Eurgh.

Firstly, “eurgh” because it’s gone 1am AGAIN and I should be asleep.

Secondly, “eurgh” because I’m taking part in the Live below the line challenge, which starts on Monday and finishes on Friday.

Essentially, participants have to live on £5 for those five days to raise awareness of extreme poverty throughout the globe, and in addition, raise some sponsorship for the numerous charities that do a fantastic job of trying to alleviate this.

FIVE POUNDS STERLING! I can see that evaporate in a morning, as I’m sure most people can. But having spent months going on about people in this country whinging about not having enough money to feed their families, saying that people need to learn to budget properly and cook a few basic meals, I figured it was time I did something to put my money where my mouth is and show that it can be done to absolute extremes.

I’ve kind of got a plan in my head of what I need to do, but I’m not sure it will pan out in reality when I go to Asda/Lidl/Aldi with my fiver tomorrow.

My meal plans for the week are:

I know that butternut squash is 0.1p/g. Or do I? I got 0.56Kg for 56p the other day, so what does that make? Anyway, I’ll get one of those.

Spaghetti can be bought for 19p a packet

Garlic is 30p a head

I’m sure I can get a couple of onions for about 30-40p

Leeks can’t be that expensive if you get dodgy looking ones

Value potatoes? No idea.

So with veggies hopefully coming in at less than £2 – £2.50, I’m hoping that I can get a couple of cans of tinned tomatoes for about 80p or less.

That leaves things that we take for granted: store cupboard items. I’ll need oil, stock cubes, salt and pepper, maybe some herbs. With about £1.50 in my pocket, I’m not hopeful of getting these.

I should’ve got my arse into gear and gone to the market at closing time today.

The whole challenge will mean a devastating blow to my caffeine addiction. I won’t be able to buy coffee or Pepsi Max. I won’t have funds for fizzy water, but water from the tap is good. I’ll have to get used to it.

It’s only five days. Just five days. Next Saturday, I’ll be filling my fat face on all sorts of shit again. For millions of people around this planet, there’s a lifetime condemned to absolute poverty with no hope of release. We can’t feel guilty for this, we as individuals haven’t put these people in their situation, and by luck we were born in affluent societies where we know it’s our duty to ensure that the poorest are looked after.

So I’m planning to do this properly. But something wound me up tonight; I learned that somebody had got their hoard together for the week by essentially scrounging off people. They’d cadged some free teabags, got some canned food that was going to go to landfill, got some free vegetables from friends, etc, etc and still had funds for actual shopping for the task. That’s not in the spirit of things, surely?

I can feel myself getting really pious about this. I mean, yeah, I can easily live off a fiver if I use the free coffee at work, nick the salt, pepper and sugar there, go to my mum and dad’s for tea, use the “you’ve won a free Big Mac” token that I got from McDonalds last week. But that’s just wrong. I actually want to track that person down and give them a slap. Fuckers. FUCKERS.

“Oh, look at me, being all clever with my fiver. I’m going to Subway at closing time to get free sarnies that they give to tramps.”

FUCK YOU! Do it properly, or don’t fucking bother.

Hark at me. Doing it properly would mean me giving up the trappings of my privileged life and actually doing something to help full time. This can only ever be a gesture and nothing more. At least if one things comes of this, people will for just a second think, could I do that? How do they do that?

Find me at Live below the line