Day 5 #BelowTheLine: 99.5p for three meals

Day 5 #BelowTheLine: 99.5p for three meals

Finally it's the end of #BelowTheLine - what a week!

My last day living #BelowTheLine started with another smoothie - this time with strawberries and raspberry yoghurt. The yoghurt was the last of the reduced ones I bought a few days ago. About four days out of date but tasted absolutely fine and I'm still standing! Breakfast total = 17.5p

Lunch was tricky as I was travelling to Sheffield for work so needed a packed lunch. Egg rolls it was - a bit stinky on the train though! More reduced rolls (4.5p each) and two of our cheap farm eggs (6.5p each) meant 22p for lunch. I also managed to keep a few strawberries aside from the breakfast smoothie as a mid-afternoon snack.

Dinner was time for a bit of creativity with a pack of Morrisons sausage meat reduced from £2.99 to 69p. We chopped an onion (10p) and mixed it into the meat before shaping them in to patties and cooking them on a griddle. Add to that the leftover reduced potatoes (19.5p), the rest of the reduced spinach (16.5p) and a veg patch leek (5p) and we reached a total of £1.20 for two people. So dinner per person was 60p.

That made a grand total of 99.5p for my three meals today.

And there we have it - #BelowTheLine is over. I hope I've shown that it is possible to eat three decent, healthy and balanced meals on £1 a day - hard work, yes... but it is possible. However I'm acutely aware that if you're living in real poverty it would be a very different matter.

Last year I was invited to speak about cooking on a budget at Bromford Support - a social business that helps people who are dealing with issues such as unemployment, homelessness and poverty. I met a man who had been struggling but, thankfully, had got his life back on track. He told me how he had resorted to picking food out of bins to survive. He said he could live out of bins or turn to crime. He chose bins.

His reality at the time was that when he did have a little money to buy food he ended up buying ready to eat food or takeaways. Why? Because he had no cooking utensils. And no money for electricity and gas to power an oven or microwave - or even boil a kettle.

Eating cheaply is a fun challenge for me - not a necessity. I make the most of the yellow stickers and bargain offers to save money for the nicer things in life. So if you've ever read my blog and gone out and saved a few pounds here and there on your weekly shop as a result, please consider donating a little and sponsoring my #BelowTheLine £1 a day challenge. I'm raising money for The Global Poverty Project and there is still time to donate at: www.livebelowtheline.com/me/katebarrett

Thanks to everyone who has donated so far and helped me to raise £220.

I'm back to eating normally tomorrow - no more £1 a day for the time being... but I'll still be hunting down bargains to turn them into something fabulous so watch this space for more cut-price action coming soon!

Day 4 #BelowTheLine: 96p for three meals

Day 4 #BelowTheLine: 96p for three meals

Day four of #BelowTheLine and I'm seriously getting bored of toast and reduced soup sachets. However, I'm just living on a pound a day for five days and have light at the end of the tunnel - other people aren't so lucky so I mustn't grumble.

Breakfast was plain wholemeal toast. Again. But it only cost 2p. Thank goodness that loaf is finished. 

Lunch was a 5p reduced soup sachet and toast. Again. But only cost 7p which meant I could spend 25p to enjoy half a punnet of strawberries that Mr Kate bought from the market yesterday for just 50p. 

So 34p for breakfast and lunch, leaving plenty to play with for dinner! Funny how I'm calling 66p plenty!

Cue another cut-price bargain - lamb mince reduced from £1.99 to 59p. And from Waitrose again! Time to use up some of the other ingredients from this week and make a bolognese. Here's how I kept it in budget:

59p mince

20p tomatoes (from the reduced pack the other day)

10p onion

5p chilli

5p oil

14.5p pasta (the rest of the pack we used on day one)

5p spices

5p soup sachet (the soup sachet saved the meal - it was one of these squeeze and stir soups so comes out like a tomato puree and made the bolognese nice and rich).

= 123.5p total for two

So 61.75p each - let's call it 62p! That makes a grand total of 96p for all three meals today.

The good news is I've now used up all my 5p soup sachets - if I never see another one it'll be too soon!

Tomorrow might be hard - I'm working out of the office and travelling to Sheffield. Time for some serious planning methinks.

One more day to go - thank goodness I don't have to live like this every day, unlike some poor souls.

Day 3 #Below The Line: 94p for three meals

Day 3 #Below The Line: 94p for three meals

Today was very much a game of two halves in the #BelowTheLine challenge. I spent very little on breakfast and lunch so we could enjoy a decent meal in the evening using some reduced pork fillet. So by the time I got home I was more than ready for dinner and delighted to see that Mr Kate was already cooking away in the kitchen. Which was a good job because I had been craving cups of tea at work and having to stick to water - I was ready for a proper feed!

