My first book of September has been this book, it was a nice blast from the past and took me right back to the days when I used to do challenges and liked to watch and read of other people doing them too.
Jane was a fellow blogger who took part in Live Below the Line, the challenge where we all lived for five days on one pound a day and money was donated to charities. But then she took it to whole new levels and tried all sorts of variations involving her family ... then this book emerged.
It's a good read, and happily this first version of her book has all the prices from the year she shopped. She went on to write a second that didn't include prices.
There are the menus that she planned out for the week of each various challenge. There are quite a few as she did a omnivore week, a vegetarian week, a vegan week, a gluten-free week and a low-carb week, so lots to choose between.
It was a real blast from the past to see the prices as they were in 2018.
I bet you can guess what I just HAD to do
Yep, I went through the entire week's worth of food adding it to a Tesco online shopping basket to see what our 2026 prices would be for the same, or as near as possible to the same products, would be.
At last weeks Tesco prices these items would now cost us £51.50
It's quite a jump when you consider that these are the absolute basic lines, and for people scrabbling around to make the best use of a very limited income, this rise would be huge.
Then in a complete fluke my week ended with a YouTube video from Mike Jeavons popping up, with him seeing if he could live for £1 a day in 2026. I used to watch Mike daily when he did his Challenges, but I haven't seen anything off him in years.
What a coincidence!
Am I tempted to give it a go ... you know that I am!! 😄
Sue xx
You can reduce food shopping to basic survival, but should you when it is not necessary? I try to shop for a very healthy 1940s diet on a budget of £2.50 each a day. We are fortunate to have Aldi locally.
ReplyDelete"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan, In Defence of Food.
After years spent doing challenges on my blogs the temptation is always there to do another challenge. I have always kept Michael Pollan's little mantra in my head, and I do actually do this.
DeleteDo It! Will be interesting to read. I know you will succeed. - Nancy
ReplyDeleteI've done it a couple of times, but it would be interesting to see if it could still be done wouldn't it. :-)
DeleteMaybe this is not the time to do it as you prepare for major changes in your life with your house move coming up. I think you need to be good to yourself over the next few months and enjoy the food you have in your freezer and stores so that you won’t have a lot of food to move. We had fridge clearance with pasta tonight as I wanted to defer shopping until tomorrow. It was delicious! Catriona
ReplyDeleteYou definitely have your sensible head on, I should listen to you. Even taking a week off from freezer emptying would delay things. 🙂
DeleteBravo for doing the comparison. It's certainly eye-opening to see how much more things cost now. We often don't notice the slow change of prices over time, but this really brings it home.
ReplyDeleteIt had to be done. 🙂 Prices go up much sharper these days, it's not just a couple of pence here and there anymore.
DeleteJust 8 years - it's frightening to see those price rises.
ReplyDeleteIt is isn't it, and it's a good reason to keep this book and compare prices again in another few years. 😀
DeleteYour grocery prices in England are so cheap compared with the USA. I figured that 7 pounds sterling is equivalent to approx $10 and it would be nigh on impossible for me to live on 10 bucks/week here LOL I'd be interested in living vicariously through you as you undertake this very 'streamlined' food challenge! - EssDee
ReplyDeleteI agree about the prices in US, here in Iowa everything is getting high, even the in season produce was high this summer. $10 barely gets you bread and milk. I watched the video and noticed immediately the lack of protein and veg. His perception that everything tasted sweet was interesting but not totally unexpected since he was eating packaged foods. Proteins are really the biggest $$.
Delete~Carol
EssDee - While our food prices are much cheaper, our petrol/gas prices are much higher than yours and there are other variants to consider. I guess it's all swings and roundabouts. We are all used to budgeting at our own levels, and we do have to budget very carefully these days don't we. 🙂
DeleteCarol - I didn't think too much of his choices to be honest. A YouTuber called WearyWolf did it so much better. 🙂
Delete"Eat Social" a cafe in Norwich are about to start a challenge to raise awareness of Food Poverty in Britain (see BBC news website) But they are asking folk to live on £3 a day for 2 days. It's a good idea, but the time frame seems rather short (perhaps I've spent too long with blogfriends like you, Sue!!)
ReplyDeleteYes £3 a day for two days would seem a bit easy for me. But, for a lot of people I bet it would make them think long and hard about food, and be much more appreciative of what they have, and perhaps donate more. Foodbanks and other initiatives are really struggling at the moment.
