Could you survive on £1 a day?

Emily Dunford discovers what it’s like to live below the line.

For £1 you can buy a packet of four Double Decker Bars. For some of us, the thought of buying and eating the entire pack in one sitting somewhere between lunch and dinner is totally normal.

But what if I told you that for £1 you could feed yourself for a day? £1 for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What if I told you that 1/7 of the world’s population are living on less than the equivalent of £1 per day, due to living under the international extreme poverty line? For these people, £1 has to stretch much further than the food bill, covering education, medical costs and much more. This might seem impossible for us to imagine – in the UK the average household spend is £489 per week alone.

1/7 of the world’s population are living on less than the equivalent of £1 per day

The international extreme poverty line is drawn at the equivalent of $1.25 in the US, calculated using Purchasing Power Parity. This is approximately £1 in the UK and scaled accordingly to different countries. 1.2 billion people live in extreme poverty. That’s roughly the same amount as the entire population of India. In Chad, Liberia and Haiti, 80 percent of people live below the poverty line. This is not something that’s confined to less economically developed countries though. Far fewer people in the UK live below the international extreme poverty line, but around 14 percent of the population live in relative poverty.

The Global Poverty Project have a vision to end extreme poverty by 2030. Their Live Below the Line campaign, now in its fifth year, raises money and awareness for 35 charities including Oxfam, Save the Children and Restless Development by encouraging people to spend £1 per day on food. Participant online profiles are set up with blogs and sponsorship links, making it easy to donate to the cause. In 2013, £822,628 was raised for these charities and as of May 24th 2014, £685,980.

The rules of the Live Below the Line challenge are relatively simple. Over five days, participants must only spend £5 on food and drink (tap water is free) and there is a cap of £1 per day, in accordance with the International Extreme Poverty Line. Accepting “freebies” is not allowed, but participants are encouraged to shop wisely to find discounts and cheap deals. With the exception of items commonly found in the cupboard, like spices, the whole price of a product must be taken into consideration. This means that you can’t bulk buy to reduce costs, so if you buy twelve eggs, they all have to be accounted for in the £5 budget.

Sounds like a lot of hassle right? It is. Although for those of us outside of poverty, who cannot possibly get a thorough understanding of what it’s like, the budgeting and penny-counting can give a slight idea. Rather than “playing at poverty” as critics have claimed, this is taking an active approach to engage in conversation about privilege and the allocation of resources in the world. This year, taking the Live Below the Line challenge for Oxfam, my meal plan consisted mainly of spaghetti with frozen vegetables, watered-down porridge and lentil soup.

I’ll try to give you as brief an account of my experience as I can, because the emotions and reflections that ran through me as I took the challenge could fill several pages. Day one was easy, although writing essays without the comfort of chocolate felt unnatural (my chocolate addiction is definitely becoming a problem). Day two was harder. Everyone seemed to be eating luxury cuisine, and I had to make do with lentil and courgette soup. The problem wasn’t that it lacked flavour, it was the lack of choice in general; in the UK, supermarkets can provide us with food at a very low cost but this often lacks the nutrients which the average adult needs to stay healthy. Hunger isn’t categorised as simply the quantity of food but also the quality- if you ate an unlimited amount of oats, you’d be full but not nourished.

my meal plan consisted mainly of spaghetti with frozen vegetables, watered-down porridge and lentil soup

On days three and four I had to turn down several offers of a pub lunch, which I would usually accept without a peek at my bank balance. There are very few truly free activities to allow people to socialise, and for those without funds, life can be extremely lonely. People in poverty have low access to goods and service, leading to exclusion from society as a whole. With these things to consider, it seemed selfish on day five to be thinking about what I’d be spending once the challenge was over. After all, for one in seven, living below the line is a permanent part of life. Looking ahead, I’m aiming to reduce food waste and consistently buy from sustainable sources which give workers a fair wage. Also, to get a better understanding of the issues, next year I’ll be living below the line for a month. If you allow yourself to be immersed in this challenge­, by researching extreme poverty and supporting the organisations working to put an end to it, it can change your life for the better.

Visit www.livebelowtheline.com to read more information and sign up to take the challenge alongside thousands of other people. The official Live Below the Line challenge week was April 28 – May 2 but the website will be open to new participants until June 30. Try it with a friend and pool your money together to make the challenge a little easier. Good luck and bon appetit!