So here's how the day went...

2p breakfast = Two plain slices of toast from our reduced loaf - some peanut butter would have gone down nicely!

15p lunch = The last two slices of Quorn and another reduced roll with a 5p reduced soup.

Dull, dull, dull - I'm used to a much livelier lunchbox than this!

14p afternoon snack = Two reduced clementines

63p dinner = Reduced pork fillet, new potatoes and spinach.

How did we manage to eat pork fillet from Waitrose on the #BelowTheLine challenge? Well, the pork was reduced from £4.02 to 59p! We had half the fillet each with a quarter of a bag of potatoes which were reduced to 39p for the bag. Add to that a quarter of a bag of spinach reduced to 55p so the total for each ingredient was:

Pork - 59p

Spinach - 27.5p

Potatoes - 19.5p

Herbs and oil - 20p

So the meal cost £1.26 for two - just 63p each!

That means a grand total of 94p for three meals and two pieces of fruit!

Quite amazing how far a pound can go if you plan really well and hunt down the bargains - but I'm lucky in that I'm not living below the line for real. I have a freezer, a fridge and all the utensils I need to make my pound a day stretch as far as possible. People living in real poverty don't have that luxury. If you've enjoyed reading my blog and have a pound or two to spare, please do sponsor me at: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/katebarrett

All the money raised goes to The Global Poverty Project who are working to help people less fortunate around the world. To everyone who has donated so far - thank you!

Day 2 #BelowTheLine: 87p for three meals

Day 2 #BelowTheLine: 87p for three meals

Day two of living #BelowTheLine and I thought it was going to be a very beige day full of breads and carbs. Fortunately a post-work trip to the supermarkets on the way home secured us some reduced fruit and veg to use today and over the rest of the week.

A bag of seven clementines reduced from £2 to 50p means we've got a piece of fruit every day now for just over 7p per piece. A bag of spinach down from £1 to 55p and tomatoes down from £1 to 29p completed the fresh veg reduced haul - we're nicely set to keep up our five a day intake during the rest of the challenge now. 

So what was on the menu today?

10p breakfast = Toasted roll with reduced Quorn (an odd start to the day but actually quite nice!).

15p lunch = Two scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast.

A penny for each slice of toast from my reduced loaf and 6.5p for each egg (we get them cheap from a farm).

55p dinner = Reduced fish cakes, baked tomato and spinach.

The fish cakes were reduced from £1.29 to 39p - pricey for #BelowTheLine but as I'd not spent much on breakfast and lunch today I could afford them. 5p for one of the reduced tomatoes and about 11p's worth of the reduced spinach - we will use the rest of the spinach and tomatoes in tomorrow's meals. 

So 80p for the three meals and then a snack of a clementine at 7p means a grand total of 87p for the day. Not bad going at all! Keeping this up for five days is going to be hard though - and I'm missing the fizzy drink chemicals for sure!

Day 1 #BelowTheLine: 93p for three meals

Day 1 #BelowTheLine: 93p for three meals

This week I am taking part in a charity challenge to raise awareness of poverty. I will be raising money for The Global Poverty Project who work to improve the lives of people living in poverty. The challenge, called #BelowTheLine, is to survive on £1 per person, per day. That's just £1 a day for all meals and drinks for five days!

Regular readers of this blog will know that I live pretty frugally already. I blog about eating and cooking as cheaply and healthily as possible but for me it is simply to save money for the nicer things in life. For many people it is a necessity, so this week I will be really pushing my cut-price shopping habits to the limit to try to live off £1 per day - and forcing Mr Kate to do the same (he's delighted about that...).

If you have any spare cash please do sponsor me at: www.livebelowtheline.com/me/katebarrett

Please donate as much as you can to raise money for the people for whom £1 a day is a reality instead of a five-day challenge.

So, how have I got on today? Surprisingly well as I managed to get some excellent end of day bargains last night! A 15p loaf, 24p punnet of raspberries, 20p pack of Quorn and four yoghurts for 25p has got me off to a great start! Here's what I had and how I got the meals so cheap:

20p breakfast = Two slices of wholemeal toast and fresh raspberry smoothie.

Bread - 2p (reduced 15p loaf)

Raspberries - 12p (half a reduced 24p punnet)

Yoghurt 6p (25p reduced pack of four)

34p lunch = Two rolls with Quorn, tomato and vegetable soup, pineapple pot.

