last night hidiing the kids easter choc til saturday and cooking and freezing what was left that might not last the week. I didn;t get to go shopping so used oats from the cupboard for brekkie but will take a cup out of the bag I buy to even it up. Off to aldi and asda in a bit - will report back later

Menu for today

Porridge made with half milk/ water, demerara sugar
Home made rolls with cream cheese or salami, carrot sticks, twinks, yog for dd
Chicken stir fry with carrots and brocolli with rice

Snacks for kids with be smart price peanuts and raisins

Xevius

Hubby has 'cheated' already! :mad: I taped up all the 'non-challenge' food cupboards/fridge shelves, but forgot a lonely HM scone left over from yesterday in the cake tin.

Rest of us have been good today...even met some friends at a coffee shop earlier and didn't buy a thing (managed to sneak in a banana & water beaker for DD for when the others were tucking in ). Have tried the value teabags this morning and all I can say is I'm glad its only for 5 days! Although knowing how I hate to waste anything I know I will have to finish the box up after the challenge :eek:

Menu for today (all Mr S value brand ): weetabix & milk/water, toast & jam / banana / yoghurt for DD, pasta tubes bolognaise (pasta, 250g turkey mince, half tin tomatoes, pepper, mushrooms, half onion, herbs). Snacks will be toast/jam/lemon curd, & noodles for DS. Drinks will be water / squash / tea / milk for DD.

rachbc

I've spent £19.01 so we have a little for emergency milk etc. My first error was not being organised enough to make bread before going out shopping and coming back hungry so had to send ds to the corner shop to buy a packet of rolls - grrr really cross with myself cos that 85p could have bought some more fresh fruit/ veg for later in the week.

Have baked half a batch of twinks and half a batch of the carrot cake from the £100 monthly planner for snacks/ packed lunches and not have 20 rolls, a loaf and a pizza base rising.

DS informs me he needs ingredients for food tech for tomorrow so hoping can eek out enough butter, sugar and flour to make the topping and will supply him with foraged frozen blackberries and bilberries...rubbish timing!

Doom_and_Gloom

Right nearly finished my 7 days of the challenge (today is the last day), and I am not getting sick of fruity pacakes every morning like I thought I would! I actually can't wait for breakfast in the morning after my morning tea .
That reminds me the basic tea is drinkable and although not as 'strong' tasting as I like it has been nice to have it. It's certainly not bad for 27p for 80 mind.

It seems I bought too much food, lol. I am going to have more food than I thought would be left over come the end of tomorrow :eek:.
By the end of today there will be a tin of tomatoes I will not have touched (31p) and also by the end of today I would have used only 640g [STRIKE]360g[/STRIKE] (opps it would be 360g left not used :rotfl:) of the onions - I bought 1kg lose - (30p extra spent).
So I spent £6.70 to give 30p for herbs and spices but in reality I could have spent £6.09 leaving 91p for herbs and spices! I certainly didn't use more than 30p worth of herbs and spices so £6.39 - 61p under budget :beer:.


That is not forgetting that I will have obvious other 'left over' ingredients I will have due to pack sizes.

• tea bags (probably 55 left by the end of the day)
• 800g self rasing flour
• 220g saltanas
• 360g frozen mixed vegetables (I didn't make soup with it in the end, I opted to make vegetable curry/chilli with it which I ate with bread! Probably why I only used 2 out of my 3 tins of tomatoes )
• 500g rice
• 100g pasta

So not only did I come under budget in reality I have food left over to eat during the coming weeks/months.
However the point is that I only had to cover food and drink with that £1 a day over the 7 days. Unfortunatly others have to buy much more with that, so although the food is possible it shows that that is basically all that is .
"And for people who live in extreme poverty that £1 has to cover far more than food and drink - we're talking everything - health, housing, transport, food, education" - I honestly can't imagine doing that, it is no wonder there are people out there in the world that have to choose between the basics in life.