The final day

Goodbye soup. I won't miss you.

That is all.

Day four

I'm dying of period today.  I would really like to be cuddled up with a bowl of sticky date pudding and honey nougat ice cream.  But no.  It's sludgy yucky boring stupid soup.

So far my soup torture has yielded a grand total of $89.  I gotz to tell ya, I'm more than a little disheartened.

Please!  Buy a fricken chicken! It doesn't take wiccan to see that I sicken, I'm stricken and pained.  I'm sick and ashamed, I'm quick, I refrained from pickin the thickening comfort dessert.  It might soothe my hurt but now I assert I'll divert, I'll avert.  Just please buy a goat so and I'll quote what I wrote, it will help me devote one more day if you pay so please say that you'll buy a donkay.  M'kay?

Perhaps if you buy a thing it will help me to feel a bit better about why I am bothering to do this.

Day three - so.... soup. We meet again.

I am  already pretty sick of that soup. I still have two days so go.  That's four more bowls of the same soup I made on Sunday night.

I am pretty sure that people living below the poverty line don't have the luxury of saying "I am bored with this, the only thing I can afford to eat, while I sit here in the dirt with my single, mangled up pot over a fire I built out of twigs after digging a thing all day wearing the same clothes I have been wearing since last March.  I'll have something else."

Luckily for me I only have to buy food with my $2 per day.  I already have clothes, shelter, electricity, fresh running water, cooking facilities, an air-conditioned office... well I happened to have half a peanut slab and two oranges available to me from my $10 budget.  So that is my dinner.  At least it's not soup.  I was so pleased to eat the peanut slab.  Crunch!  I have missed texture. Sludgy food is pretty depressing after nine meals in a row.

My workmate commented today "You'll be saving heaps of money on groceries."  Yes.  Yes I am.  I would normally spend, say $50 on groceries and $25 on coffee.  I am not going to talk about the I-can't-be-bothered-cooking-tonight pizza(s).  Well anyway, with the money I haven't spent on food this week I will be buying a duck and a goat from the Oxfam wishlist.

This makes me think of a joke my Nana copied out of the newspaper and wrote in my birthday card when I was about five.

Day two

Morbid photo alert.

Yup well it's day two and the flavourless porridge didn't get any nicer but the soup was still yum and filling after four meals. There were so many tempting things on the bench at work - crazy! Apples, manderines, tim tams, chocolate cake... none for me.

I was invited to go for ten pin bowling and pizza. Nope. Can't afford that malarkey.

But the more I do LBTL the more I appreciate all the things I am lucky enough to have. My home, my comfy couch, my heater, clean clothes, plenty of shoes... lots of people on this planet don't have anywhere near the good fortune I have.

So anyway, please find below some horrifying but very powerful images; liking isn't helping. We can change the world, one chicken at a time. Please support Oxfam if you can, by clicking on the link on the right.

Day one

Do you know what porridge tastes like without milk or sugar? Nothing.  It tastes like nothing.  It’s filling, sure.  But satisfying?  No.

Lunch was yum.  The soup had gone all thick and stewy overnight with the lentils and barley.  It could have done with another couple of chillis – I could get another three with my left over 44c.  I’m not too proud to spend 44c at the supermarket.  Been there, done that.  In a previous challenge I bought a tin of sardines for fifty-odd cents and opened them to find the scales still on and mixed in to the tomato sauce.  I took them back and got my 50c back. 

But anyway the coconut milk made the soup nice.  I am pretty sure this is the most delicious meal I have had on a live below the line week, and I’ve been doing it for a few years now.  And I have half an orange to look forward to tonight.

I've done my shopping

I carefully planned my list.  I changed my mind about eleventy twelve times (as is tradition with LBTL) as I tried to work out the PERFECT combination of foods to sustain me.  In the end I came up with this.  

I'll have oats for breakfast. That's a given. I do that every time.  They are filling and cheap and easy enough to prepare in the morning.  The next bit is that I will cook a great big batch of soup - ten portions - and eat that for lunch and dinner for five days.  It seems like a good idea - healthy, filling, easy.  BUT, if it doesn't work out somehow or if it is really gross then I am a bit stuffed.

Now the other teeny tiny complication is compulsory peanut butter Wednesday.  It's hard to explain.  I would ask Brenna to tell you guys all about it but she is on a mountain in America with three hundred lesbians and no internet access.  This all sounds very unlikely and confusing.  But trust me, all of what I have told you is real.