Quorn - 10p (half a reduced 20p pack)

Rolls - 9p (two from a pack of 12 reduced to 55p)

Pineapple - 10p (reduced of course)

Soup - 5p (bargain reduction!)

39p dinner = Sausage and tomato pasta.

Sausages - 5p (half a reduced 10p pack)

Onion - 5p (half a 10p onion)

Tomatoes - 16.5p (half a 33p tin)

Chilli - 2.5p (half a reduced chilli)

Pasta - 5p (quarter of a bag of 500g of Tesco value penne pasta)

Paprika and chilli spices - 5p

So a grand total of 93p for three decent meals. And water is classed as free in the challenge so I've stuck to that all day long. With the raspberries, soup, pineapple, tinned tomatoes and onion I even got a good four of my five a day in too!

One day in and it's not going too bad... although a bar of chocolate wouldn't go amiss!

Restaurant review: The George at Brixworth

Restaurant review: The George at Brixworth

When a Groupon restaurant deal came up for the pub in the village next to my mum and dad's I jumped at the chance -  a good opportunity to take the parentals out for next to nothing I thought! Most of the Groupon restaurant deals I've had have been excellent or thoroughly decent. Unfortunately this wasn't one of them...

We arrived at The George at Brixworth with high hopes - the pub has new managers and the dining room and conservatory looked really inviting. We didn't get off to a great start as the waitress took a good 20 minutes to take our order - even taking orders from people who had arrived after us first. The waitresses were perfectly pleasant, just not particularly on top of their game and we were left waiting a long time between courses.

Mr Kate went for the Thai fish cake for his starter but unfortunately reported that they were severely lacking in the spice and flavour stakes. The parentals and I all went for the Brixworth pate which was absolutely fine and it was good to see a local pub putting a local producer on the menu.

After a long wait for our mains, mum, dad and Mr Kate all had the beer-battered cod with chips and mushy peas. Alas all reported that the batter was on the soggy side and the fish wasn't the freshest. I had chilli con carne with rice and tortilla chips. The presentation left a lot to be desired but the flavour of the chilli was decent.

It wasn't that there was anything particularly wrong with the food - it was more that there wasn't anything particularly right with it. Slow service and below average food. A real shame because the location and setting is excellent and could make for a strong local pub.

The deal was £30 for a two-course meal for four. Fortunately I had just been emailed a £10 off Groupon voucher so actually got it for only £20. So at just a fiver per person this didn't hurt the bank and I guess we shouldn't grumble too much at that price. Having said that, would I have paid full price (£52.70) for what we ate? I'm afraid to say I wouldn't. Not terrible but certainly disappointing. I wouldn't rush back in a hurry but would maybe try again in a few months to see if it has improved as it's a pub I really want to like!

The George, Northampton Road, Brixworth

www.thegeorgeatbrixworth.co.uk

Restaurant review: Dang's, Northampton

Restaurant review: Dang's Northampton

The best thing about buying Groupon deals for restaurants is that it gives you an opportunity to try out new places you might not have been to before - without the fear of paying over the odds for a meal. Once in a while you find a gem of a restaurant on Groupon and Dang's on Wellingborough Road in Northampton is exactly that.

The Groupon deal? A main course and a side dish for four people for £32 (or £19 for two people). A girl's night out on the cheap with some old work friends was on the cards! My friends had never had Vietnamese food before and I've only had it once or twice so it was a bit of a venture in to the unknown as we worked our way through the menu.

We shared the four main dishes between us so we all got to try a bit of everything. First up was the roast duck with bamboo shoots, spring onions, chilli and coriander. I'm not a huge duck fan (unless it's of the crispy variety!) but found this deliciously tender. 

My favourite dish of the four was the chicken breast with bamboo shoots and po ku mushrooms in lemongrass sauce - I could certainly have eaten the whole dish myself! The salmon with pak choi, spring onion, chilli and soy sauce came a close second to the chicken though - lovely and light and full of flavour.

For our fourth dish we decided to try a tofu dish - we were all tofu virgins but thought would give it a shot! And I was very pleasantly surprised - the lemongrass sauce was the star of the dish and worked really well with the tofu. Something I've never eaten but certainly would give another go.

Full price with the side dishes and mains our meal would have cost just short of £60. The Groupon deal made it just £32.

The big question is would I go back and pay full price? And the answer is a resounding yes - the food at Dang's was lovely and fresh with excellent flavours. And it all felt deliciously healthy so was very much eating out without the usual guilt factor!

Dang's, Wellingborough Road, Northampton

www.dangsnorthampton.co.uk