Living Below the Line

terricherry2 · April 2015

So I'm doing a challenge called Live Below the Line this week. I did it last year as well and am trying a different approach to experiment a little. You spend £1 a day on food and drink for five days. Last year I bought as much bulk as I could for my budget. I felt horrible, bloated, sick, but never hungry. I ate all processed and tinned foods as they were the cheapest. 18 pence for a packet of instant noodles versus £1 for some salad seemed like a no brainer when budget was a major concern.

This year I've taken a more balanced approach and have bought cheap whole foods, like rice, beans, eggs etc. I even managed to get a few plums in season. After putting in my meals for the day, today has come out at around 1300 calories which is much less than normal for me but I've maxed out my budget.

It'll be interesting to see if I feel better doing this, or just end up hungry all week. Is anyone else doing it and wants to compare notes?

P.s. Not just a social experiment, I am raising money for charity but not sure if I'm allowed to say which or put the link to my page on here.

lisafrancis888 · April 2015

Good luck. It will be interesting to see what you think at the end of the week.

RodaRose · April 2015

In the U.S. it is $1.50 per day for five days.
If I were shopping, I would buy lentils and peanut butter.

ruthie3110 · April 2015

I did this a couple of years ago and ended up living on rice and tinned vegetables. I had a microwave lasagne as a treat (most expensive meal of the week) at the end!
If I was going to do it again, I'd do it pretty similar but with fresher whole foods instead.
My advice? Don't start on a Monday (unless you have a local market open on a sunday). Get yourself down to a market at the end of the day and stock up all the cheap leftover stock at the end of the day. I once got a carrier bag full of grapes for £1! I had to give loads away because there was no way I could eat that many.
Although re-reading your post it seems like you're already underway in which case ignore me and others can use my advice instead!

I really enjoyed it and raised over £100 (including gift aid), good luck!

nekoface · April 2015

I've done this before. The local market near me sells large bowls of fruit/veg for £1 so it's worth checking yours out. You can often get giant bags of things like onions, etc. for under £1. If you go at the end of the day you can get stuff a lot cheaper too - I once got a giant bag of limes for 15p and made lime drizzle cake. It's much easier to do if you have the money to buy bulk amounts of flour, grains and pulses at the start. The only difficult thing to eat on this is meat but there's lots of things you can cook with eggs.

gothchiq · April 2015

let's see. I would be buying a lot of dried beans.

LKArgh · April 2015

gothchiq wrote: »

let's see. I would be buying a lot of dried beans.

^This. Bean, lentils etc.

nekoface · April 2015

Actually I'll do this with you as much as I can. Full disclosure: I have a decently stocked larder and a mason jar of leftover roast beef in my fridge right now. But I'll join you with my weekly shop (tomorrow).

terricherry2 · April 2015

This is my shopping for the week. Don't think I did too badly. Veggie egg fried rice for lunch today.

brucerc311 · April 2015

looks good to me! oatmeal, eggs, rice, carrots, milk are always in stock at my house. I've never calculated the daily cost of the food I consume, but I have switched to not buying coffee or lunch while at the office and have saved a bundle.

brucerc311 · April 2015

also sweet potato (yam)

Francl27 · April 2015

terricherry2 wrote: »

This is my shopping for the week. Don't think I did too badly. Veggie egg fried rice for lunch today.

Oh wow. There's no way I could get all that for $7.5! Seriously, I have no idea how I would do it for so little. Even eggs are like $1.5 for a dozen. I guess I'd end up with eggs, two bags of dried beans/lentils, then I have no idea...

ThisOrderedLife · April 2015

I am really temped to try this with my husband... have a feeling I would start by making a big pot of chili... my biggest issues would come from the lack of meat

Francl27 · April 2015

ThisOrderedLife wrote: »

I am really temped to try this with my husband... have a feeling I would start by making a big pot of chili... my biggest issues would come from the lack of meat

Mine? Caffeine withdrawal of Hell. Honestly, I wouldn't even consider doing it because there's no way I'm going through that willingly.

leahmstoffel · April 2015

I'm doing this for the first time this year. It looks like you were able to get about twice the amount of food as I was. I live in NYC so everything is pretty expensive here. I also didn't buy anything in bulk. I literally spent a straight $7.50 (that's the amount we get in the US) at the grocery store. My meal plan for the week only has me at about 1200 calories a day, which I guess is okay but under what I usually eat. My biggest concern is also the caffeine withdrawal. I drink a not so great amount of diet soda so we'll see how that goes. Good luck!

ruthie3110 · April 2015

Francl27 wrote: »

ThisOrderedLife wrote: »

I am really temped to try this with my husband... have a feeling I would start by making a big pot of chili... my biggest issues would come from the lack of meat

Mine? Caffeine withdrawal of Hell. Honestly, I wouldn't even consider doing it because there's no way I'm going through that willingly.

