We each gave ourselves $10 for food and must survive the next two weeks on that food only. We are not allowed to share the food. The rules are that we cannot purchase or use anything that would normally be outside the reach of one of these families. What this means is we can use condiments that we have in the house (salt, oil, pepper) while things that add significant changes or calories are not allowed (honey, brown sugar, syrup).
While someone can say they feel bad or think it's sad that millions of people are forced to live off sub $1-a-day wages, I don't think you really know quite how good you have it going for you unless you try it out yourself. Now obviously we still have our internet connection, car and other amenities or else you wouldn't be reading this post.
Here is what I have come up with so far:
- 5 Ramen : $0.13 each - $0.78 total- 2lb Rice: $1.00
- 42oz Oats: $1.39
- 2lb Spaghetti: $0.95
- 26oz Sauce: $0.95
- 1lb Beans: $0.56
- Apple Juice Mix: $0.79
Current Total of: $6.42
and my wifes choices:
I don't know her exact content but she has spent $9.38 of her $10, leaving her not much leeway in the coming weeks, but she says she has a better plan than me so it must be true :P (you can click on the picture to get a much bigger view of everything).I also have to work out three times a week so I know I'm going to be burning quite a few calories, so I made her promise to do the same. I have a normal job which I have to go to, activities I participate in and a home life (just cats though, no kids).
This is Day 1.
67 comments:
You are teh cr4z-E
Just so you know I do have a great plan and I will out $10 you.
My breakdown is on my blog about it:
http://jadedcapitalist.blogspot.com/
I think it's telling that you both have almost entirely carbohydrate food, not a fruit or vegetable in sight.
having spent 3 years @ art school, i feel i can add some suggestions..
1) chilli powder (goes great with plain rice).
2) tuna (is this allowed), both cheap & tasty! (exp. with rice/ramen noodles).
In some places like Mongolia people only make $1-2/day, but its not like living on $1 in the U.S. because lots of stuff is subsidized. They not only have lots of clothes, but even get eyelid surgery. Its nearly impossible to leave the country though.
Having just done this out of desperation and lack of money. You should really look into eggs you can survive off of a hard boiled egg a day and water, @ $3 for 18 eggs you have more than enough food. Also instead of buying even store brand tomato sauce you should think about tomato paste and or the large cans of tomato sauce for only $1.59 a can you get enough for almost 3 sevings. The other aspect is that there easily days you can just go without eating.
Regardless, good luck with everything.
Hey man, I am a student and you know with the tuition fees, books, etc, we barely have any money for food. I have spent MANY weeks less than $10, but yeah, it's quite a challenge to spend less than $10 on food and still stay healthy. Good luck to you both!
That's thoughtful of you both.. good luck..I'll check back daily on your progress..
While someone can say they feel bad or think it's sad that millions of people are forced to live off sub $1-a-day wages
..in countries where people live with $1-a-day wages.. water doesn't sell for $1.50 nor bread for $3!!!
good luck! I almost lived off Ramen noodles in college and you're going to be hurting.
bag-o-rice is your friend
Thats not too difficult, I and 8 friends have survived two and a half weeks with just $70.
After that, everybody lost weight, I lost 10 pounds, but one of my friends lost 20 pounds.
It was in a vacation in the beach, we were 19 years old.
I can appreciate your plan, but keep in mind that in a place where you would only earn $10 in two weeks, food is much cheaper.
I want to point out that it costs real money to eat healthy, and while experiments such as yours are noble, everyone's goal should be to be healthy and eat right.
Obviously people have budget restrictions, but when it comes to health, if you don't pay for it now, you'll pay more for it later...
