£7 challenge - day seven

Today was the final day of the £7 challenge, although it was not a whole day. This evening, at 7pm, we ended the challenge with a meal at church followed by a talk from a Tear Fund representative. Today, thanks to careful planning, and careful measuring of everything (including every helping of peanut butter) our final pieces of bread were toasted and covered with the final scrapings of peanut butter/lemon curd. The final cups of coffee were drunk at lunch time. The final orange was shared. All we have left is about 200g of porridge and 60g of rice - everything else has gone - but we do still have 6p left from our combined total of £14.

As this coming week is going to be a normal week, shopping had to be done. Nine apples for 65p - couldn't find them at that price last week - and there were some other great bargains too. With a slight change in habits we have probably saved about £30 on our normal weekly shop for the coming week, and if you take just the food, for all five of us, then we have probably not spent much over £2 per person per day.

Of course the purpose of this exercise wasn't primarily about saving money. What long term changes will it lead to? Changes that will have a meaningful impact on the lives of those who do live off $1 a day? Or maybe a less daunting question, a better question - what changes can I make that will have a real impact on one person who currently lives off less than $1 a day?

What's with the chocolate coated apples? That was this afternoon's activity with our girls, in preparation for this evening's meal. Probably the hardest few hours of the challenge so far, especially when they started licking the spoons!

Come back tomorrow for some final reflections.