Living Below The Line - Day Two

Well, after two slices of brown toast with sunflower spread and a cup of tea for breakfast this morning, I had successfully completed the first day of my Living Below the Line Challenge.  It hasn't been too bad, although I did have a slight headache all day.  I'm not sure if this was a result of the relative lack of food or the fact that I might have been a bit dehydrated from doing two exercise classes today. 

On the suggestion of someone at my aerobics class, I have started to use two teabags in each cup of tea, as I am not going to use 80 in five days and the tea itself isn't that palatable using just one.  I don't normally buy PGTips or anything so luxurious, but I can tell the difference even between these and a store's red label own brand.  Using two teabags, however, does make it slightly more enjoyable, but I realise that this isn't an option for people who are living below the poverty line.

Last night's dinner, as previously mentioned, was a simple one of sausages, tinned garden peas and tinned new potatoes washed down with tap water.  To be honest I was so hungry by then that I would have eaten anything. The sausages weren't the best I have eaten, but I was just glad to have some meat to eat, albeit they were only 40% pork. Everything tasted okay and I will be using the rest of the sausages, potatoes and peas throughout the week, but will be using them in different ways.   I roasted the sausages in the oven last night and saved the fat that came off them to use for cooking later in the week as I only have sunflower spread otherwise.  I treated myself to a dessert afterwards, of half a tin of rice pudding, before heading off to watch Superscrimpers on TV.  Heres a picture of the meal;

The total cost of my food for Day One was approximately 72p.  I did only manage to eat 2 of the 5 portions of fruit and vegetables recommended for a healthy diet though, which wasn't great.  I suspect this will be a common theme this week, although I will try to eat more in future meals.  When I decided to join in with this challenge yesterday, I was so focused on just buying enough food that was versatile enough to produce 5 evening meals, lunches and breakfasts, that I completely overlooked any notion of nutritional value, so my choices could perhaps have been a lot healthier.  Oh well, thankfully it is just for 5 days, but it does make you realise how difficult it must be for people living on such small sums to get a balanced diet containing all the nutrients their body needs.  I think that had my partner and my daughter joined me in this challenge we would have been able to eat more healthily as economies of scale would have allowed a wider range of foods to have been bought, but as that is not the case this year then I will have to manage with the food I chose.

Lunch today will be another ham and beef paste sandwich and a cup of tea, I'm thinking of making the sandwich a bit more interesting by adding a slice of red onion and a bit of pepper.  I may treat myself to a low fat yoghurt for dessert to add a bit of interest and help sustain me through netball practice later this evening.

For dinner tonight  I will be using some of the passata and some of the vegetables to make a vegetable and kidney bean stew which I may eat with a crust of brown bread.  As I don't have any stock cubes of any kind I am not sure how this is going to turn out.  It may be more like a chunky tomato and vegetable soup, but we will see what happens.   I want to prepare it before I go out to play netball at 7.30pm so that I can eat heat it up quickly and eat it when I get in.  There will be no dessert tonight.