Living Below the Line ...

A few weeks ago Hugh Jackman began promoting a great fundraising activity called living below the line. This initiative requires participants to live off $1.50 worth of food a day for 5 days.

Not a lot of money right? Yet it is what approx 1.4 billion people live off every day! True story. The stats are baffling!! I was blown away by it and decided I simply had to participate. Oh and I love Hugh Jackman. That shouldn't have anything to do with this ... but it does. Don't judge me.

The week rolled around sooner than anticipated and so, after a lovely brunch with friends on Sunday morning I went shopping with my $7.50 in hand. We normally get our shopping done in about 30 minutes and spend considerably more than $7.50. It’s amazing how quickly you can shop when you don’t look at the price of anything. On Sunday it took me a good hour to spend $7.50. It is a ridiculously small amount of money! After a lot of searching I managed to spend it and have the following food to get me through this week:

• Spinach - $0.99
• Corn - $0.99
• Noodles – 5 x $0.29 ($1.45)
• Oats - $1.00 (the box of 10 sachets was $1.99 but I am only eating 5 of them this week … it is not delicious)
• Rice - $2.49 (750g of rice … 150g per day for 5 days)
• Soy sauce - $0.58 (the bottle was $1.38 for 590ml … I’m only allowed to use 250ml for the week … it think it is probably a bit too much. If I don’t use it all I’m going to use 1 tea bag on Thursday … I would love a cup of tea)

Sunday evening Joep & I ate a considerable amount of veggies and Joep then very kindly systematically ate as much of the other fun stuff in the house as possible to ensure I wouldn’t break under the pressure (while he is living it up in California). He is very considerate. One other thing I did on Sunday night was to look up how many calories per day someone my size needs to consume to maintain their weight. It’s about 2000. Based on the food above, I am eating max 1000 calories per day this week. But never fear, I will likely make up for the reduction this weekend.

Monday began with me feeling very optimistic and sure that I would make it through the week without tooooooo much trouble. Then I tasted my oatmeal. It was not delicious. In fact, it was pretty gross. I have eaten 3 weet-a-bix for brekkie every morning of my life (this is sadly not much of an exaggeration). It was a rough week without them. The rice and soy sauce I had for lunch was ok. It filled me up for sure. But it was not as wonderful as my usual chicken, rice and salad from the Kebob Kebob guy downstairs which costs more than my entire weeks worth of food this week … boo. Dinner was a delicious feast of 2 minute noodles (curry flavor). They were $0.29 per packet and were my greatest find of the shopping trip. They really were delicious and I found myself wishing that I had just purchased 25 packets of these noodles with my $7.50. That would give me 5 packets per day … oh that would’ve been a better option. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

By day 2 I was doing ok but I was a bit hangry (definition: hunger induced anger) but coping. Just barely. Then hanger passed quicky and by day 3 I was ... tired. I wasn't really hungry but I would gladly have eaten an entire packet of tim tams in one sitting) and I was extremely lethargic. On Wednesday I spiced up my daily meals by having noodles for lunch and rice for dinner … I know. I was out of control. And just when you thought things couldn’t get further out of hand, I threw some spinach and corn into the noodles! Yes. Wednesday was a big day.

Note: Spinach from a can is not delicious. In fact, it is barely edible. Oh and on that note, I oatmeal very quickly became my favourite meal of the day. True story.

I also received an email on Wednesday from the US coordinator telling me I was doing great and then informing me of how she was doing. She said that it wasn’t the hunger or the bland food that was hard, it was knowing that 1.4 billion people live like this every week of their lives.

Whatever. Those people don’t have to sit in day long accounting meetings with clients who, despite not understanding a lot of what I say, look at me as though I am the idiot. These meetings are much easier on a full stomach.

I’m clearly joking here – I don’t really think that it is harder to be an accountant in a developed nation than to be unemployed in a developing nation. But I can’t say that I didn’t seriously think the above sporadically over the week. Judge me if you like. You’re not eating oats, rice and noodles every day. I did, however take a great deal of solace in the little things. Like the fact that I got to go home every night to a comfortable apartment where I could have bubble baths, sleep in a comfortable bed (which I did for 10 hours a night!) and shower every morning. I also made an executive decision to trade in my soy sauce for a tea bag. White rice is fine by itself. And a cup of tea?? Oh my lord. I had my first cup of tea on Thursday morning. I used the same teabag 3 times in one day. It was delicious.

One other point of note is that I think Canadian’s are getting jibbed. We were on the same program as the US yet people in the US were able to afford fresh fruits, meat and then similar things to me with their $7.50. My bag of rice cost $2.49. People in the US got their bag of rice for $0.69 … whaaaaaaat?! It hurt my heart to look at this so I stopped. By Thursday my little pile of food on the bench at home looked miserable and I was very happy to have only 1 day left of eating like a poor person. I’m not going to lie to you … I was exhausted.

But Friday arrived and the food routine was the same as every other day and even though it was super tough, I survived it! The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing in Laguna Beach with Joep and I couldn’t help but look at the price of everything I ate and realize just how incredibly lucky we are to be able to live the lifestyle we live. Things I learned from living below the line:

1. The poverty line is seriously low. Brutally low. The idea that people live with this little food and even less creature comforts every day is pretty heart breaking when you consider how luxuriously we live by comparison. It makes me want to try to complain less …
2. Once you’re living below that line it has got to be super hard to get out of it. I had no energy for anything by the end of the week. I cannot imagine having to work up the energy to scour for more food, try to find work, care for children or look for a home all the while feel hungry.
3. Being poor in Ottawa, Canada is harder than being poor in the USA. Seriously. These dudes were buying fresh fruit, meat and bread with their $7.50. Rice was $0.69 in the USA, $2.49 in Canada. If I am ever unfortunate enough to be living below the poverty line I am hitching a ride across the US border and pigging out.
4. You can’t be hangry if you’re exhausted.
5. Oatmeal, whilst foul and gag inducing at first, will become positively delicious after a week. That is a true story.

A huge thanks to everyone for your support and sponsorship! I highly encourage you all to do it next year … oh and FYI all my clothes were loose on my by Saturday morning and Joep was less than impressed by the fact that he could ‘could my ribs without you even sucking it in Jenny!’ Don’t worry. I reversed all these effects over the weekend.