The idea in a nutshell
Diary Update:
Final day Friday!:
Toady for lunch and dinner we had:
- Mildy curried sort of fried rice with the left over Pumkin, Carrots and remaining tinned crushed tomatoes. Still tasted good (by now anything tastes pretty good, though!)
The biggest test for me was on Friday evening at a birthday party in a pub function room. It was pretty tough having plates of hot food offered to us and having to say no, and then people would offer to buy me a drink and I'd have to turn that down as well and stick to my water. The reason for this is that the rules state that even if people give you food or drink it has to be factored into the budget.
I found my self counting down the minutes to midnight. In the end we were home by midnight and I rewarded myself with a nice piece of cake which tasted great. The reality is that we were only living at the poverty line for 5 days - (and we only factored in food, not all other living expenses). You can put up with just about anything if you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But for the 1.4 Billion with no choice about it, there is no light, unless we light it for them. If you haven't yet, please donate at the link below.
So what was the grand total?
Click below for the total $ we consumed, a total ingredients list, and the rest of the weeks diary:
I think we did pretty well. We actually only consumed at total of $7.53 each on food for the whole week! An average of $1.51 a day! Made easier with the economies of scale with 2 people working at it together. Also easier when things are bought from 'bulk foods' rather than in packets. We did have some things in packets however, so when that is factored in with the bits left over the official figures are: $8.26 for the week or $1.65 a day. A great way to save some cash! Having said that, we celebrated by having breakfast in a cafe on Saturday and spent $33 for 2. Hmmm. Puts it into perspective...
Here are the ingredients we ate for the week:
Food Cents/gm
Kings stockpot 299/packet
Brown rice 0.25
Milk 0.2
Tin Tomatoes 0.247
Mung beans 0.5
Red Lentils 0.5
Pumpkin 0.175
Cumin/Coriander 0.5
Chilli powder 1.1
Turmeric 1.1
Fenugreek 1.1
Mustard seeds 1.1
Plain rock salt 0.448
Sugar 0.269
Carrots 0.179
Onions 25ea
Oil 0.6
Garlic 0.094
Popcorn 0.598
(Apart from me sneaking coffee and piece of toast that was left over with Peanut Butter (0.64c/gm) on the first day).
Thursday:
Today's menu consisted of:
- Poridge (19 cents)
- Some Dahl left over from yesterday
- Mung bean 'Mug' (Curry) with most of a 99c can of tomatoes and rice. Actually much nicer than it sounds! (between 2 people - $1.30 each)
- Half a carrot (13 cents)
- More home popped popcorn to snack on. (11 cents)
Total: $1.73
The trouble is, the rules of the challenge state that you have to budget "for whole packets of food items such as rice, pasta, noodles..." and, in my case, a small bottle of cooking oil, so in the final washup the amount spent will be more than the daily totals.
We've got into a routine of making main meals the night before so they can be taken in for lunch and having the same thing for lunch and dinner sometimes augmented by left overs from the previous day - not much variety but that's probably th least of the worries of the 1.4 Billion who go through their lives with no choice but to live that way.
Today's menu consisted of:
- Another 18g of Poridge, but at least we have sugar & 20ml milk (19 cents)
- Red lentil Dahl with Brown rice (fills you more) for lunch and dinner ($1.20)
- More home popped popcorn to snack on. (11 cents)
Total: $1.50!
The popcorn is our snack food with a bit of salt but I'm missing something sweet (and coffee!). Every cloud has a silver lining, with my back injured I'm not doing any excercise so at least I'm not really feeling hungry!
Tuesday:
Today's menu consisted of:
- Poridge again for Breakfast (15 cents)
- Soup made with Kings dried soup mix for lunch and dinner - the easy way, only $3 a packet which made over 4 'meals'. ($1.50)
- Piece of dry toast dribbled with Sunflower oil. (15 cents)
- Some home popped popcorn to snack on. (21 cents)
Total: $2.01 Yes! Made up for yesterday.
I was tempted to buy a big tripple chocolate biscuit but managed to go into the supermarket and only grab 2 onions (never done that before!)
Prepared a Red lentil Dahl to have for lunch (and probably dinner) with rice tomorrow night. Highly recommended.
Monday:
Live below the line started today! We spent last night planning what we can afford, spending a total of only $11.25 each for the next 5 days food.
Today started with...- Porridge made from plain bulk foods rolled oats and with little or no milk (15 cents each, with sugar)
- Garlic Fried rice with pumpkin and carrots for lunch and dinner in the end (around 50 cents per serve). Not too bad, really. When I agreed to take on the challange I didn't think about the fact that coffee would be out though!... 1 Flat white would blow one and a half days budget on its own!
- In the end, as we're only at $1.15, I splashed out with a splash of left over milk on the poridge (15 cents),
- a piece of peanut butter on toast (25 cents)
- and even had a cup of real coffee made at home (80 cents - wow)
