Day 1 Failures, Successes & Menu –Live Below The Line

I’m hungry. I woke up hungry. I dreamt about being hungry.  It’s not as if I didn’t eat well. I just didn’t eat much.

Food costs for day 1 = $1.78 or 89¢ per person.

Leaving us with $14 for the next 4 days.  In the real world this would mean we had $15.72 left but for this challenge we’ve committed to only eating $1.75 worth per day so that extra $1.72 worth of food is unavailable to us.

Successes

Yesterday I got my first donation- $40. Thank you Pat for your generosity!

You can support me too by donating to Cuso International on my challenge page, donating on our Bloggers Living Below The Line team page (we’ve raised $345 as a team so far), or by supporting Second Harvest and Daily Bread Food Bank.

This is a fund-raising and awareness project, if you’d like to make a donation to support me that would be fantastic. This is a game for me but a serious reality for 1.4 billion people in our world today.

The other success was the Apple Compote – wow, that stuff is tasty and those big apples even with all the bruises cut off made almost 4 cups of compote. That’s 2/5th of a cup a day each (and it only cost 45¢ to make, so that’s 3¢ for each 1/4 cup serving)

Failures

Our food costs for Day 1, per person, were 89¢. This is a FAILURE!

When you are eating this close to the line, don’t ever eat LESS than you can afford. It’s an easy trap to fall into.  You have a certain amount of food to last, but you don’t know if it will actually stretch, so you short yourself and you hoard food.

It’s a mistake that you make regularly when you live this close to the line.  You never know (or never trust) that you’re going to get more food or money. It is very bad physically and emotionally. Sometimes you even lose food because you hoard it too long and it spoils. These things have all happened to me.

Okay, only one big one, but my pan was too hot when I started making lunch and the oil I added started smoking immediately. Smoking so badly I had to throw it out and start again. Not a big deal when you are flush with oil. I am NOT! I swore heartily. It helped. I think I’m going to have a little swear-fest for lunch every day to get some of the frustration out.

Day 1 Menu

Breakfast

Sourdough Pancakes with Apple Compote 22¢ (44¢/2 servings)

Note: this cost would have been closer to 58¢ if I had used molasses instead of the free homemade maple syrup. But the apple compote is probably enough.

Lunch

Pasta with Garlic and Green Beans (pasta con ajo y ejotes) 24¢  (47¢/2 servings)

but trust me the fancier name doesn’t make it more food or more filling!

Dinner

Roasted Salmon Belly with Beet Greens and Potatoes 43¢ (86¢/2 servings)

Note: this cost would have been closer to $1.36 if I had not gotten the beet greens for free, but still got them for $1 at a deep discount.

I will share some recipes later in the week, since at least breakfast and lunch will look like that a couple of more days.

Note: this post is part of my Live Below The Line series where I will be on a $1.75 food & drink budget from April 29th-May 3rd.
This is a game for me but a serious reality for 1.4 billion people in our world today.  Help support me by donating, or supporting Second Harvest and Daily Bread Food Bank.  

If you want to know more about what I’m involved in, you can read my disclosure statement here.