Day One

Day 1 of the £1.50 challenge is pretty much over - just allowed one more bowl of porridge, which I will have a bit later. It's not been too bad - just felt a bit hungry during the afternoon. The hardest thing has probably been just not getting up and going to have a biscuit, or making some toast mid afternoon. Also drinking hot water from lunch time - no decaf coffee, no tea bags, and not enough milk to keep drinking coffee all day long. Also missing not having fruit and yogurt.

So what did we get for our £1.50 today?

Breakfast was porridge made without milk.

I had 4 cups of coffee throughout the morning.

Lunch was 2 slices of toast with peanut butter.

Then this evening it was a rice, beans, sweet corn, carrot, leek and broccoli meal (plus a couple of stock cubes between us).

Then tonight I will have another bowl of porridge made without milk.

Those of you who know me will know that I never shy away from the opportunity to use a spreadsheet. With such a limited range of foods for the whole week this is the ideal opportunity to create a simple spreadsheet to track the nutritional value of what we're eating, and compare this with the recommended values.

Energy ...1193 kCal ... 48 % of RDA
Fat ... 30g ... 32 % of RDA
Carbohydrate ...168g ... 56 % of RDA
Fibre ... 28g ...157% of RDA
Protein ... 49g ... 89 % of RDA
Salt ... 5g ... 66% of max RDA

So well down on everything apart from fibre. It will be interesting to see what kind of affect this will have over a few days - but obviously if these were the figures long term this kind of diet would begin to have an impact on health.

Looking forward to that porridge!

Nearly there...

The £1.50 challenge starts tomorrow. As Su and I are pooling our resources this gives us £15 for 5 days worth of food and drink. Obviously planning is essential if you're not going to get to Tuesday and find you have no money left. So yesterday we went and did our weekly shop.

Here's what we bought:

• Coffee (our most expensive item) £4.00
• broccoli 33p
• 2 loaves of bread 79p each
• Sweetcorn 35 p a tin
• 1 can of fruit 35p
• 5 tins of kidney beans 23p each
• Leaks 56p
• Milk £1
• Mushrooms 27p
• Carrots 25p
• 1kg Porridge 75p
• Peanut butter £1.09
• Lemon Curd 59p
• Stock cubes 40p
• 1 kg Rice 40p

This comes to £13.42 leaving us £1.58 for additional purchases later in the week if necessary. We may well need some more milk.

The plan is:

Breakfast - Porridge made with water and a couple of cups of coffee

Lunch - Either a peanut butter or lemon curd sandwich (no marg or butter)

Dinner - Rice, beans and vegetables

I know that a number of people are a little dubious and critical as to the value of this exercise but I would challenge anyone to try this for 5 days and not learn one thing that doesn't provide us with a better understanding of the issues that many people in our world face.

For those who are struggling to see what those lessons might be I'll blog my thoughts each day this week.

Time to get planning

Could you live off £1.50 a day for 5 days? Why would you want to?

Harvest is traditionally a time for giving thanks - but for many churches it has also become a time of remembering those who are less fortunate than ourselves. Maybe this was always the case - or maybe this element has come in as we have become more and more removed from the physical harvest. When our supermarkets stock food from around the world why do we stop and give thanks in September or October? A poor summer in Russia might mean an slight increase in the price of bread - but bread will still be available.

But for many people across the world a poor harvest can mean not enough to eat. It can mean not having surplus to sell and therefore not being able to send your children to school this year. And in the most extreme cases it will mean starvation.

When we are surrounded by so much it is perhaps impossible to get our heads around the statistic that half the world's population live on less than $2.50 (about £1.50) a day. What this means for many is that if you can feel coins in your pocket you will eat today. 

So, what is the £1.50 challenge?

Those who attend Comberton Baptist Church have been challenged to live off £1.50 a day (just in terms of food and drink) for 5 days, in the week running up to our Harvest Thanksgiving Service (so Monday 29 Sept. to Friday 3 October). Not that this will in anyway replicate the situation that many find themselves in, but it will help us to understand a little bit more what life is like for so many. 

So if you haven't done so already, and you want to take part, then it is time to get planning. You have only £7.50 to spend on all your food and drink for 5 days. If you're doing this as a family then you can pool your resources which will help as buying in bulk is usually cheaper.

One thing that you won't be able to afford this coming week is variety. In our house it is going to mean lots of porridge, rice and lentils. Meat won't feature at all. Don't forget key items like milk and cooking oil. You do get clean drinking water for free - something that many in our world don't get at all, let alone free. But if you want tea or coffee you won't be visiting Starbucks - one latte will use getting on for half of your weekly budget. You can benefit from your fridge and freezer though.

If you go to work you'll need to think about those coffee breaks and lunch times. You could take a flask, or take your own tea bags, or just drink water, and biscuits are definitely off the menu. Your change in habits will be noticed and will be an interesting starting point for a variety of conversations. Maybe you could get sponsorship and donate the money to an organisation such as BMS World Mission, who are committed to working amongst the poorest communities on the planet.

You can probably expect to feel hungry, especially if you're used to eating between meals.

So - could you live off £1.50 a day? Will you join in with the £1.50 challenge?

[I last did something like this in October 2011 - use the menu on the right to read some of those posts.]

Harvest

At our harvest service on Sunday 5 October we're going to be hearing about the work of BMS World Mission in India.

Here's a look ahead to what we can expect.


Share the Light - Promo from BMS World Mission on Vimeo.

Could you live on £1.50 a day?

Yesterday in church I mentioned in passing the idea of living off £1.50 a day for 5 days in the run up to our harvest service in a few weeks time. More details will follow on Sunday, but for those of you who can't wait that long here are some links to posts from 2011 when Su and I did a similar challenge - living off £1 a day for 7 days. I blogged each day with a breakdown of what we had eaten, but also some thoughts on why we were doing it and what we could learn.

To see my introductory blogs from October 2011 click here and then click here.

The daily blogs start here.

Charities should stick to knitting and stay out of politics

When the government's minister for Civil Society said in yesterday's Guardian that charities should stick to knitting and not get involved in politics I'm sure he was anticipating a response.

Here's one of many - from Matthew Frost, who is Chief Executive of Tearfund, writing in the Huffington Post. Click here to read what he has to say.