Allo chums, Katie blogging for a change this time. I’m here to tell you all about my little anti-materialism journey. Last week we spoke to one of my favourite people, Vicky, about how she tries to live ethically in the big smoke.

I decided to take on the live below the line challenge, spending only £5 on my food for 5 days to simulate living below the breadline, or as one of my colleagues called it “Katie’s being fake poor”. The actual campaign is taking a hiatus this year, but I definitely recommend considering trying it yourselves, either now or in 2017 when they relaunch.

I won’t get too self-righteous, though, I am still a long way off on this one, and it was a very challenging week. I also decided not to spend any other money which forced me to confront my lifestyle more than I expected.

Here’s how I got on:

On spending some dollar

Morrisons was my supermarket of choice, with the promise of a kilo bag of carrots for 47p I was happy to make the extra journey rather than indulging in the convenience of Waitrose 5 mins from my house. I’m glad I did because it enabled me to have a very humbling interaction with a homeless man sat outside, and that served as my motivation the rest of the week…I guess a lot of people can’t even be assured of having a pound a day, definitely a tear-jerking moment for me.

What did you buy Katie?! I hear you cry.

1 bag medium potatoes: £0.76

1 bag carrots: £0.47

1 bag oats: £0.75

Jar of pasta sauce: £0.83

1 bag pasta: £0.61

2 bananas £0.30

Tin of sweetcorn £0.35

Tin mixed beans £0.57

Total: £4.64

I was actually pretty impressed with how far my fiver spread, but what stuck out the most was the price of just about anything with flavour. Stocks and spices were outside of my budget, so I pledged 6p to a housemate for some salt and pepper for my soup. She also dropped a few mushrooms on the floor for me to ‘forage’ as they’d have ended up in the bin otherwise.

The meal plan for the week was porridge with water for breakfast, pasta with sweetcorn and beans for lunch, and potato and carrot soup for tea.

On eating gruel

The porridge. Indisputably the worst part of my day. I have a raging sweet tooth and don’t enjoy eating porridge any day of the week. It was like eating flour mixed into wallpaper paste, and sorely missed the additions of milk and fruit/syrup that I usually make. Still, it generally filled my stomach like cement until lunch, so it was helpful. I actually gagged at one point eating it and sacrificed my bananas to the cause after a couple of days of forcing it down. The soup wasn’t much better; I declined to add a photo, it became a hideous grey/brown sludge. My soup-making abilities leave a lot to be desired even when I have flavour at my disposal.

The brightest part of my day was the pasta, which actually had a little more to taste from the pre-made sauce and the sweetcorn. I could’ve happily skipped the beans and bought a couple more bananas, though.

On scavenging

It was only day two before disaster* struck and I forgot my lunch for work. I spent my morning contemplating the most realistic outcome of this mistake in a real life situation.

I considered going without until dinner, taking a ‘pay-day loan’ from one of my colleagues with a high level of interest, sharing someone’s lunch and sacrificing half of mine the next day, outright theft, accepting handouts and scavenging.

I landed somewhere between the last two and scrounged together the little feast above from various people and went for a walk at lunchtime to avoid seeing everyone else eat. That backfired a little as I arrived back just in time for the waft of burger and fries smell from the Deliveroo order they’d made. I felt a little bit violent.

*may have lost some perspective here.

On Fred-no

I had set aside 30p of my budget to get a Freddo later in the week. I’m a chocolate fiend, and the sugar crashes were worryingly noticeable. I expected I would need a pick-me-up and budgeted accordingly.

This was perhaps the saddest part of my week, heading to Sainsbury’s full of the joys of spring, and returning with this bread roll. That’s right. No Freddos. The shelf where they should have been was empty. I know. Heartbreaking.

In retrospect the roll was the best thing that could have happened to me that day, because later on this happened:

On sitting through a three course meal

This one might divide the crowd. You might think I’m a total loser, that when offered a free three course meal you wouldn’t/shouldn’t turn it down. Either because people below the poverty line wouldn’t, or because it makes you awkward and lame company. Fair play if that’s you, I might have made those comments too.

The thing is though, people below the poverty line aren’t offered a three course meal one out of every five days, and they don’t have an end in sight like I did. So my plate (bottom right) stayed that way all night, and I enjoyed the wonderful company of my colleagues regardless.

To say I didn’t want to grab their plates and eat everything on them would be a lie. I was jealous, and I was hungry, and I’m pretty convinced my breath didn’t smell all that good after having no food since 12pm. One of them groaning “I’m SO full” got a sarcastic “That must be nice” but other than that I held out relatively graciously I think.

I have to say, it at least made that pasta taste reeeeeeaaaal good.

On contemplating theft

That full box of grapes, apples and oranges lying around on peoples’ desks, I definitely thought about stealing. A lot. The closest I came was a can of San Pelligrino, boy did I want a sugar hit bad. I’m so weak. It was only 5 days.

On feeling grateful

The fact I had the ability to cook my food, and have clean water genuinely moved me. I missed sugar, I missed variety, I missed treats, I missed the structure of socialising over food that’s a big feature in my life. I went for some walks and only went into two shops all week (the initial trip and that ill-fated jaunt to Sainsbury’s) and that was freeing.

I’m sat writing this basking in the glow of a lesson well-learned, and I feel incredibly grateful to have what I have. I just hope I can hold onto that and use it to benefit others, and to consider whether or not I actually need things and where they are from more willingly in the future. Here’s a pass to everyone who knows me to remind me I said that, and also to roll your eyes at me for getting on my soap box.

Onwards.

Independence

This week we gab with Marianne (our lovely housemate) and Courney (Canada’s latest export to Blighty) about their independent lifestyles.

Both these lovely ladies inspire me to push myself further and have the confidence to strike out alone when I need to. Have a listen, and let us know where your independence has led you.

Here are their lovely faces: