Category Blog

Live Below The Line: Day 2

amyrhall 1 Comment

Just a quick one tonight as my bed is calling me. Mainly sharing some things I have learnt today:

I am not fit. I used to be a lot less tired after cycling the amount I have today, but I think a combination of poor diet and lack of fitness means today has tired me out a bit.

Places look different in the day than in the night. I went to review a film for work (technically work and free for a review ticket so no rules broken – review to follow) which started at 8.30pm. Part of me wanted to stay around in town and avoid cycling home and back but I also thought most waiting around options would involve spending, or being tempted to spend so I took advantage of cycling back to drop of some stuff and have an hour to myself. I then proceeded to get lost at lest twice on the way to the cinema, met my friends in a sweaty mess. I thought I had the journey back nailed but then got really lost. I seemed to have missed a crucial turning so followed cycle route signs to Camberwell, the next biggish place I needed to be. Turns out, what I knew but seem to have forgotten tonight, that cycle routes are not always the most direct route but I got there in the end.

My sweet tooth is very demanding. Although I have been full most of the time over the last two days, I saw the person opposite me at work (also on Live Below the Line) tuck into a custard cream and realised that was what I was craving, some kind of sweet snack. So on my trip to the shop on the way home I got a pack of chocolate digestives and have already eaten four.

There are so many ways to do this challenge. After comparing motes at work people seem to have different, equally as good approaches. Some have gone for blandness over quantity whereas others are eating less but having more extravagant meals. Our web editor though seems to have an impressive stash partly thanks to scouring the shelves for things going cheap about to go out of date, including cheese which would normally blow a fair chunk of the budget. The competitiveness has set in though and he found himself having to prove over email that, yes he could get all that food for £3.50, photos and all.

Spending

Chocolate Digestives – 37p

Pitta Bread – 25p

One apple – 16p

Total spent: 78p

Non Live Below The Line Spending: £4.50 on a pack of tights

Food Eaten

Breakfast – apple and crumpet

Lunch – coleslaw in pitta bread and a packet of crisps

Mid Afternoon – packet of crisps

Dinner – left over pasta and coleslaw, two biscuits

Midnight snack – two biscuits

If you have some spare cash and want to sponsor me, you can visit my fundraising page here

Live Below The Line: Day 1

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When I woke up this morning I had a clear mission: to go to the supermarket and buy supplies for the next few days. I have £5 until the end of Friday but according to the Live Below The Line rules I can buy stuff at the beginning of the week to last. But I also didn’t want to get ahead of myself so didn’t want to max out my budget on the first day.

Today's Shop

I quickly realised that this week was basically going to be sponsored by Sainsbury’s Basics range, and was not going to be that healthy. I did however manage quite a stash of food, and although it doesn’t look hugely appetising it will hopefully keep me full.

The first bug event of the day was meeting a couple of friends for a Bank Holiday Monday picnic. Straight away they offered to provide me with some food which I declined (a little grudgingly) saying I would bring my own. Lucky for me they came to South East London from the West and North where they live; I was glad to escape lots of cycle miles for the day and also thankful that I lived in an area with a nice park to tempt them with. The picnic was very enjoyable and I chowed down on my coleslaw sandwiches and actually felt quite full by the end of it.

Dinner was surprisingly OK too – pasta, onions fried in margarine and tinned tomatoes. I ate with my flatmate whose dinner smelled amazing, a lovely looking lentil curry with chapati, but apparently it actually tasted horrible due to copious amounts of a disgusting smelling spice called asafoetida that she was accidentally too liberal with. She was actually a bit jealous of me…that is until she stewed up some rhubarb for pudding.

An early night is called for I think as tomorrow comes the big test: First day back at work after a break for Easter, I am going to have to avoid my usual coffee and chocolate cravings and resist and biscuits or cakes that pass under my nose. Luckily, as I work at Christian Aid’s head office, a lot of my colleagues will be joining me on the challenge

Also, I am starting to panic a bit as my quest for free transport means I will be cycling to work everyday as well as anywhere else I need to go and I am far from fit. Got a few things on tomorrow too so will be covering a fair few London miles. This should be interesting.

Spending

Crisps – 69p pack of 12 ready salted

Crumpets – 35p

Two packs of instant noodles – 10p each

Two tins of soup – 17p each

Coleslaw – 46p

Pasta – 9p (bargain of the day!)

Pitta Bread – 25p

Chopped tomatoes – 33p

Apples – 47p for 3

Onion – 9p

1/5 of a tub of margarine (I’ve weighed it out and everything) – 20p

Total spent: £3.47

Food Eaten

Breakfast – apple and crumpet with margarine

Snack – crisps

Lunch – coleslaw in pitta bread and more crisps

Dinner – pasta, onion and tinned tomatoes

If you have some spare cash and want to sponsor me, you can visit my fundraising page here

Live Below The Line: Day 0

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Tomorrow (Monday) I will be starting the Live Below The Line challenge, raising money for Christian Aid, and spending £1 a day or less on food and drink (apart from water), travel and socialising for five days.