DeleteWe have the huge advantage of knowledge and experience to shop and cook nourishing meals from basic frugal ingredients. We have a food budget to take advantage of offers, to keep a well stocked store cupboard, to fill the freezer, and we can preserve and store food safely so it is not wasted.
Delete£21 for a week is easier to manage than £3 a day. £42 for two people allows much more choice.
There is definitely the potential to shop easier when the days are added together, and when more family members take part. It's on a par with rationing in the UK in WW2. With a family of four you got four times the points, and therefore the ability to be able to buy tins of food as well as the basic rations. It's so much harder for a single person.
DeleteMinimum wage in 2018 was £7.83 top rate, and now it's £12.71. So although prices have risen, so have wages in general, which makes a difference.
ReplyDeleteI remember back in 1977 when £2,000 per year was a really good starting salary, and I was able to increase my weekly shopping for 2 to £14 per week!
Oh gosh was that really a good starting salary back in 1977? My wages fell far short of that then, I worked as an accounts clerk back then and learnt £17 a week, or £884 a year. 😬 My husband was a casemaker and earned around £26, so he was a bit closer.
DeleteThe video was interesting. He didn't do as good food as you did on your challenges. I would have allowed salt and pepper as everyone has that in their cupboards. I would have had to add tea and I would have added eggs, maybe instead of cheese as they are more useful. I would have added milk to the second day pasta that was too thick. As he says it isn't healthy as there is no fruit or veg.
ReplyDeleteHe's done a lot of challenges over the years, but doesn't seem to have learned much, unlike Weary Wolf who has really upped his game. I agree that salt and pepper could have been added , no-one watching would have complained at that. I usually give myself a basic store cupboard of salt, pepper, oil and coffee. Life is nothing without my instant coffee. 😄 ☕️
DeleteI think that your store cupboard is more realistic. Most people don’t start their week with absolutely nothing or a goal to end the week with absolutely nothing left. I would think that that a longer period would gain a little momentum as staples accumulated. So each week might have the potential to increase your variety. Plus some things, like dried beans would have gotten him more “bang for the buck” (US Idiom). It also would have eliminated the sweet. (But on what he was eating, I don’t think he was getting any where near enough calories so the sugar would probably give him an energy boost). Carol Caldwell’s thought about eggs is probably what I would do too. I would sacrifice the honey hoops and some other things to get the fat and protein of the eggs. ~Carol in Iowa
DeleteMany times in the past, especially on my Challenge blog, I showed how many things can be left over even at the end of even a very limited budget week. A store cupboard is quite easy to build up, even buying a bag of porridge oats at the lowest price unless you eat a LOT of porridge, or grind some down to make flour, you are going to end up with a portion left over for the following week. Which of course means you don't have to buy another the following week.
DeleteI agree, his choice of the honey hoops was a bit baffling!! I think I would be hungry not long after eating them, which doesn't bode well at all.
Hi all. Interesting reading all of the comments above.
DeleteI can definite confirm it is possible to live on £1 a day as I did exactly that from July 2024 - July 2025. Even in that short space of time I saw prices on basic foodstuffs creeping up.
I’ve literally finished writing a book on it a couple of weeks ago chronicling how I did it. Need to pluck up the courage to send it to a publisher really.
It CAN be done, but it needs planning, effort, an ability to grow at least some vegetables (seeds factored into the £365 budget) and a distinct lack of squeamishness when it comes to inspecting and cooking roadkill (obviously care needed here). Above all it takes time.
Positives? I lost a fair bit of weight, I ate very little ultra processed rubbish, my bread making is about 1000% better than my dubious occasional efforts before, and clearly I wasted absolutely nothing for a year, and saved a ton of money. Above all it meant I spent a good amount of time with my young daughters foraging, cooking and baking - worth the ticket alone.
Not for everyone, but it was an interesting exercise and, at the very least, I have some vaguely interesting anecdotes to throw out when the need arises!
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan, In Defence of Food.
DeleteLove this.
That sounds absolutely fascinating, and YES, you should definitely pluck up the courage to send it to a publisher. Send your first chapter off to as many likely foody publishers as you can think of. It's the sort of book I would go out of my way to buy.