Well, after an avalanche of fascinating events at the supermarket, including oranges on special and misquoted price for stock cubes online, I had $1.29 to spare and so I managed to squeeze in, what I consider to be, a suitable substitute for peanut butter.  Here's the final list:

That means I have 44c left to frivolously throw about over the next 5 days.  Perhaps I'll use it to buy some new shoes or to have my nails done in a day spa in Greece.  Probably not the Greece one, I have to work.  Anyway, let's see what actual advice mallard has to say about the whole thing:

A goat and heaps of chickens walk into a fairtrade cafe...

Thanks guys.  The Oxfam wishlist is going pretty well.  If you would like to sponsor me and cheer me on please click on the link.

I just wanted to explain a few things that will help this to make a little more sense.  Why AU$2?

1.4 billion of the world's population live in poverty.  The "poverty line" is living entirely on an amount approximately equivalent to AU$2 per day.  Not for food, but for everything.  Housing, medication, education, clothing, food, drink, transport... everything.  That figure is not calculated using an exchange rate but rather PPP (purchasing power parity), that is to say what you can buy in Australia for $2; so that's not very flash.  And it's not to say that people living below the poverty line spend $2 per day to buy stuff.  Rather, that is the value of the items included in the calculation.  It includes items they grow at home, begging for food, taking scraps from the rubbish etc. etc.

So this leads me to my point.  The rules.  People have said to me "Can't you just get free food?  Like go to your Mum's for tea?".  No.  Not unless I count the value of that food into my $2.  "Can't you just pick apples off the neighbour's tree?"  No.  Not unless I count the value of that food into my $2.  "Could you set up busking outside the shopping centre and then use that money to buy takeaways?"  No.  Not unless I count the value of that food into my $2.  "What about the timtams that Deb puts in the cookie jar for you at work?" Nope.  No I can't eat them.  I could probably look at them, perhaps I could crack open the lid a little and smell the delicious chocolatey smell.  Probably not a smart idea, to be honest.

But I will still be living in my home, putting on the heater at night, brushing my teeth and cooking in my pretty blue pots.

So look forward to a hungry, tired and cranky Victoria.  But a grateful Victoria that I can go home and sleep in my warm dry bed.

Four days to go

I love that you guys have *liked* my post. Sharing with others, that's awesome too. Keep that shit up. But really, what it's all about is raising money for those who live below the poverty line.

Please check out my Oxfam wishlist. The link's over there *points to the right*

My next post will be longer and a bit more interesting, I promise.

Thank you, Anonymous

Someone bought a chicken!  

You know who you are, and you are fabulous.  You just got a whole lot sexier by donating to Oxfam.  Your milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, or girls, whichever is your preference (I don't know who you are, I'm guessing here).

“Many of the community members trained are women heading their households and where nobody in the house was working and the family was poor, but now with the chickens they are able to sell some of the chicks or grown chickens and get some money to buy food for the family, pay for their children’s school fees and uniforms.” Benedicta Memela, Food Security Manager, Woza Moya, Ixopo, KwaZulu-Natal.

So yeah, if you want to be as sexy as Anonymous, then you should have a look at my wishlist Sexy Oxfam wishlist

So it's that time again, ladies and gentlemen...

I'm going to live below the line.  I'll be hungry and miserable.
I'm going to spam you with guilt laden pleas for money.  You'll be guilty and miserable.
And, well, we know the starving children aren't feeling that crash hot either.
MISERY FOR ALL!!

So, this year I was supposed to Live Below the Line from the 5th of May, but I was at a conference with about six free meals a day, and I was hardly going to be missing out on that, was I?  I mean, free mentos!  So for me it will be 26th of May to 30th May.  5 days.  $2 per day.

Now, last year I know that many of my lovely friends were without income and feeling pretty impoverished themselves, but this year those very same friends are all cashed up from their sweet audiology jobs.  No excuses.  Like.  Share.  Donate.

As usual, I have taken the liberty of changing the donation process slightly, and created a wishlist on Oxfam.  You can choose from awesome gifts, like donkeys, gardens and fresh drinking water.  Plus you get to see a bunch of cute little pictures and feel all warm and squidgy in the knowledge that you did a very specific good thing, rather than an arbitrary thing that was probably good but you are not sure how.  Click on the link to your right =>

https://www.livebelowtheline.com.au/

Day 15

Well today is the last day!! Woot! There were a few times I didn't think I would make it, yet here I am. I have $3.50, a carrot, an onion, 3 oranges, some oats, a little bit of pasta, some noodles and a tiny scrape of butter. I think I will survive the day, but I may never eat noodles again.

Tomorrow morning I will find the fanciest cafe I can and enjoy at least one, probably several, lattes. I will also be having steak for dinner with a selection of vegetables in colours other than orange.

But I still just have to make it through one last day.

