Living Below the Line
Monday April 11 2011This week two Think Global staff members will Live Below the Line on £1 a day for five days. Others in the team will follow in May. Staff are doing this to better understanding the challenges faced by 1.4 million people living in extreme poverty, and to raise funds for anti-poverty initiatives. Max and Michaela will be limiting their food and drink to £1 a day, and adding occasional postings. Here is how they are getting on so far.
Day 5 - Max & Michaela
Max Day 5 - the final up-date
OK so we survived the cheese shopping. But I wouldn’t recommend it on the last day of your live below the line experience. Imagine trying to explain the Live Below the Line concept to a nice cheese man as the reason why you can’t taste the delicious stilton he’s waving in front of your nose. It’s not easy – trust me!
No matter, though, I have the cheese and am counting down the hours to the midnight feast tonight. And this counting down is one of the reasons why it’s been such a valuable experience to live below the line for 5 days. It’s a real challenge, but all the time I’m aware that it’s only for a week. By the time daal and rice really started to lose its appeal (about Thursday morning) the end of the challenge was within reach.
But the reality for 1.4 billion people is that this isn’t just a challenge for a week – it’s a challenge they face every day of their life as they earn less than the equivalent of $1.25 per day. Live Below the Line has helped to bring home exactly how tough that is – and because of this it’s been well worth taking part.
Michaela Day 5 - In which she tries to be serious.... perhaps it’s the hunger
I don’t think I’ve previously appreciated and how totally preoccupying the pursuit of getting enough food is. More than once this week I’ve recalled Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (I don’t especially espouse it - or think of it often.) But was this an opportunity to try applying it? Did increased focus on just one of the basic needs of life (food, and granted, for just one week) in any way divert my usual leisure to pursue self-actualisation?
I think there was an impact on my capacity for spontaneity. Knowing the exact content of every meal, carrying around two exceptionally dull meals at all times, being unable to join friends and always cooking and planning ahead does smother spontaneity. There was no shortage of creativity trying to make meals edible, morality - as normal, however I may have fallen down a bit on lack of prejudice – particularly against the shrew who bashed my bananas. Not extreme prejudice mind you, but I’ve fantasised some fairly odious fates for her whilst munching morning carrot substitutes. Acceptance of facts may have been peevish at times. There’s only so long you can spend with friends at the pub drinking water and fishing out the unbudgeted for lemon slice (in strict adherence to the rules - but also – in a feeble bid for sympathy) before it becomes terribly tiresome for everyone. So yes, Maslow, did have a bit of an impact at the top of the pyramid. However, not so, the love and belonging middle tier. The main thing I got out of the week was a reminder of how generous and lovely my friends are. Huge thanks to them for sponsorship and teasing. Your dosh is going to a good educational cause. Midnight feast tonight! Max and I are about to go cheese shopping in lunch break! I leave you waiting in breathless anticipation as to whether we fall at the last hurdle and accept a taste at Neil’s dairy door (hence need to return all our sponsorship monies) or will we be paragons of virtue? At 3pm Max will tell all....
Max – Day 4
Day 4 sees me stagger confusedly into work, dreaming fondly of freshly squeezed orange juice, chocolate and...well…anything other than the pesky daal recipe I so foolishly decided to live on this week.
Michaela waves her Tesco value digestive biscuit rather smugly from across the desks as Ade kindly announces she’s baked a cake. Cue several staff members congregating around the table next to me cruelly remarking how delicious it is. Unfortunately the Live Below the Line rules state that I’m not allowed to touch it…
Top tip for today: watch the discount shelves in the supermarket! We got a loaf of Hovis Best of Both bread reduced from £1.20 to 10p last night, which has made breakfast much more exciting* than the watery porridge which was the only other option within budget.
*I realise that I have just described toast and margarine as an ‘exciting’ breakfast. This is what living below the line does to you. Beware! (but sign up all the same!)
Michaela - Day 3
Bad news on the battered bananas. Even fridge storage couldn’t preserve the poor devils. Their sloppy innards are at least now sweetening the aroma of my bin-juice (Lambeth has moved to fortnightly bin collections.)
That was yesterday, worse this morn... they had to go.
Revised breakfast: Carrot. But respite from cous cous and carrot lunch/dinners. Pasta and passata for the next four.
Top Tip to other challenge-takers: Tesco value digestive biscuits. A godsend 23p for 26! I wouldn’t be without them, a sole source for protein, refined sugars and casual grazing. I can’t find any reference to them being a favourite of Nepalese mountain folk down the ages, but wait, in Scotland (quite hilly) they’ve enjoyed them since 1799! Advocates are rumoured to include: Churchill, Captain Cook, Jane Austen, Martin Luther King, Marilyn Monroe, Disraeli, Blackbeard The Pirate and Gordon Brown (Biscuitgate) although, admittedly he favoured the chocolate coated variety.
Max - Day 2
Second day of living below the line and it’s tough!
It’s not so much the quantity or quality of food that makes it difficult (I’ve worked out I can afford two big bowls of really quite tasty daal and rice daily which I’ll need if I’m going to cycle to and from work all week). What makes the challenge much more difficult is the restrictions on everything other than main meals. A tasty apple as a healthy mid-morning snack? A mid-afternoon cup of tea? None of these are within budget and it’s surprising how hard it is to ignore these habits even though they seem unimportant normally.
Having said that I think I am getting off lightly compared to my fiancée – who is doing the challenge as an honorary member of Think Global Team April – I think she is just starting to realise the extent of her addiction to sugary tea!
So my hot tip for today is this daal recipe especially if, like me, you've got a big appetite. It's the staple food in the mountains of Nepal, so must be good enough for London cycle commuting.
Michaela - Day 1
My colleagues have got off lightly. No beans! Small (affordable) bags of dried ones were sold out. I began my Live Below the Linechallenge this morning although in some ways it started at the weekend. I spent 1.5hrs at Tesco Brixton, picking carrots and bananas and fishing around for ones that were the right weight for my budget. However, shortly after leaving Tesco – disaster struck. A pushy Brixtonite haphazardly scrambling for a bus, and exhibiting no hint of spatial awareness, crashed into me and my week’s paltry shop- smashing up most of the carefully weighed bananas. Crestfallen... my first one this morning was pretty brown and gooey... Still my next four meals should be a little more robust: Cous Cous & carrots x4.
Here are my shopping bargains and extravagances.
|
Bargains |
Extravagance |
|
23p. Tesco value digestive biscuits |
35p. 1 lemon |
|
29p. Tesco passata in a box |
20p. 1 small wizened courgette |
|
70p. Bag of spinach |
26p. Small garlic |
|
70p. 5 bananas (now mortally wounded) |
£1.02 pasta |
|
60p. Cous cous |
|
Huge thanks big thanks to all my sponsors.
