Could you live on £1 a day?

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Couchtripper Forum Index -> Aja's Kitchen
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
luke



Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 5:51 pm    Post subject: Could you live on £1 a day? Reply with quote

Could you live on £1 a day?

How much do you reckon you need for food and drink? Could you live on £1 a day? Given that a coffee on the way to work costs more than £2, then there's lunch, and you might call in at the pub when you leave the office, let alone what you consume when you're at home, you probably think no way.

But £1 a day is what 1.4 billion people worldwide have to live on – for everything, not just food. That figure is the World Bank's benchmark for 'extreme poverty'. This week, to try to raise awareness, and funds, a bunch of charities have got together and thrown open the challenge to 'live below the line' on £1 a day for five days, to anyone game to give it a go.

Partly out of curiosity, muggins here signed up with many thousands more worldwide, and most of them are right in the middle of their ultra cheap diet right now. I did my stint below the line last week, so I'm now in the happy position of knowing it's all behind me and I need not confront another bowl of brown rice for quite some time if I choose not to.

The results...

So how was it, I hear you ask eagerly? Well, gentle reader, I cannot claim that hunger reduced me to a wan wraith, though I may have contracted scurvy. I did a big (£5) shop at the beginning of the week, and then lived for the week on what I had bought – porridge for breakfast, hunk of potato omelette for lunch, rice and dahl for dinner, the odd oatcake (3p each) when hunger pangs hit hard in late afternoon - all washed down by tea (2p a bag) and water.

I saved up odd pennies and afforded a small cup of proper coffee (20p) on the last day. And yes, I confess, one evening I had half – only half, honest – a piece of Lindt chocolate from a bar I found in the cupboard. About 8p, I reckon, but it was the sweetest 8p of the week…

But while I was rarely hungry, one of the hard things was the gap left by the things I couldn't afford. Fruit, veg apart from spuds, onions and carrots, meat, treats and alcohol were all beyond my means. Yep, it was dull, dull, dull.

Another was sheer lack of choice. Maybe if you live like this permanently you become more creative with your cooking over time, but I really don't want to see another potato omelette for the foreseeable future.

The third is that when you can't have the food you want, when you want it, you get a bit one-track-minded about what you are allowed, what you've spent, how long till the next meal. Boy, was I boring myself by Friday.

Of course, as a friend pointed out, many genuinely poor people wouldn't bother cooking at all – they would simply buy £5 worth of spaghetti hoops, spam and own-brand biscuits and get by on them. Well, maybe so, but I reckon part of this challenge is to try and live in a sustainable, reasonably healthy way. And I did feel quite detoxed by Friday, after five days with no booze, very little fat and no sugar (almost).

But I wouldn't want to have to live below the line for any more than a week at a time – it really made me realise the luxury of choice that you take for granted when you have enough money.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/could-you-live-on-1-pound-a-day.html

i was going to post this the other week, cos i think its pretty easy, i've had to do it in the past. then today i got stitched up on some money which now won't be here until next wednesday. this comes after an expensive couple of months and after i had another client just disappear owing money - he's not checking his email ( i host it so i checked! ) his home, office and two mobiles numbers have all been cut off!

so i've got £6.55 to last me until next wednesday!

i had some chicken in the freezer, so i made a simple thai curry with some coconut milk i had, that'll last me until tomorrow. so i only really need a main meal from thursday until tuesday ... so i got a bit over a pound a day! Shocked luckily i got some baccy in, although i will probably have to blag some rolling papers from someone! i've just been through the kitchen and i've got rice, pasta, potatoes, garlic, loads of herbs and spices, stock, peas, sweetcorn, a few rashers of bacon, some red wine ( just for cooking, i doubt you'd wanna drink this cheap stuff! ), muesli, oats, various seeds and some other assorted bits and bobs! i've just used the last of my onions in the curry and have finished off the salad leafs and carrot that i had left.