DeleteThank you for sharing the video. I found it very interesting. I found myself wanting to see what I could buy for $7.00 (US). I live in a major city with a high cost of living in Southern California. I looked on the website of one of the stores I shop at and I could get a 2 lb. bag of rice ($1.79), a dozen large eggs ($1.99), a 15 oz. can of mixed vegetables or a 12 oz. bag frozen mixed vegetables ($1.29@) and an 8 count package of chicken bouillon which would add up to $6.36. With the remaining $0.64 cents in my budget, I'd probably get a couple of bananas, usually the cheapest fruit at $0.69/lb. Or, I could get a 1lb. bag of dried pinto beans for $1.19 instead of the dozen eggs for a cheaper source of protein, which would have given me a little extra money to buy a second can or bag of mixed vegetables. I'd be able to make rice and beans or fried rice or vegetable soup and manage for the week (and there'd probably be rice leftover, as well).
ReplyDeleteDon't forget to do the conversion Bless. At yesterday's figures £7 was the same as £9.46 dollars. Doing this would give you a little bit more to spend, so maybe you could get the pinto beans as well as the eggs.
DeleteHere in Iowa from my local Walmart I could buy the following for $9.52
Delete1 lb brown rice $.88
1 lb elbow macaroni $1.24
1 lb dried navy beans $1.28
2 lb frozen mixed veg $2.58
8 oz brick of Colby Jack cheese $1.87
1 dozen eggs $1.67
All Walmart brand. Assuming I had salt and pepper I could make do on that for a week. I would expect that I would have mixed vegetables leftover and some rice to go into the next week. It would be boring but doable.
I decided not to convert for the same reasons you gave another US commenter about wages, cost of fuel, etc., Sue. The Federal minimum wage in the US is still $7.25 per hour; it hasn't changed since it was put into effect in July 2009. Some individual states have raised the state minimum wage, but, there are still a few states where the federal minimum wage is the state minimum wage.
DeleteI was reading about the differing minimum wages in the US before I responded to your comment. It's quite shocking that some states are only paying $7.25 per hour, while most pay $15. No wonder so many people are really struggling in some areas, and no wonder that so many rely on tips that diners and customers are struggling to leave in the current monetary climate.
DeleteHere in the UK the national minimum and living wages vary by age, from £8 for under 18s to £12.71 for over 21s. Back in 1999 the National Minimum wage was £3.60, so we have definitely kept up with inflation much better.
Hi all. Interesting reading all of the above.
ReplyDeleteI lived on £1 a day for food for a year, July 2024 - July 2025. Even in that short space of time I noticed prices creeping up.
It’s taken me a year to write about it but I finished the first edit a couple of weeks ago.
It certainly is possible to do it, but it takes a little planning, a lot of resolve, a fair chunk of time and an ability to grow at least some food oneself (seed budget factored in…).
Also a non-squeamish attitude to inspecting roadkill helps a lot too!
Positives? I pretty much cut out Ultra processed garbage, lost a fair bit of weight (but not unhealthily so), and I’m now a dab hand at making bread (a constant disappointment previously). And clearly I saved a fair bit of money too, have written a book and have a point of difference for I treating anecdotes.
I've published this comment as well as your last one as there are a few differences. Perhaps you would like this blog, I found it really interesting when I was living on £1 a day for a year as well. I did have a blog that charted my progress, but in a mad moment I deleted it ... I've been kicking myself ever since!!
DeleteOh I meant to add, roadkill would be a step too far for me as I don't eat meat anyway. But you have to do what you have to do, and if it brought much needed protein and additional flavour I see no reason for it not to be a good idea.
DeleteThanks Sue. Sorry to post twice! I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to technology I’m afraid. I thought the first one hadn’t sent and cursed myself for not copying it and pasting!
ReplyDeleteWill take your advice on board.
Hats off to you for doing it for a year with no meat! Very impressive. I would have seriously struggled without the pheasant roadkill larder to add protein.
Will
Not a problem at all, comments on blog posts that are more than 2 days old come through to me first for checking before publication, it's a good way to weed out the trolls and bots. So that is what made your first comment seem to disappear. I have done the same myself on other peoples blogs and had to write out a comment all over again ... and it's always the long ones that vanish have you noticed!! If in doubt copy ... just in case. :-)
DeleteAlan would definitely have been okay with pheasant roadkill to add to a limited budget challenge. :-)
A good blog that I followed when he did his £1 a day challenge was One Pound a Day ... his journey starts here: https://onepoundperday.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/hello-world/
It.sounds just my.sort of book. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely a keeper for me. I will be checking those prices in another few years. 😀
DeleteRight up my street...Thanks!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure, it's worth a read. 😀
DeleteI'd be intrigued to see if you can do it! It's quite shocking how much prices have risen!
ReplyDelete