It’s our third day of taking part in the ‘Live Below the Line’ challenge in the marketing department at Roman.
So how hard could living on £1 a day actually be…?
Extremely tough, is the answer!
Monday seemed fairly straight forward as it was our first day and we were raring to go, but by Tuesday morning we were all struggling.
I underestimated how hungry I would feel during the day, as I only had a small portion of homemade soup, leaving out my usual fruit snacks. This made the afternoon pretty tough, waiting for my dinner at 6pm – which I brought forward to 5pm.
Tom in the team has had to give up his regular cups of coffee with sugar, which he is finding very difficult and today he feels really tired and sluggish.
Andy is used to a lot more sugar in his diet and currently has no energy and is feeling a bit fed up! But on the positive side he reports that he has already lost weight, which is down to his tiny portions of homemade stir frys and soups.
Andy’s £5 receipt for this week’s food
Sue is also used to having more sugar in her diet, and lack of it has made her crave it even more. But she happy to say that she has been sleeping a lot better, even though is she going to bed hungry.
Linda is feeling the best out of all of the team, as she has managed to incorporate a sweet treat in to her daily £1 – strawberry jelly!
We have all found that buying ingredients to make homemade meals makes the £1 a day go a lot further and makes a healthier dish. Apart from Tom that is, who is living off tins of spaghetti, baked beans, toast and mini cheddars.
The good thing about having less food is that we have all drastically increased our water intake to compensate, which is very good for some of us who don’t normally drink enough water.
We all very much appreciate each mouthful of food we have been consuming this week and it has really made us think about how much we take food for granted.
The good thing about having less food is that we have all drastically increased our water intake to compensate, which is very good if you don’t normally drink enough water.
However, we must remember that people living in poverty don’t have regular access to a clean water supply, which makes the whole experience extremely humbling. We really hope that it gets people talking and thinking about poverty, rather than living unaware of how much suffering there is going on around the world.