Off topic: Living Below the Line

[syl]

If this is against board rules, please just close it and let me know.



Hi all,


This May my gal and I are living below the line! This means from May 16th - 20th we'll be surviving off just $2 a day for all of our food and drink...

We are doing this in an effort to raise money for the Oaktree Foundation who do an amazing job raising funds and implementing schemes for some of the world’s poorest communities, the link to donate is here: http://www.livebelowtheline.org.au/jimnlox Please bear with the website, it is quite slow at the moment.

Any help is greatly appreciated, certainly do not feel obliged to contribute! I just thought I might share it here as it's good to raise as much awareness as possible.


Please note, all donations are tax deductable.



Our goal is $500, if we do not reach this then we will bump it up out of our own pockets. If we get to $500 then we will contribute a flat $200 ourselves.


You can find out more information on the Oaktree Foundation here: http://theoaktree.org/

Cheers!
[FONT=&quot]Jimmie and Loxy
[/FONT]

 

[d33my]

I'm thinking of doing a similar thing, except i'll be living on $2 a day to fund a new MFC ruck department.

But srs, good luck mate.

 

[Crimson Azure]

Hi Syl,

Will leave it in the main board for now because it is a good cause so it can get a bit of exposure then I'll move into "Hell" so people can continue to view, post & donate to the cause.

Keep us updated on how your donations are going.

If anyone from the MFC board donates post here & let us know (if you want that is).

CA

 

[syl]

I'm thinking of doing a similar thing, except i'll be living on $2 a day to fund a new MFC ruck department.

But srs, good luck mate.

Very neat idea! And thanks mate.

Cheers as well CA - I will keep you all posted, going to have to be Vegan for a week. Also: No coffee or beer

 

[Demon 16]

Great cause - leave this here for a while CA.

What kind of stuff will you eat though Syl?

 

[syl]

Great cause - leave this here for a while CA.

What kind of stuff will you eat though Syl?

Well, it will be entirely vegan as we can't afford any dairy or meat at all. To get up our protein we need some spinach and lentils which will see us through the 5 days well.

The interesting one is breakfast, the most important meal of the day - it's getting shafted as we can't afford cereal, do not want to eat oats!

Currently the thinking is that we have 1 loaf of bread to share for the week in brekky's which will be toast with a little oil and an apple with a pot of tea on the side.

For lunches and dinners we will be doing a couple of big meals that will spread over the both of them.

So it will be big Daal's with potato etc cooked in the slow cooker, with the fried garlic, onions.

Below is our running, dream budget, we already shop at vic market, so we know what the prices are on most days, we intend on going to the market at 3PM on Sunday, when they start to slash the prices on most of their produce to get rid of it for the week, it won't be the greatest looking produce, but after slow cooking we won't notice.


Supermarket

Item Cost
Red lentils $2.03
White long grain rice $1.50
Cooking oil $1.99
Salt $0.79
White bread $1.09
Curry Spice $2.00
Tea leaves $1.00
Supermarket Total $10.40

Vic Market

Onion 500g $0.50
Garlic x 1 $0.50
Potatoes 1kg $1.00
Carrots 1kg $1.00
Zucchini 500g $1.00
Baby Spinach 200g $1.00
Capsicum 400g $1.00
Mushrooms 250g $1.00
Apples 1kg $1.00
Tomatoes 1kg $1.00
Vic Market Total $9.00

All round Total $19.40

 

[syl]

Hey guys and gals,

Lox has been nice enough to do write up for us Please have a read below.

Our week of living below the poverty line on just $2 a day has begun. We are lucky to be working as a team as this meant that we had $20 to spend on food for the week. We planned our purchases and researched prices to ensure we stayed within budget and got the most we could. We came in at $19.55!

With list in hand we set off to the shops. First stop Aldi for a container of salt! We then trekked down to Barkly Square and stopped by the Asian grocery store for red lentils and spice mix. Next we scoured the shelves of Coles and Woolworths for the best prices on rice, tea, oil and bread. Our budget was thrown a bit out of whack by the price of tea and oil but we saved on lentils and spices!

Backpack loaded up, off we went to the Vic Market for our veggie fix. Sunday is not the best day for veggie shopping at the market as there is only a quarter of an aisle compared to 3+ aisles on any other day! We still managed to get our staples, onions, garlic, potatoes, carrot, tomatoes, apples, and some yummy looking broccoli and zucchini. We then began the journey home, arms laden with bags, knees wobbling!