Tesco value coffee! Good enough for a caffeine fix and only 50p a jar!
I had minimal meat when I first did this, the only stuff I did have was horrible tinned meatballs etc
If I did it again it would be easier now because I don't eat meat anymore. I would really miss my almond milk though!

nekoface · April 2015

@ruthie3110 : I like the Oatly chocolate milk and I get it in bulk when it's on offer - 3 for £3. I really love the Ecomel almond milk though, and that's pretty expensive.

Here's what I got from the local market today:

carrots: £1
tomatoes: £1
mangetout: £1
satsumas: 50p.

I kinda feel like I'm cheating a bit because I have staples like onions, garlic, rice, flour lentils, etc. etc. and even roast beef in the fridge. Today I'm making beef curry with the veg and left-over roast beef and some curry paste we already have. Having it with rice. For the satsumas, I'm peeling and halving them and sprinkling some caster sugar over it. It's not clear from the picture but there are loads of satsumas in that bag. We'll probably eat the curry again tomorrow.

I gather food waste (fruit & veg not in great condition) from this same market fortnightly and we cook dinner at a homeless shelter. We normally make a curry with the veg we gather and some lentils/chickpeas. Since we're on a tight budget and often lack coconut milk/tins of tomatoes, etc. so what we do for curries is to take some of the vegetables after it's cooked and puree them to make a kind of sauce so it's nice and thick and not watery.

Francl27 · April 2015

nekoface wrote: »

@ruthie3110 : I like the Oatly chocolate milk and I get it in bulk when it's on offer - 3 for £3. I really love the Ecomel almond milk though, and that's pretty expensive.

Here's what I got from the local market today:

carrots: £1
tomatoes: £1
mangetout: £1
satsumas: 50p.

I kinda feel like I'm cheating a bit because I have staples like onions, garlic, rice, flour lentils, etc. etc. and even roast beef in the fridge. Today I'm making beef curry with the veg and left-over roast beef and some curry paste we already have. Having it with rice. For the satsumas, I'm peeling and halving them and sprinkling some caster sugar over it. It's not clear from the picture but there are loads of satsumas in that bag. We'll probably eat the curry again tomorrow.

I gather food waste (fruit & veg not in great condition) from this same market fortnightly and we cook dinner at a homeless shelter. We normally make a curry with the veg we gather and some lentils/chickpeas. Since we're on a tight budget and often lack coconut milk/tins of tomatoes, etc. so what we do for curries is to take some of the vegetables after it's cooked and puree them to make a kind of sauce so it's nice and thick and not watery.

Well you're not supposed to eat what you already have in the house... that's the whole point!

But yeah there's no way I'd get so much produce for so cheap. Tomatoes are $2 a pound when they are on sale, peppers up to $3, carrots typically $1 for 5 small.

nekoface · April 2015

@Franci27 That's helluva expensive.

I gotta eat the beef before it goes off or it'll be a waste of food, but I'll factor it in and the rice too - a kilogram of rice is 45p at tescos. A bag of flour is 45p.

If I factor in the beef...I spent £4.12 on a 750g joint of beef last week. I guess I'll be using half of it for the two of us...that's like £1 just for a portion of beef. So I've failed today. It's not really doable with meat.

Slacker16 · April 2015

leahmstoffel wrote: »

I'm doing this for the first time this year. It looks like you were able to get about twice the amount of food as I was. I live in NYC so everything is pretty expensive here. I also didn't buy anything in bulk. I literally spent a straight $7.50 (that's the amount we get in the US) at the grocery store. My meal plan for the week only has me at about 1200 calories a day, which I guess is okay but under what I usually eat. My biggest concern is also the caffeine withdrawal. I drink a not so great amount of diet soda so we'll see how that goes. Good luck!

I have no idea how you could do this in NY and still get ~2000 calories a day.

Let me think, if I had 1.5$/day (not counting for one week), I'd get one of the 20lb bags of rice, the largest bag of split peas or lentils I could find, generic vegetable oil and a ton of eggs, then pretty much live on fried rice.