Sounds like you both thought it through. Good luck!
just be sure to take vitamins. we're not supposed to eat such a restricted diet. the carbs and processed food you've picked can't be good, long term.
also, i grow a portion of my own food. it's not much, but the little bit that I do grow, i feel really good about.
nothing beats "i just picked it" fresh. you don't need to have a lot of space to grow a little bit yourself. i have several container plants that make great additions to things im cooking. (basil, cilantro, rosemary, etc)
I've done this before. It wasn't very healthy as I sustained myself on rice and water. I could swear I was a few days from dying of a vitamin deficiency or something.
Best of luck to you and your wife. Having been to Africa and seeing some of these things first hand, its great to see people who are willing to sacrifice (regardless of what others say about the details) and are sacrificing with the right motives and reasons....very refreshing.
get over the artificial social shame and go dumpstering. trader joe's throws away so much packaged food and packaged vegetables it's ridiculous. completely sealed (not always) and perfectly fine.
also find a large supermarket (we've got andronnico's here) that has a huge produce section. no one wants to buy the apple with one tiny black spot. but for free, it's just fine.
Dude, I seriously had to do just that... One trick me and my friends used is fast food places will give you food as long as the order isn't big, and it's cheap. Just tell 'em that they fucked up your order and you don't have your receipt.
I calculated your intake as follows:
919 calories/day
12 grams of fat/day
35 grams of protein/day
22 grams of fiber/day
If you require 2500 calories per day you will fall quite short. You will lose about 7 lbs. Your fiber is ok, but protein is pretty low. Also you have no vegies/fruits. With the three bucks you have left go to the dollar store, buy vitamins. Whole Milk might might not be a bad idea.
Good luck!
Start a garden and you can eat all summer for $10.
It may seem daunting in America to try and survive on $1 a week, however you have to take into consideration of the high living standards in america and the inflated prices of some of the food.
In a lot of countries a dollar will buy you (food wise) a lot more (to some extent) than you can get here. For instance, go to Russial; $1 there will probably buy you 3-4 times as much potatoes as your wife baught.
i am very interested in your experiment. i am on SSDI (medical disability) and after i pay rent, utilities and medication i really have to budget my money. if i have any kind of emergency, i am totally screwed. i have learned to streeeeetch my money, but two weeks on $10...good luck!
Agreed w/ the above regarding lack of nutrients. Maybe getting a few staples would help, ie flour, sugar, for making bread, pasta for, well, pasta, to which you can add a few cheap veggies.
Short term you'll be okay, but longer than a few weeks, watch out for scurvy and other diseases.
I think people like you two are way important. Yeah, way important because it's a known fact that most western people wouldn't go to this trouble, that's why you making a blog of your progress is making new's! Are all the people making comments above that freeking stupid not to see that. Yeah, you can say whatever behind your keyboards can't you?? Goodluck, hope you keep up this teaching, we really need more Morgan Sherlocks in the west, it's very important work that you do :) All the best to you both!!
I can tell you from experience that rice will last you a LONG time.
The Moocat Project sounds like a good idea to me.
I'm in!
Yes situations vary as does the currency and food availability but for most of us able to read these postings, $10 is a good starting point.
You can eat remarkaby healthy with that kind of money if you are clever.
Lose some wieght, save some money and most importantly feel what it's like.
It's not going to kill you.... maybe you have heard of fasting?
Cool Idea...
As i am unemployed, i will be following closely to your experiment. I will be especially looking for symptoms of malnutrition.
if you live on $10 a week, you wont have to poop very often.
One word - ALDI
Don't forget great resources like your local outdoor market/farmer's market, roadside stands, etc. These will net you large amounts of great (if not unblemished and photo-perfect) produce on the cheap :) Good luck, and good on you for doing this!
A very brave thing both of you are doing. Why didn't you get more ramen?
This is a great and all but what does it do for the people that are still starving? You prove that it can be done in the states and then what, are you taking the difference between what you would have spent these two weeks in food and the $10 and sending it to American Idol?
No offense, all you are proving is what they do on a regular basis.
Just my 2 cents, good luck!
Can you dumpster dive? In college, well, my friends worked at a bagel shop and knew when closing time was.
