£5 for five days

GreenQueen

I think the biggest problem is the one Skint Yet Again referred to. If you can maintain a store cupboard and have enough money, transport and storage space to buy big bags of potatoes/carrots/pasta, etc you can make your money stretch a long way. For people who really only have £1.00 a day, they end up buying things more expensively as they can only afford small quantities at a time and possibly also cope with cramped conditions and carrying their purchases home from the shops.

I remember a (fortunately) short time post-university where our staple diet was cheese and potato pie/spaghetti bolonaise/macaroni cheese. At that time I was also hampered by a lack of experience in the kitchen, so didn't have many techniques for stretching food or getting the healthiest food for the money.

While it's an interesting exercise for most of us to try to live on £1.00 a day, for the people living that life and not being able to see a way out, it is also very demoralising, which in itself can make it difficult to say motivated and focussed on the best way to meet the challenge. As HappyMJ said, you can go without for 5 days - you may even feel quite righteous about it, but seeing it as a long-term lifestyle is something else completely.

GQ

rachbc

My family of 4 did the challenge last year - the kids were amazing and made me so proud!

We had £20 for 4 people for 5 days which is admittedly easier than £5 for 1 person. We got lucky with some reduced bananas and chicken which really helped. I tried to make sure kids got 5 a day even if hubby and I didn't.

I made bread for pack lunches, porridge for brekkie, twinks for snacks. There is a thread on here with what we ate as can't remember exaclty. it was stressful - worrying about having a cup of tea incase it left us without milk for porridge, weighing up buying each item, buying smaller bags of stuff even though it was more expensive per kg because it meant we had some more cash for something else. Hardest thing was not using store cupboard bits I am so used to just using without thinking of the cost - stir fry without soy sauce is dull, spag bol without herbs is boring....

I was very tired and emotional at the end of it - partly from not eating as much/ well but mainly from the stress and worry and imagining living like that all the time.

We raised over £200 in sponsership though!

newmrslockwood

whats the recipe for the twinks? i used to make them but cant remember

VfM4meplse

I agree - it would be hard to do it from scratch, but once you've got a storecupboard full of condiments, pulses and grains it's not so difficult to do it for much less that £1 per day.

lally666young

There is no way I could do it from scratch. But it sounds pretty simlar to Jeff Yeagers plans. And I enjoy them as he makes the challenges fun and interesting. When got our first house all we lived on was super noodles, rammen noodles, value tins and cheap frozen chips. But I agree if you dont have a lot of space it would cost you a lot in the long run. Unless you liked eated dried or tinned goods all the time. Plus the way foodstuffs have done a sharp increase at the moment, its very hard going.

Winchelsea

When I did my research yesterday, I was bearing in mind that a person forced to do it would be unlikely to have a store cupboard, or be able to take advantage of lots of the ways we OSers routinely use to stretch our budgets.

So what I was prioritising was a healthy diet with plenty of calories. If I stick to this it will not be exciting, but it will keep body and soul together.

Butterfly_Brain

newmrslockwood wrote: »

whats the recipe for the twinks? i used to make them but cant remember

Here you go

twinks

8oz sr flour
8oz sugar
8oz porridge oats
8oz margarine
1tbsp golden syrup
1tbsp hot water
1/2 tsp bic soda
mix flour, oats and sugar, melt marg, syrup and water in a pan stir in bic soda and add to dry mix, mix well, make smallish balls and put on greased tray and flatten slightly with a fork, 180oc for 15 mins, cool on the tray, you just want them golden in oven not brown


8ozs = 225 grams

Butterfly_Brain

There is a recipe book that you can download on the site
https://www.livebelowtheline.com/uk-guidance/
you will need adobe software to read it which is free here
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/

anguk

I think I could do it for 5 days but I've got a well stocked kitchen and time to search out bargains so I could take advantage of cheaper deals and reduced items. And even if I didn't have the stocked kitchen and time to shop around I could probably still do it because it's only for 5 days, even something basic like baked potatoes, egg and chips, instant noodles and toast for 5 days isn't going to harm you.

It would be an entirely different situation if I was starting from scratch and I had to live on £1 a day for a long period of time, you couldn't just fill yourself with cheap stodge because it would have an impact on your health.

I think anyone could do £1 a day for 5 days but it would be a nightmare if that really was your life and you had to sustain it for longer.

Winchelsea

anguk :

"dum spiro spero" - is that "while I breathe I hope"?

Good motto if so!