Probably eat a plate in the morning before living for work and fast until I get home, no way to do lunch...

leahmstoffel · April 2015

Slacker16 wrote: »

leahmstoffel wrote: »

I'm doing this for the first time this year. It looks like you were able to get about twice the amount of food as I was. I live in NYC so everything is pretty expensive here. I also didn't buy anything in bulk. I literally spent a straight $7.50 (that's the amount we get in the US) at the grocery store. My meal plan for the week only has me at about 1200 calories a day, which I guess is okay but under what I usually eat. My biggest concern is also the caffeine withdrawal. I drink a not so great amount of diet soda so we'll see how that goes. Good luck!

I have no idea how you could do this in NY and still get ~2000 calories a day.

Let me think, if I had 1.5$/day (not counting for one week), I'd get one of the 20lb bags of rice, the largest bag of split peas or lentils I could find, generic vegetable oil and a ton of eggs, then pretty much live on fried rice.

Probably eat a plate in the morning before living for work and fast until I get home, no way to do lunch...

I'm definitely not getting 2000 cals which I know isn't good. What I ended up buying was: 2 apples, small bag of rice, 1 can of pork and beans, 1 bag of frozen corn, and 5 packs of ramen. I'm honestly not sure I'll make it the whole week as much as I would love to. But I guess that's kind of the point, right? Showing that it's nearly impossible to eat this way and survive... I'm sure it will be a tough week to say the least but it's nothing compared to how some people actually live their lives everyday all over the world.

leahmstoffel · April 2015

Oh, and also a loaf of bread.

tephanies1234 · April 2015

terricherry2 wrote: »

This is my shopping for the week. Don't think I did too badly. Veggie egg fried rice for lunch today.

Wow, that would be about $35 Canadian for that stuff....

Need2Exerc1se · April 2015

terricherry2 wrote: »

This is my shopping for the week. Don't think I did too badly. Veggie egg fried rice for lunch today.

Are you allowed to use spices and oil that you already have in the house? I ask because I don't see any in your purchases.

terricherry2 · April 2015

You're not meant to use anything extra, but I guess if you factor in the cost of those things you can (I've been using a little bit of oil so my rice doesn't stick and a bit of salt). I think that's kind of the point though, to see how limiting it is and how food doesn't bring any enjoyment when you have nothing.

I've got a massive carb headache as I only have 1 portion of starchy carbs a day max usually. So yesterday was really cheap as I only had one meal! Was pretty tasty though. Banana pancakes made with ground up oats instead of flour. Still would've been better with some bacon and syrup on the side.

I couldn't buy this stuff at my regular supermarket, especially as I live in London so everything is expensive. I had to go to Lidl (really cheap German chain).

melimomTARDIS · April 2015

there was (is?) a big challenge going on in the US, called the food stamp challenge. Participants had to try to live on 5 dollars a day, for a week. It was supposed to highlight the pitfalls of the food stamp system.

I think it is great you are raising money for charity with your project.

The problem for me with these experiments is that they dont really capture the ups and downs of living in poverty, like, you dont have access to a fully stocked grocery, so you have to stretch your food stamps at the corner store/gas station until you can make it to one.

Or you submitted a form late, so now you have a sudden shut off, and have to stretch what you bought the last week into two weeks.

Need2Exerc1se · April 2015

melimomTARDIS wrote: »

there was (is?) a big challenge going on in the US, called the food stamp challenge. Participants had to try to live on 5 dollars a day, for a week. It was supposed to highlight the pitfalls of the food stamp system.

I think it is great you are raising money for charity with your project.

The problem for me with these experiments is that they dont really capture the ups and downs of living in poverty, like, you dont have access to a fully stocked grocery, so you have to stretch your food stamps at the corner store/gas station until you can make it to one.

Or you submitted a form late, so now you have a sudden shut off, and have to stretch what you bought the last week into two weeks.

When my children were young their school did something like this, only it was $5 a week (I'm old, it was a while ago). I was one of only 5 parents who managed to do it.

melimomTARDIS · April 2015

I had a friend who showed me the ropes, and experience with eating low cost meals growing up to help me when I was on food stamps.

Anytime I had a little extra, I would stock up on shelf stable goods like canned soup, dry beans, rice, cereal/oats,nut butter, popcorn,raisins and applesauce. Building up my pantry like a hope chest. LOL.

I learned the hard way, a few times, that you need to have at least one week of food saved up "just in case". I have about a month's worth currently, not counting apples, milk and bread which need to be bought regularly.

In my blog on MFP I have an entry (october) which goes into how i shop.

I also discovered it is worth it to keep meals around for when your too tired to cook/think. We resort to frozen pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, cold cereal, or canned soup.

Living Below the Line

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