So this week I’m doing something a little different; I’m doing the ‘Live Below the Line’ challenge. As the website says, Live Below the Line “challenges people to live below the poverty line so that others can begin to rise ABOVE IT” and I wanted to get involved and see what I could do to help. As a first step I wanted to try the challenge and ‘walk a mile in their shoes’-as far as that is ever going to be possible, of course- so I could feel the feels and engage more personally with the issue. I know very well how lucky I am, having a supportive family and having always had a roof over my head, having had access to education and healthcare in the UK and currently being employed and with access to transport. So this is just a tiny few days in a lifetime of privilege- but I want to take this opportunity to empathise and see the issues for myself. I do genuinely and frequently feel very grateful for what I have, but it never hurts to have an additional reminder.
The challenge is to spend just £5 on all the food and drink you will consume for five full days. The above photograph shows what I bought for my £5, minus a loaf of wholemeal bread and one onion which were in the freezer. The bread, oats, beans and onion (previously chopped and frozen) I already had in the house so it seemed silly to buy another packet, although I calculated my costings based on the prices I saw in store on the day. The groceries cost as follows:
- 4 x baking potatoes 52p (these were in the reduced section, usually 69p)
- 500g yellow split peas 55p
- 1kg long grain rice 45p
- 340g peanut butter 70p
- 410g tin of peaches 35p
- 420g tin of baked beans 25p
- 2 x carrots 12p
- 1 x onion 16p
- 500g oats 65p
- 454g strawberry jam 39p
- 400g tin chopped tomatoes 31p
- 1 x wholemeal loaf 40p
Which comes to a total of £4:85. I’m interested to know how this might compare with what the same shopping might cost in other countries…
I plan to use the money I saved on groceries this week, to buy food to donate to our local food bank. The Lovely Husband is not doing this challenge with me but he’s going to be mainly eating from the freezer so he was very ‘cheap to run’ this week too! ;)
As you’ll see in the photo, the food I bought was all in the supermarket’s ‘value’ range so was rock bottom prices; the supermarket own brand prices are quite a bit higher, let alone the Name Brands.
Has anyone else undertaken this challenge and if so, how did you find it? I’ll let you know in my next post what I chose to make with the above ingredients!