Thanks to the generosity of some wonderful people, oxfam have received $323 via

http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au/ChooseFromWishList.php?id=894

Including fruit trees, chickens, a piglet, farming supplies, seeds and more. It's actually pretty fun to browse the gifts and to know precisely what your donation will fund. Plus it's tax deductible. And just plain nice.

So I'm still $687 short of my goal. Perhaps I set the goal too high? Or perhaps there are still generous strangers sitting waiting in the wings to see to it that I finished the whole 15 days. If you are one of those, or you just didn't get a round tuit, I have attached one here so you can whip away and complete your random act of kindness for today.

Day 14

Well I just couldn't drag myself out of bed this morning.  The snooze button was so appealing.  By the time I finally did get out of bed I had run out of time to eat a whole bowl of blistering hot oats, so I just scoffed what I could and rushed out the door.  I forgot my lunch.  Boo.

Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal, I would buy a sandwich (or preferably a piece of grilled salmon served with asparagus, crushed potatoes and hollandaise), but alas I can't afford even the smallest morsel because the cupboard is looking rather bare and I need my $2 to get some tinned tomatoes on the way home, at the very least.

Tummy grumbly and cranky, I finally did get home and eat my lunch at about 3pm (thank goodness it was only a half day at uni today).

Very much looking forward to being able to eat normal food again.  Here are a few things I have noticed:

* I miss fruit and veges more than I miss junk food
* Cheap food is basically all the same colour - beige
* When you think of everyday things in terms of "how many $2 would I need to buy this" it is amazing how much money we spend on our first world problems (like 6 months worth of food to replace my hard drive, or 4 days worth of food to take the train to uni and back)
* I'm hungry - I may have mentioned that

Day 13

Unlucky for some?

Much easier to get up this morning knowing that I had a warm thermos of coffee to take with me.

Off to the hospital to get the results of my TB test and I'm all good there. Got the results of my blood test and all good there too! That's the final component of my vampire requirements for uni. Hip hooray! Now all I have to do is learn stuff. Should be pretty simple :-/

The lovely Kathryn bought a gift for me at her trip to the Ekka (that's Australian for exhibition, like the a&p show for the Kiwis) which was a yummy bag of chocolate. As you know, I need to count the value of everything I eat regardless of whether I actually paid for it. She tells me it cost $2, which is super timing, because I have left over veggies and noodles for dinner (much as I would prefer anything different at all) so a bag of choc counts for today's spend.

Nom nom nom.

Day 12

Breakfast = coffee + eggs on toast!!

Well that's almost like a normal Sunday!!

I spent most of the day trying to fix my computer... A friend in New Zealand had suggested, via email, that it was a problem of wires coming loose and would be fixed by opening the laptop at the back. I thought "surely not, I must be able to fix this myself."

With my little laptop, I downloaded a repair file and later a copy of windows to reinstall onto the big laptop. But the little laptop doesn't have a CD drive so I had to work out how to put it on a USB... First world problems, right??

I'm just glad I had coffee to see my through the ordeal.

After much swearing it became apparent that this was indeed beyond my capacity as a geek so I phoned and booked a repair man. At $158 minimum charge I would have to save for 3 months on my current budget. Luckily I don't plan to eat the computer in the next 3 days.

Day 11

This morning was another early one.  Thankfully I was able to score a lift from a lovely classmate, so not nearly as early as it could have been.  Phew.  I got to sleep in until 5:30.  We went to Ipswich Hospital maternity ward and tested newborns as part of a research trial.  We were really lucky to get two very settled sleepy babies who responded well to the testing.

On the way home we stopped at a fruit and veggie place that a noticed with signs saying 69c per kilo for various things.  I managed to score a huge bag of oranges, sweet potatoes, carrots and onions for just over $3.  I know that nutritionists say to eat a rainbow of colours in your fruit and veggie intake, however at this rate I can only afford to eat the orange part of the rainbow.

Other than the first few torturous $2 days I have basically managed to leave two or three days between shops by getting big packets of things like noodles, eggs and pasta.  This means that for the most part I have $6 when I walk into a shop, which isn't nearly as impossible to deal with as just $2.  Well today was an exciting day.  I managed to buy some coffee.  Yes, that's right... I will be enjoying caffeine with my breakfast tomorrow.  Things are looking up!

Day 10

So I woke up this morning with Kiddie Quads.  That is the pain experienced the day after a school screening, caused by crouching down to look into the ears of about a trillion primary school children.  Please bare in mind that each child has two ears, so that is a lot of crouching.

