Wandering around the Whiteladies Road Farmers’ Market this morning probably wasn’t a good idea. Exposing myself to so much fantastic local produce that I would normally have spent a fair amount of money on highlighted just how much I’m going to be giving up on May 7th for the five days of my Live Below The Line challenge, in order to raise money for Health Poverty Action.
I’d already had a few ideas about what to buy with my allocated budget of £1 per day, but decided, a few days ago, to take to Twitter and Facebook to ask for more suggestions.
Some of them were quickly discarded – such as the suggestion that I just buy five tubes of Pringles from Sainsbury’s at £1 per tube, and the idea of stealing meat and legging it home so that I didn’t have to pay anything. I think that using free meals provided by the prison service to get me through the challenge would probably be frowned upon.
The staples of rice, potatoes and pasta were a common theme – it’s clear that next week will be all about eating meals that are filling, with flavour taking a back seat. Lentils were suggested by a few people as a way of bulking things up, and others had the cunning suggestion of trawling the supermarkets and heading to markets late in the day to stock up on heavily reduced produce.
Tinned tomatoes also featured strongly, as did homemade soups. I discarded the soup idea too, though, as I didn’t know if it would be filling enough!
A couple of people suggested making homemade flat breads, using just water and flour. That’s definitely on the list – flour’s super-cheap and I can have as much tap water as I like over the course of the week! I made a trial batch the other night, and they came out surprisingly well…
Armed with all of the suggestions I received (thanks so much everyone!), I spent this afternoon trawling the shops and making notes of prices, before heading back to buy what I needed. Conveniently, I managed to spend every last penny of the allocated budget…I’ll post again tomorrow with an update of what I have!
There’s still time to sponsor me! If you’d like to contribute to the cause – no matter how much or how little you can give – your support would be massively appreciated! Simply click on this link to visit my page on the Live Below The Line website and donate…thank you! 
good for you – I shall sponsor you later in the week – I'm interested to hear how you get on. Keep healthy…lentils, dried beans, foraged items are all springing to mind, but please don't make yourself ill!