The last thing I ate before the start of this challenge on Tuesday evening, and the first thing I ate after the challenge this morning, was chocolate cake, so that’s rather fitting! Yes it looks like I made it: after five days of living below the line, turns out I didn’t die, but I’m not doing that again in a hurry!
What have I learned? A great deal about the difficulties faced by people living on less than a pound a day, a little budgeting, the importance of washing up after myself (something my dad is very glad of!), and a bit of cooking. Having said that I don’t think I remembered to look at the clock when I started boiling my rice even once, so a lot of guess-work was required but luckily it turned out alright!
My last day below the line was a little different, in order to use up the final pennies of my budget, I bought myself eight haribo frogs and a 16p tin of spaghetti bolognaise. A lot of people turn their noses up at such cheap processed food, and it’s true that they may not have much nutritional value, I certainly wouldn’t want to live off them full-time, but to be honest it was the tastiest meal I’ve eaten all week and after all, this is the sort of thing people donate to food banks, shouldn’t we at least be prepared to try it for ourselves?
After a triumphant last rice meal, I headed to bed only to get distracted by something that people living in real poverty probably wouldn’t have access to – Facebook! And so it was that at around half past midnight, after realising I still had two eggs left in the fridge, my friends dared me to go downstairs and make boiled eggs in the middle of the night. My dog, who sleeps in the kitchen and whom I accidentally woke up in the process, was not impressed!
So my challenge is now over but you can still donate to help out a local night shelter, because as I’ve said around 1.2 billion people around the world have to live on less than I have not just for five days but everyday!
The Elephant in the Room 