Another early morning made earlier still by the need to cook oats for breakfast and make a packed lunch.  Don't get me wrong, I understand the value of packing a lunch, but I normally have much more convenient options.  In order to live on this amount of money it is necessary to choose the least convenient options that require the most preparation.

What is it with my timing?  Last year when I was living below the line I was embarking upon a horrifying series of injections and blood tests required for uni before they will allow me to interact with the public.  This week, it so happens, is the tail end of that process.  I had a blood test on Wednesday to see if my Hep A and B immunity was all good, then today a nasty little TB jab which forms an itchy blister under the skin. 

 

Oh - I just realised that picture is of a lady trying to force a cat to smoke.  I thought she was giving it medicine when I saw the thumbnail.  Too bad.  It's there now.  You will enjoy it and you will laugh.  That is an order.

OK.  Well I'm off to make myself some soup now.  I have the remains of the chicken wings, 1/4 of an onion and 2 carrots.  This soup will be delicious.  Last year I made some soup and tried to stretch it too far, it was not delicious.  I will be careful not to put in too much water. 

Day 9

I miss snacks so bad!

I got up squincey wincey early in the pitch dark, cooked my oats for breakfast, got the egg sandwich I made last night, got a mandarin.

So that's today's food sorted until I get home at 5pm. I miss snacks. I miss coffee so bad.

School screening today. I got to the school half an hour early and the lovely ladies offer me tea or coffee. I miss coffee so bad. I caved. But seriously, how much could a teaspoon of instant coffee be worth? I know. That's not the point.

The school hearing screening was great. Last week we had all the prep kids; so 4-5 year olds. This week we had a mix of ages from 5 to 9 years old. It's quite a difference. With a 4 year old you can say "are there any bunny rabbits in your ears? I'll have a look". If you suggest to a 7 year old that perhaps they have bunny rabbits in their ears they'll look at you like your crazy. Offer an 8 year old a sticker for being good and they'll say "Um... No thanks."

50 kiddies, 50 learning styles, 50 tiny attention spans later and we were all pooped. I sure could use a glass of wine when I get home. No such luck. Any wine I could afford to buy, I really do not want.

-----------------

I feel bad about accepting the free cup of coffee this morning so next time I have the opportunity I'll donate $1 from my food budget to a charity or a busker. That's how much I'd need to pay for a cheap takeaway coffee from 7/11.

Day 8

So here's what happened.

I wanted to go to a fruit and veggie shop to spend the $4.95 I've saved up. So I googled and much to my surprise I found a place just a few k's down the road. I had no idea!

So I hop on my motorbike and click on the GPS and off I go: shop 16/ 8 Old Pacific Hwy. When I get to 8 Old Pacific Hwy, not only is there no 'Shop 16' but there are no shops at all. Grass and trees. Boo. What now?

So now I'm in the exact opposite direction I need to be to get to Aldi. The closest supermarket is Woolworths, which is arguably the most expensive supermarket around. Double booo. So I decide to just go to Woolies to see what I can find. Perhaps they might have some amazing gourmet dip reduced to clear for 20c... Hmm wishful thinking.

Anyways, I found some fruit and veggies for a decent price and then, while drooling over the deli department I spotted a miracle packet of chicken for $1.78. I just grabbed it before anyone else could and ran. How exciting.

So I have pasta, tinned tomatoes, half an onion... Tonight I shall feast!!!

Day 7

Had to get up at 5am to get to my 8am uni class. Cooked myself some noodles for lunch, oats for afternoon tea and cut my final carrot into sticks for morning tea. The inconvenience of cheap food is exaggerated when it is so early it's still dark outside.

By the time I got home at 6pm I was so tired. Made myself eggs on toast (with a frivolous addition of butter, it was delicious) watched about half an hour of TV then went to bed. Asleep at 8pm. Hence this update was not posted last night.

Thankfully no Wednesday classes so I can sleep in.

Thank you to my wonderful friends whose generosity in the last couple of days put over a hundred dollars more into the mix for this year's fundraising. Perhaps that was due to my recent whinging or perhaps it was because you are cool dudes. Perhaps both.

Anyone else keen to donate? G'won. You'll love it:

http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au/ChooseFromWishList.php?id=894

Is it really only day 6??

I'm so hungry.

Full uni day with lectures and pracs. This morning's oats overflowed in the microwave due to using a different shaped dish to normal so I only had half of my normal breakfast.

Lunch was left overs and an apple. That was yummy. But no budget for an afternoon snack.

I missed the bus so I missed the train. Half an hour at the train station and no budget for the vending machine.

Living below the extreme poverty line sucks. I have no energy to write an inspiring or amusing post so I'll upload some entertaining photos and call it a day.