£1 A Day For Food and Drink For 2 For A Year!

Gigervamp

There was an article on LoveFood today about the 5 day challenge. The comments posted sounded like a lot of MSE'rs were replying!
The article is here.

rachbc

also in the original challenge you are supposed to include the cost of seeds/ fertiliser etc for and food you grow yourself - just like those living in poverty would have to - will you be doing this?

Aril

I would check out some of the WW2 recipes as they will give you tips for making food stretch and substituting cheaper ingredients. I keep costs down with several meat free days a week- there's a wealth of info on this board and I'm sure someone will be along with more ideas. Good luck.
This site which was set up by Weezl [another member of the MSE forums] is a really good resource.
http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/index.html
Arilx

chirpychick

We are doing this at the moment out of necessity not choice, thankfully only for 20 days.
Except ours includes everything even toilet roll and deodorant etc and I am 36.5 weeks pregnant.
Thankfully our cupboards/freezer weren't 100% empty (though werent full by a long shot!) and we have managed to use a few things to help us along the way but I am pretty savvy and it is REALLY REALLY hard!
I agree with the person who also said it will be psychological as well.

Yesterday I walked around the shop almost in tears because I couldnt afford a pineapple or even tinned pineapple on top of essentials.

What about things like Birthdays/Christmas/Anniversaries etc? Will you also stick to the £1 or will you allow for a special meal out of a different budget?
I don't think it is impossible but I do think that you will need to be very mindful of your health and try to ensure you are getting enough of everything you need.

I find bananas are about the cheapest fruit, my husband is allergic but for me they are a saviour.

Pasta is an obvious food to use but can get very boring. It isn't unusual for me to live on own brand noodles for lunch day in day out.

An obvious would be to go to the Supermarkets at reduction time as we tend to do (we have a Morrisons within a 1 minute walking distance from our house) but so many people are doing this now, at our local asda one of the staff almost got trampled, it was horrific!
We have found Morrisons don't reduce things as much as what they did this time last year but can be helpful when in need of bread for cheap. Obviously nothing is ever guaranteed though.

If you are serious about it, it will take planning and thought.

I think you should keep us all updated with examples of meals and how you spend your money, whether that be daily, weekly, monthly etc

p.s don't bank on things happening to plan lol last year we got a freezer full of apples, blackberries and all sorts - this year we got 200g of blackberries and that was it!
the crops failed locally this year in a big way.

Patchwork_Quilt

Scotty - This is an interesting challenge. However, I don't think the people living on £1 day would appreciate you starving yourself unneccessarily unless you were sending them the money you saved. Surely the best thing to do is eat healthily, with the occasional treat, rather than feed yourself on value beans and value bread. We are what we eat, unfortunately. I do like the idea of your supplementing the menu with home-grown and foraged food, however. It may not look supermarket-shiny but it's certainly good value and tastes far better than anything in a shop. Good luck.

quintwins

This is an interesting challenge however i don't feel i could manage it long term nor would i want to, how does your partner feel about it? i know mine wouldn't be pleased, and my kids def wouldn't.

I wish you the best of luck and really hope you keep us informed of hos you get on.

gibson123

I think that if you are deadly serious, you should give yourselves a "time out" once a month when you can go off programme, and have a treat like a night out, a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates.

You are not really helping the people in poverty by doing this, it is great to be self aware but try not to make it a punishment.

grumpybear_3

I wouldn't say you couldn't but it could take a lot of time and patience and a lot of forward planning.

I guess it depends how it works for you, and what your access to food is like through work / friends / family / neighbours / allotments etc

If you both worked in hospitalty / had family or friends to eat with and lots of greenfingered friends or neighbours or access to the produce from an allotment / bought stuff cheap and were creative enough in the kitchen you could manage quite well I think.

My other half works in the restaurant biz in London so eats breakfast and lunch at work every day and sometimes tea too, and as his place is shut on weekends often brings some leftovers home too, which cuts down our food shopping quite a bit.

When we're together at home we buy food on Friday night for the weekend and living alone during the week I live off the leftovers / store cupboard for the rest of the week, so we don't really do that much shopping.

Unfortunately I live 120miles away from my folks but If we were able to pop round my mums for Sunday lunch every week, drop in on my gran for tea we'd hardly have to do anything at all!

