Live below the line- day one

I've been shopping for my 'livebelowtheline' week. This is what £5 in Tesco got me.

1 pack of frozen mixed veg.
2 tins baked beans
1 tin chopped tomatoes
6 eggs
1 carton uht milk
1 loaf value wholemeal bread
40 teabags
1 pack rich tea biscuits
1 pack rice

So that's it for the week. I'm allowed to work out the price of oil, salt, herbs and spices per gram so I left a few pence for that. Otherwise I am not allowed to use things out of my stock cupboard. If I wanted a bit of flour I'd have to budget for a bag of flour and I haven't. And I can't accept handouts. Please donate instead, even if it's giving me £1 when you see me ( I can collect offline as well as online.)

I've learned a few things from shopping last year. I don't need variety- I don't need rice and pasta. There are some brilliant cheap, tasty, inventive recipes out there but I didn't really care if it was bland as long as it filled me up. (Except for porridge with water. That was unbelievably disgusting and I was still hungry. If you eat that you have my admiration.)

I have budgeted for a couple of things that are luxuries rather than necessities, namely teabags and biscuits. Giving up caffeine is another challenge for another week. My family don't deserve to live with me hungry and caffeine deprived. (Its 20p for a value pack of teabags. I didn't actually buy it because I like to buy fairtrade, but I took the 20p out of my budget and counted out 40 teabags from my stash.) I will no doubt drink less tea due to the limited milk I have. I don't know if anyone remembers but last year I became slightly obsessed with milk, or lack of it. So this year it's in the budget. And the biscuits- if I don't allow myself something to grab between meals I'll fall at the first hurdle. They were only 23p.

In many ways this is not true to real life poverty. I'm living like this for 5 days only, just me, not my family. Already, like last year, I have become very aware of all the things that my £1 doesn't have to stretch to- the clothes and shoes my family are wearing, their education and healthcare, the car I drove to Tesco in and the petrol I put in it. But for the 1.2 billiion people that this is in aid of, that £1 does have to stretch to that.

Thanks to generous friends I am already only £30 short of my fundraising target. I usually get between 25 and 40 people reading a post. So if you all donated £1 each...  A little can go a long way to helping.

www.livebelowtheline.com/me/mariewillingham

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 
1 John 3