Once home we put on a lentil curry soup with various vegetables in the slow cooker. This morning we awoke to the delicious smell of curry and began our week of Living Below the Line! I’m hungry just thinking about it!

It may not stave off our hunger but a donation would make us and the people supported by the Oaktree foundation very happy! Click here to donate: http://www.livebelowtheline.org.au/jimnlox

Personally, I am already ****ing hungry and missing food that I can't have, just because I can't have it!! I have a hankering for hash browns and a Mars Bar, I don't think I have had a mars bar in over a year! :/


Cheers all

 

[Andy_Mac]

I would be one angry dude by weeks end! more power to you!

Great work Sly.

 

[Deemanding]

The interesting one is breakfast, the most important meal of the day - it's getting shafted as we can't afford cereal, do not want to eat oats!

See this is where you're doing it all wrong.

I'd be going:

3x 1.2kg box of weetbix ($4.60 each at Woolworths)
3x 2 litres of milk ($2.00 a bottle)

Total = $19.80

You'll probably even have leftovers

Seriously though, good luck with it all!

 

[melbournemartin]

3 x beer @ football = $19.50

You would have money left over to buy a chuppa chup!

 

[syl]

Loxy has written up some mroe for y'all - thanks everyone for the feedback and odnations - smashed through the $500 mark already!

We’ve made it to day 4 and we are still alive and kicking! Starting to feel a bit tired and sluggish but mostly just sick and tired of rice. Jimmie has finally stopped demanding chocolate and lollies. He simply ordered 1kg of Jelly Belly beans to gorge on next week. We’ve been eating lentil and vegetable curry with rice, plain rice, rice with spices and we even managed to make lentil and carrot patties on Tuesday to treat ourselves. Surprisingly we still have a decent amount of food left. Enough for another 2 days.

We will both be glad to crack open an icy cold beer on Saturday though and chow down on some Lebanese pizza from Mankoushe!

We're doing well foodwise, got more than enough to get us through, just missing the variety!

As for me - I NEED CANDY AND BEER - when you can't have things argh!

I pity the fool that has plans with me on Sunday, I will be a ****ing slobbering mess!

Cheers all

 

[Demon 16]

I can't believe you didn't throw some cheap booze it there! Syl!

That pizza is gonna taste good tomorrow..

 

[syl]

I can't believe you didn't throw some cheap booze it there! Syl!

That pizza is gonna taste good tomorrow..

I was so tempted, but you can't cheat and include portions! I brew my own beer so I was going to throw a few bottles in at 20c a pop!

Here's the update!

Hey guys and gals,

Loxy:
We are almost at the end of our 5 day Live Below the Line challenge and boy has it been a challenge! With only dinner left to go we have used up all of our vegetables, lentils, fruit and are only left with one cup of rice, spice mix, salt and oil. Maybe a spicy rice snack later today? Pretty sure we’ll be avoiding rice for the next few weeks so may as well get rid of it whilst we can!

Thank you to everyone who made a donation, offered kind words of support and tempted us with cakes and lollies!

It has been a great learning experience and we are glad to have been involved. Hopefully next year we can get a bigger group together to pool our resources and raise more money to help fight extreme poverty.

Donations are open til the end of June so please if you have some spare cash, donate via the website (HERE: [FONT=&quot]http://www.livebelowtheline.org.au/jimnlox) [/FONT]or in person (you receive a tax deductible receipt either way).

Thank you again for your generous support!

Jimmie:
Want candy, beer, CHEEEEEEESE!!!!! Thanks all!

Cheers!

 

[Tulip]

Syl, I assume you, at 12 this morning, went to Woolies and bought a massive block of cheese, a pack of Mars bars and bottled some of your brew?

Well done on passing, would have donated had they allowed paypal

 

[syl]

Syl, I assume you, at 12 this morning, went to Woolies and bought a massive block of cheese, a pack of Mars bars and bottled some of your brew?

Well done on passing, would have donated had they allowed paypal

Cheers! I had cheese, 1 kilo of jelly beans and shitloads of beer in the fridge in preparation!

Brekky beer right now!

 

[Demon 16]

I always assumed you were blonde.