in the past when i've been pretty skint, you can manage, but it can certainly get boring! with a little packet of mince, a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes, a tin of kidney beans you can get 4 meals out of that. have half the mince as a chilli, a quarter for cottage pie and the rest for spaghetti bolognese and get ready for mince overload! i think i will do that, add in some bread ( toast is always a saviour when skint! i've got jam and marmite to keep me going! ), some milk, i need to get some onions and carrots, probably get some cheap tinned fruit! might make a soup with whatever carrots and onion is left over from the mince meals along with the peas and sweetcorn. hopefully be able to stretch to a bag or two of salad. Smile

i hate being skint ... and it annoys me when its down to other people being late with money! anyway, wish me luck!

so, do you think you could live on a pound a day?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Brown Sauce



Joined: 07 Jan 2007

PostPosted: Wed May 23, 2012 6:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

after 20 years travelling there were periods of silly poverty. One week of mustard on bread for instance.
I once left the south of Portugal with 112 escudos, a kilo of brown rice and half a kilo of dried chickpeas. I spent the money on a big bag of sunflower seeds.
It took about 3 weeks to get to the French border, going round the bottom of Spain. I walked for most of the time.
One guy did give me 2000 pesetas, which I promptly pissed up.
I walked over the border to France, stuck the thumb out and a German guy in a merc pulled up. CD players in the car were a novelty and he asked what would I like to hear.Yello ? I asked, yup, look under the light cover and roll up !!
great lift.
Bit of a digression, but that was the desert after the main course of pretty well nowt.
Life on the road is mostly living off very little.
But I did it out of choice, so nearly always had a smile on me dirty face Smile

And I have plenty of stories like that one ...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SpursFan1902
Pitch Queen


Joined: 24 May 2007
Location: Sunshine State

PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2012 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Live on $1.50 (or there abouts) a day? I can answer that in one word -- NO! I am just too materialistic and like food too much for that. I know me...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Skylace
Admin


Joined: 29 Apr 2006
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 6:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know I couldn't do it. And what's even more sad is that this is the reason why so many people in poverty in America are actually over, not under weight.
Healthy foods, fresh fruit, vegetables, etc are much more pricey and sometimes not covered by food stamp programs. So what are these people left with? Cheap fast food and horrible, heavily processed instant foods.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
luke



Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2012 8:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Skylace wrote:
Healthy foods, fresh fruit, vegetables, etc are much more pricey and sometimes not covered by food stamp programs. So what are these people left with? Cheap fast food and horrible, heavily processed instant foods.


i don't know what its like in america, but the same is said over here, but i don't know if its really true. i mean, the example of £1 a day is extreme, and luckily friday i got half the money i was owed and didn't have to do it, but when i worked out what i was going to have, and previous times when i've been skint, i've never turned to fast or processed instant foods. it might be a more simple ( and boring! ) diet, but you can get plenty of veg in there and some fruit.

you do need some basic cooking skills though! and fruit can be expensive, but shop about you can get some good deals. i got 6 nice apples today for a pound, same with veg - i got 2 fair sized broccoli trees for 69p and 3 peppers for £1.20 Smile

you go to mcdonalds or somewhere, and the money you spend there on a meal is way more than it would cost to get some decent ingredients and make something nice that would last longer and be more filling, and more healthy.

i think its just lazy ( or lack of cooking skills ) to resort to fast food and ready meals.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Skylace
Admin


Joined: 29 Apr 2006
Location: Pittsburgh, PA

PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2012 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

luke wrote:


i think its just lazy ( or lack of cooking skills ) to resort to fast food and ready meals.


So very true. I do think it's more lack of cooking skills because I meet so many people who don't even seem to know how to boil an egg. Not to mention since they have grown up with such processed instant food they wouldn't recognize a raw carrot if it smacked them in the face!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Twirley



Joined: 29 Apr 2006
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2012 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not sure I could do it. At least not for long anyway. 3 days tops, I think! Then, I'd want some meat. food
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
SquareEyes



Joined: 10 May 2009
Location: Vienna, Austria

PostPosted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm willing to give it a try. Please all send a quid to my account and I'll let you know how many days I can struggle through on it cunning
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Couchtripper Forum Index -> Aja's Kitchen All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You cannot download files in this forum


Couchtripper - 2005-2015