There were also a lot of art openings and wedding receptions were you could get free food.
Not that I'd know or anything.
Janet
Two problems:
A) The United States matches your
$10 with subsidies.
B) Try living off of $10 a day. It is a lot different than coming home to your mansion and playing ps3 while consuming what most people would consider a normal amount of food.
Another interesting aspect to this type of experiment that you have not taken into consideration is that many people in poor rural areas of Africa not only have to feed themselves on less than $1 / day, they have to feed the rest of their family, too.
Plus, a lot of them have to go out and bust their butts to earn that dollar, each and every day. This includes children, whose parents are too poor to afford the inexpensive school uniforms required to send them to school.
Eggs, cooking oil, rice, ugali, chicken... high protein and high calorie foods is what they typically spend their money on.
Go pick dandelion greens from your lawn. You need the greens, and they are free. A walk around the neighborhood can yield a decent salad if you know what to look for.
Jsut so you know in most parts of the world $1 can buy you a full course meal... perhaps you should travel before you post you next blog
I live in Thailand and a $1 a day of food is plenty. Rice, Noodles, fruit.,veggies, eggs, chicken etc. No problem but it would not be enough to gain weight. Usually I spend $3 to $5 to buy more fancy things like western goods, breads, juices etc.
Most people are overweight and dehydrated. Every few days do a water fast. Your health will benefit and that day will cost zippo.
To those of you saying that you could easily survive for £1 or less in poor countries because the cost of food is so much lower than in USA etc. are wrong. When they say people live for under $1 a day, they don't actually mean $1, but how much you can buy for $1 in USA.
Hey, for your next challenge try living in Tokyo for $US1/day.
If you spend the rest of your $10 on the same amount of calories, that will give you ~1100 calories per day on average. If you're doing any exercise you are definitely going to be losing a significant amount of muscle mass with this huge deficit since you are not getting enough protein.
The only problem is at the end you will know you are going to eat. I think they really feel the badness when there is no hope of it ending.
That is commendable..But not feasible..Simply because $10 has a much higher value in the places that you have mentioned..
For example, here in India (which houses millions of poor), $10 is valued at around 450 rupees..It is still quite small, but definitely enough to make through comfortably..I will have to eat boring food everyday, but then, that is fine for a challenge.
Peanut Butter is a cheap snack that will give you plenty of energy. One jar of PB will last quite a while.
From my experience, living on $1/day is only something that could be accomplished if you have a kitchen at your disposal. For a single college student, $3/day is more realistic. While living at college over the summer, I had to live very cheaply, and I went borderline malnourished for about a month. After that I upgraded my food budget to $6/day to allow for more vegatables.
Good luck!
There's actually a global group of people who do something like this every year, check out the $2 a Day Challenge at www.2dollars.org
There are recipes, and advice on the website, keep at it!
Chicken leg quarters are dirt cheap. Like 50¢ a pound on sale. A cheap source of meat.
This may be an interesting diversion to your regular lives, but it begs the question: what is your motivation? To really understand the plight of the hungry? Or is this just two privileged Americans slumming for the charity cred?
Keep in mind I am not bashing what you are doing; I just hope it is for the right reasons, and that it motivates you to maybe volunteer once in a while, or to do some charity work.
It is simple to be hungry and homeless for a few days, knowing that when it bores you, you can go back home and have lunch. Good luck with your experiment. For many Americans, it is not an interesting diversion, but a way of life.
Bringing awareness is great. I also try to do a no-meat diet so that my kids will be aware of how others live.
some notes:
tuna is actually expensive, pound for pound.
Eggs are a good buy- price and protein.
Rice and beans will last you all week and taste good. Perfect food combo.
where are your fruits and veggies? Potaotes, carrots, bananas (old), apples are all some of the more affordable staples.
