Live Below the Line challenge

Saturday 7th May 2011

Hello there. I woke up today at 9am. I tried to go back to sleep but my head hurt too much. I figured that if I slept some more, my head would hurt some more so I got myself up. This was fine since I had 8 hours of sleep.

I couldn't stop thinking about the Living Below The Line challenge. This is where you live for 5 days on £1 a day to crudely simulate what life would be like on a very tight budget. I admit, I've never been in a situation where it was my dinner or say getting your car repaired but I think that's down to good self education. I know about budgeting, nutrition, making things go further and not to waste things. I also know about saving up and questioning yourself to see if you really need something.

Last week has been, not quite all junk but yes, a food fest. In one week I have had: Herbies (the Fajita pizza not as good as before) ,barbecue (lovely!) KFC (not as good as I remember), Nandos (best to eat in, good for what it is but imo a tad overrated) and frozen oven food that you cook.(good) So in a way, this is a nice way to get back to food I have to prepare a bit.

The first time I heard about it was a thread in the Money Saving Expert forum of which I frequent quite regularly. I found it interesting the creative ideas people had for living on a budget. This self knowledge really gets you further in this “game”. So I did some research, took some inspiration from a few posters and played around with my Tesco basket. I'm lucky that I have a car and have access to Tesco.

I have to admit, I've become less snobby about things as I get older. I did worry a little that some people might judge me because I had a whole shallow trolley full of Tesco Value items but I was confident in the fact that a) I had a list and b) I was doing this challenge! I had my reply ready if people were going to comment, oh, I'm doing this Live Below the Line Poverty Challenge! And then explain it to them.

I've tried some Tesco Value products with varying success due to curiosity. It took posters on MSE to encourage me though rather than seeing the prices. You are led to believe, oh, it MUST taste awful since it's so cheap but egged on by some real opinions I tried it. I think the best way to get recommendations is by word of mouth. Sometimes, people say something is really disgusting but if it is really cheap, there is this morbid curiosity in me that wants to try it to prove the theory (or taste buds) wrong!

So, I have decided to start the challenge on the busiest day of my “working” week which is Saturday! My Mum was a bit worried, thinking I wouldn't have enough strength to work since I'll be dashing around but I think working hard would be a good distraction to not think about me personally eating food all the time (I'll think about the customers eating food all the time!!!)

So far, I have told my family with an excited feel! My Mum was impressed with how much food I managed to buy with £4.81. I'm still annoyed that I didn't get another tin of kidney beans (18p) it would have filled me up. But what am I to do when I have self checked out and finished? I'm lucky that I could meticulously plan what I was going to eat.