Last
year I took part in the Live Below The Line Challenge for the first time, and
it was a hugely valuable experience for me - you can read my daily diaries
about it here, and you can also find my shopping list and recipes from last
year if you want some inspiration. In case you've never heard of it, the
challenge is to spend five days living on just £1 per person per day, both in
sympathy with the thousands of people in the UK and elsewhere that live below
the poverty line, and to raise money for charities working to change that. This
year, the official Live Below The Line challenge is on hiatus (from their
website: "Live Below the Line is taking a 'gap year' so we can invest the
time and money to scale up the campaign to reach thousands more people"),
but the experience was so powerful and important for me that I really wanted to
do it again this year - so with permission from our great leader at fdbloggers,
Loriley, I'm organising a special one-off fdbloggers challenge – although anyone
and everyone is welcome to take part, and you don’t have to be a food blogger.
The rules will be the same, but instead of raising sponsorship money, we'll
look to raise awareness*.
Here's
what I'm suggesting if you take part in the Fdbloggers Below The Line
Challenge:
•
Spend five days, from the
11th to the 15th of April 2016, living on just £1 per person per day. This money is to cover
all food and drink during that period (things like toiletries aren't included).
You can choose how you achieve this, but here are a few guidelines:
- Water is not included -
drink as much ordinary tap water as you like.
- As far as possible, you
should not rely on store cupboard items you already own, but purely on food
bought with your LBTL budget. You may choose to 'pay' for salt, pepper &
other seasonings you already own at 1p per pinch, but otherwise you shouldn't
pay only for what you eat - if you buy a big bag of potatoes & only eat
two, you still need to budget the whole thing. A huge difficulty for those
living on really limited funds is that they actually can't afford to save money
by buying in bulk, because they don't have the funds all at once for the
initial outlay.
- You can club together
with participating friends or housemates to spend your budget - just make sure
you're only allowing £1 per person per day.
- Try not to cheat by
accepting free stuff from friends or going round your mum's for dinner -
obviously we can't stop you, but it'll make the experience less authentic! Many
of us are very lucky to have friends and family who would support us if we were
in need, but that's not true for everyone in our society or elsewhere.
•
If
you’d like to, you could consider donating the rest of the money that you would
have spent on a normal shop to a suitable local charity of your choice - a great
excuse to find out more about your local food banks, homeless shelters, and
more. You can also usually donate food directly to food banks and homeless
shelters, if you prefer – just make sure you find out what they need first.
•
Tell
all your friends & family what you're doing, and encourage them to support
you by making their own donations - and even to sign up next year when the
official LBTL returns.
•
Blog
about your experiences & what you've learnt! You're very welcome to use the image at the top of the post for anything you write, if you'd like to.
•
Shout
about what you're doing on social media - use the hashtag #fdbloggersBTL on Twitter and Instagram to share your meals &
your struggles, so we can all support each other!
Questions
or comments? Fancy joining in? Email sflg@hotmail.co.uk to sign up!
Sal x
*we
made this decision to avoid any complication with the official campaign. You
should still feel free to donate to appropriate local charities and encourage
supportive friends and family to do the same!