At home we're really lucky in having quite a good bit of fresh produce from family, friends and neighbours who often have a glut of something or other to give away in return for a helping hand mowing the lawn or offering a lift to the shop.

If you've got plenty of time on your hands (or finish work at 8pm most nights ) you can also make the most of the yellow sticker reductions at the supermarkets - its a bit of a gamble sometimes but If you have a freezer you never need worry about paying full price for bread and with judicious freezing you can have a reasonable supply of pretty good stuff without too much aggro.

Discount supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi are probably on your agenda already but its also worth having a scout around places like B&M Bargains and the like for jars and bits, and even looking in the 99p shop / poundland for interesting stuff - though it pays to know what you'd do with it first!

I would say the big difference though is having the time and knowing your way round in the kitchen, and being able to think about how to put things together, in our house we eat plenty of soup and salads and the usual british classics hotpot, shepherds pie etc but also plenty of vegetable / lentil curries / rice based things and chinese stirfries and noodles and whatnot but our secret weapon are soups, burritos and stuffed pancakes which are really excellent at using up bits of this and bits of that in a really tasty way.

I do know people who live on things like frozen farmfoods lasagne for not much more than your budget but I cant think of anything worse! so I'd advise against that, as much for your sanity as your health!

Hope all goes well and look forward to seeing how you go!

grumpybear_3

I wouldn't say you couldn't but it could take a lot of time and patience and a lot of forward planning.

I guess it depends how it works for you, and what your access to food is like through work / friends / family / neighbours / allotments etc

If you both worked in hospitalty / had family or friends to eat with and lots of greenfingered friends or neighbours or access to the produce from an allotment / bought stuff cheap and were creative enough in the kitchen you could manage quite well I think.

My other half works in the restaurant biz in London so eats breakfast and lunch at work every day and sometimes tea too, and as his place is shut on weekends often brings some leftovers home too, which cuts down our food shopping quite a bit.

When we're together at home we buy food on Friday night for the weekend and living alone during the week I live off the leftovers / store cupboard for the rest of the week, so we don't really do that much shopping.

Unfortunately I live 120miles away from my folks but If we were able to pop round my mums for Sunday lunch every week, drop in on my gran for tea we'd hardly have to do anything at all!

At home we're really lucky in having quite a good bit of fresh produce from family, friends and neighbours who often have a glut of something or other to give away in return for a helping hand mowing the lawn or offering a lift to the shop.

If you've got plenty of time on your hands (or finish work at 8pm most nights ) you can also make the most of the yellow sticker reductions at the supermarkets - its a bit of a gamble sometimes but If you have a freezer you never need worry about paying full price for bread and with judicious freezing you can have a reasonable supply of pretty good stuff without too much aggro.

Discount supermarkets like Lidl and Aldi are probably on your agenda already but its also worth having a scout around places like B&M Bargains and the like for jars and bits, and even looking in the 99p shop / poundland for interesting stuff - though it pays to know what you'd do with it first!

I would say the big difference though is having the time and knowing your way round in the kitchen, and being able to think about how to put things together, in our house we eat plenty of soup and salads and the usual british classics hotpot, shepherds pie etc but also plenty of vegetable / lentil curries / rice based things and chinese stirfries and noodles and whatnot but our secret weapon are soups, burritos and stuffed pancakes which are really excellent at using up bits of this and bits of that in a really tasty way.

I do know people who live on things like frozen farmfoods lasagne for not much more than your budget but I cant think of anything worse! so I'd advise against that, as much for your sanity as your health!

Hope all goes well and look forward to seeing how you go!

ginnyknit

it sounds a very interesting task you have set yourself. Im in Manchester too and some areas are cheaper than others. I look forward to hearing about it, please keep us updated and I wish you every success. I have to agree a donation to a charity would be good or maybe sometime working at a soup kitchen to help out others.

You may need a good bit of planning to maximise your diet options so it doesnt get boring and make sure you get lots of vitamins from what you eat. As always porridge is a good start to the day especially in the cold weather. If you have transport Bolton Market sells off a lot of its fresh produce off very cheaply from 3pm and you get a lot for your dosh

Other than that can you bake your own bread and cakes etc as men need a good few calories to keep them going more so depending on your job/excercise habits.

I swear by 6p instant custard from Mr T you can fill up on that if you have a rumbling tum with any old cake.

Good luck guys :beer: