One Week to Go........

In one week, on Monday 2nd May I start the challenge to Live Below the Line on £1 a day for five days.

This intrigued me from the first time I read about it. Is it possible? Can you eat well? Can you eat enough? It played on my mind and still is doing. But then I made the decision to do it and now on my mind is food prices, food combinations etc etc....

The Challenge would be easier if the food could be bought by the gram, 100g or serving amount needed. After all with small portion sizes weighed out from packets you could make all sorts of lovely concoctions from small amounts of money. But the £1 a day (or £5 for the full week, you can do all your shopping at once if you want to) is to be used to buy full packets of food, and of course it's so much more expensive to buy little packets of things than it is to buy the larger sizes or go for the offers, 'Buy One Get One Free' etc... Even the 'Two for One' offers tend to be on big bags of things and larger sizes.

I've found that the healthier foods, fruit, veggies, wholegrains and the like are also the most expensive. True your shopping works out so much cheaper if you buy all these and refrain from buying ready meals and pre-prepared foods, but when you have to buy ALL your basics from one £5 budget things change slightly. I have to start the week with an empty cupboard and fill it (as much as I can) from the £5 budget.

The easy option is to buy the 'Smartprice' and 'Value' lines from the major supermarkets and this I have no problem with, it's just that usually you find these are the unhealthier options....white rice and pasta, sauces full of additives etc.

Can you see now why my mind is buzzing.

I, of course have the added bonus of being on a farm where I grow my own food and raise my own chickens. Although this is the 'Hungry Gap', I currently have salad leaves, radishes and free-range eggs. I am allowed to use these in the challenge as long as they are costed properly and paid for out of the budget. It took me a few sums to work out that my eggs cost me 7p each to produce (a bargain) so 10 of these is at the top of my shopping list straight away. That leaves me with £4.30 to spend.

HELP - What would YOU spend £4.30 on if you had to feed yourself for 5 days?

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If you are as intrigued by this as I am and would like to give it a go yourself use the link at the top of this post to take you to the home page, there you will find all the information you need. If you can't for whatever reason, please sponsor me instead. The picture at the top of my sidebar is a link that takes you directly to my fundraising page and will enable you to sponsor me with your credit card. If you don't want to do this just sign up and be a 'Follower' of this Blog. For every new follower between now and the end of the Challenge I will donate an extra 20p to the cause. The home page tells you what this cause is and the reasons so many people in this country and all over the world are doing this unique challenge.

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Follow my Blog all next week to see how I do and what I actually buy and eat.

Sue xx