Live Below Line - Day One

Day One - Five meals down, forty meals to go.

If you didn't catch Friday's post, the two kiddies and I are participating in Live Below the Line for the next five days.  We are doing this to raise awareness and for the plight of those living in extreme poverty (1.4 billion world wide).  The premise is to eat only that which we can buy on the budget of a person living in extreme poverty - which according to the World Bank is $1.50 a day, $4.50 a day for three of us.  Because my husband must already monitor his diet to control his blood sugar, sticking him on a beans and rice based diet with no lean protein was unwise, so he is sitting this one out.

So what does on eat on $1.50 a day.  Breakfast was oatmeal, which costs about $.20 a serving.  In the interest of fairness I should note that both kids take a multi vitamin every day, and my daughter takes allergy medicines.  These are luxuries a child living in extreme poverty would never have. 

Neither kid was thrilled with the oatmeal, but as you can see by the picture below, they chose not to skip it.

I can already see that breakfast is going to be the easiest meal by far. 

Now onto lunch, I scored a loaf of wheat bread for a buck at the Entemann's outlet last week and will deduct that from my food budget and use it for sandwiches this week.  PB&J, beans and rice, soup are really my only options for lunch.  Maybe egg salad later in the week if things are going better than expected.

So here is where I am so far;

Total food budget for 3 people - $22.50

1 loaf of bread - $  1.00
2 servings of peanut butter - $  .38
4 apples - $  2.00

Remaining  -  $19.12

Ummm yikes!!!  I can see we are gonna have to make major adjustments or else we are never gonna make it to Friday. 

In addition to raising awareness, Live Below the Line is also raising money to help those who truly live below line.  I am a proud member of Team Rainforest US, and if you are interested in supporting my efforts, please go here. 

Off to do some tasty grocery shopping at the Dollar Store!!