I could afford maybe one fruit or veggie. I'm thinking of splurging for a can of green beans and try and split it between two meals. From what I'm reading I think eggs will be the way to go for some of my last dollars as well.
you figured out how to be a college student congrats! Also, take into account that these people don't really have the resources to cook Hot Dogs.
They don't have the resources to cook hot dogs and I can't grow a field of corn in my backyard. I would do an African documentary but traveling to a foreign country is out of my pocket book range.
For 79 cents at Safeway you can get a bag of dry beans. When you cook it up, it makes an entire pot which will last you the better part of a week.
This is a great idea!
*sigh*
I lived in Kenya for two years and $1 per day can get you a very decent meal. Chapati (yummy flatbread) is only 20 cents, a bottle of coke is only a dime... a meal of rice, meat, and soup is 50 cents.
Food costs nothing. An entire loaf of bread is only around 40 cents.
Milk is cheap too.
Conclusion: Doing this experiment outside of a 3rd world country is completely meaningless.
Good luck to you both. This is something I should follow, seeing as I'm a college student who hopes to move out soon. I think it is possible in the US as a student on your own to survive with a decent amount of nutrition in your meals for probably 2-3$ a day, if you know what to look for. Unfortunately, most people in my school probably spend $10 a day for lunch alone and get the rest for free from friends/family.
Good luck to you both. Awaiting day 1 results. Hope she didn't eat the whole jar of PB!
i didn't eat the whole jar of peanut butter but I have found that PB and J sandwhiches are so much when they're grilled yummmy
This is hardly living on $10 for two weeks. You aren't taking into account the electricity you're using, the gas in the car that you drive, the running water you have... living on $10 for two weeks means a lot more than just the food that you eat.
Others may throw jibes at you, or ask what it actually accomplishes, or pass you off as "slumming for a week...," or quibble with details...
but if we can assume that ethical living has a lot to do with opening one's range of experience - because through that opening you allow yourself to move closer to others - then it's quite brave and appropriate to do something of this sort.
Kudos! (and take it from me... eat rice!!!)
I haven't read all the comments, but I just wanted to say that this experiment is retarded. $1 a day in a poverty stricken, sub-sarahan african country will go MUCH further than $1 here in the states. Depending on the country, $10 there would be the equivalent of $50 or more here.
Further, eating healthy is not necessarily expensive. I eat very healthy pretty much 100% of the time, and I very rarely spend more than $40 a week on food. The staples are very cheap. Oatmeal, milk, rice, beans, tuna, and even chicken are all very inexpensive.
I don't see a lot of vegetables here. At least your wife has protein. I would have bought rice, beans, peanut butter, and vegetables.
It's not just about food, it's also about exploitation of people, lack of potable water, no electricity, etc. If you really want know how is like I'll recommend you to live in the street for one week, no house, no water, no bathroom, no anything, just 1 dollar and maybe some place to live, it's hard, i know 'cuz I live in Guatemala, extreme poverty is around me... all because of globalization. I'd lived with $3 dollars a week,. just one week, just eating eggs... but still nothing compares with extreme poverty.
First of all, people in third world countries who make $1-2 a day don't "live" off of it... they survive off of it.
Huge difference.
Living and existing are two seperate things.
I can sacrifice a lot of things to survive, but I wouldn't call it living.
Furthermore, the welfare base supported by the government of these countries is enourmous... and without bolstering education, they only prolong the problem.
The digg effect..
I thought about doing this after hearing the Chinese Gov't challenged their citizens to live off of $14 a week. That's not just $14 of food...that's $14, PERIOD. That means they have to cover utilities, food, and other expenses in the $14/wk. I personally ride a scooter, and fill it twice-weekly at $2/tank. So $4 would cover my gas. That leaves me with $10/wk for food. My choices are eggs, potatoes, rice, beans (dried or canned). I already eat that regularly, but do so indiscriminantly along with meat and veggies. I think I'll try this. It'll be interesting.
Post a Comment