One of the reasons Live Below The Line say they set the challenge is because they think it will allow “people in the Global North to better understand the daily challenges faced by those trapped in the cycle of extreme poverty.” The Extreme Poverty Line is defined as £1 a day.

Now, I am under no illusions that by spending £1 a day for just five days, while my rent and utility bills are still being paid, and I can go back to my normal life at any time, is anything like living on the Extreme Poverty Line. 1.4 billion people around the world have to live on this for all their needs, many of them have families to feed and live a lot more strenuous lifestyle than I do. I am never going to know what it is like and I am doing this by choice, not necessity. However, I do think that in a society where we consume so much, much more than our share, it is good to take a step back and take stock.

I also love challenges and, having done a similar challenge before, have been feeling pretty cocky. But last time I did this I was living a student life in Cardiff, a city a lot cheaper than London. I also had my fingers in a lot of pies and hung out with a lot of people who were also into alternative ways of living meaning meaning that through a sharing culture, volunteering, and group outings to skip food from bins, I managed to get a lot of free food anyway. At the moment, although I live on less than the London living wage, I am definitely not living so much of the free lifestyle, although it is something I would like to get back to.

Today I scouted out some prices and was pleasantly surprised at how cheap some food was when you looked for it. I could definitely feed myself for under £1 a day, it would be quite unhealthy but doable. But the pleasantness wore off as I started to question how shops managed to sell their bargain ranges so cheap. I’m sure someone is loosing out along the way, probably a lot of people. I’m going to have a lot to think about this week.

Keep checking the blog for updates throughout the week and a spending diary for each day.

If you have some spare cash and want to sponsor me, you can visit my fundraising page here.

Craftivist Stitch-Ins For Fair Fares: Please Support them :)

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I’m very excited to be going on the Railway Adventure on April 16. Here’s a blog from the Craftivist Collective on some stitch-ins and protest picnics happening at a station near you!

At 1pm on Saturday 10th April craftivists across the UK will join a nationwide protest to demand a halt to rail fare increases.  Currently the coalition Government plans to hike fares by 31% over the next 4 years. This is a huge issue and the Craftivist Collective would love you to support them.

The Craftivist Collective are supporting Climate Rush on the Railway Adventures campaign. Hundreds of craftivists (activists who protest using scissors, thread and fabric) will converge on railway stations across the UK for a super cute kitsch protest picnic and stitch-in.  They will be creating 4inch deep x 7inches wide fabric train coaches covered with statistics, facts, quotes and consumer views on our Government’s carbon-friendly transport policy, whilst drinking tea, eating jam sandwiches an

d talking about the issues. The various panels will be collated into a petition-train which will be taken on a Fair Fare Railway Adventure on Saturday 16th April.  It will be delivered to Philip Hammond MP (Minister for Transport) by direct action group: Climate Rush.

Sarah (Craftivist Collective) and Tamsin (Climate Rush) with their carriages

So far we there are craftivists coordinating stitch-ins in:

Brighton, Hastings, Coventry , Birmingham, Dorset,Leeds, Bristol, London, Manchester, Devon and Cornwall.

If you want to do coordinate a stitch-in near you please email craftivist-collective [at] hotmail dot com

They would love your support. Please join one of the pretty stitch-ins, set up your own or craft a carriage and post it to the Craftivist Collective before 15th April. You can find flyers, posters, content for our bunting petition, examples all here. They are also making an instructions video which will be available before end of March- watch this s

Philip Hammond MP, Secretary of State for Transport, said:

“Whether we like it or not, the ability to travel point-to-point on an individually-tailored timetable [i.e. in a car] is one of the great quality-of-life gains of the second half of the 20th century.”

Sarah Corbett, Founder of the Craftivist Collective, said:

“As the Craftivist Collective we are passionate about showing our love for local and global neighbours. These unfair fare increases will stop people using trains when we need help keeping our carbon footprints down. The increases will hit people living in poverty the most and stop them getting to their jobs and alienate them even more from society.

“Short-haul flights and cars shouldn’t be the cheapest most convenient option. Philip Hammond MP wants to hike fairs a massive 31% over the term of this Government. We’re here to demand fair fares and a sustainable alternative.”

On Saturday 16th April Craftivists with join Climate Rush on a Railway Adventure.  For more information please visit the Railway Adventure blog.

Ctrl.Alt.Podcast

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At last, after many months of deliberating the Ctrl.Alt.Shift Podcast is off the ground in conjuntion with the excellent SOAS Radio.

Episode one focuses on gender equality and was done for International Women’s Day which was on March 8.

Check it out at the SOAS Radio website.

Episode 2 should be out at the beginning of April and will centre on Tax Justice. We are hoping it will be bigger and better so watch this space.

New Radio Show!

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I have finally found a new radio home in London at Southside, a wicked youth community station available online – think I’m just about young enough! I’m going to be doing a weekly show, ‘A Bluffers Guide to Activism every Tuesday 6-7pm until Christmas.

More updates to follow here soon, am hoping to make it as interactive as possible so watch this space!

Also if you’re ‘young’ and involved in any campaigning or activism especially in London or nationally I would love to hear from you. Send me an email to amy.hall@live.co.uk, each show will be themed on a different issue and I will need loads of guests and interviews!