Day two: Moving day

The most delicious peas in the world

Two movers arrived almost 20 minutes early. There was no time for breakfast, but I woke up without hunger and didn't want to make the same mistake I had made on day one by jump-starting my metabolism with a few bites of food.

I corralled my angry, angry cat into her harness and carrier. I pulled all my carefully measured "challenge food" together. We packed up odds and ends, directed the movers, and helped load things up. I don't think I could have done it on my own. My brain was too foggy and I was distracted by the cries of my cat. Even though I wasn't hungry, I was noticeably weak. Boxes I had packed myself and carted from room to room a few days prior were too heavy for me to lift. My boyfriend was invaluable. He jumped in and took charge. An hour later we were on the road. Saturday morning traffic in Los Angeles was very kind, and I made it to my new place in only 35 minutes, with my cat howling and crying the entire car ride. Eating so little has brought my emotions very close to the surface. Listening to my cat cry made me cry, twice. Hunger started to kick in at the end of the car ride.

Another hour and a half, and our stuff was in the new place. At 10:45am I sat on the floor of my new bedroom, with my (now quiet) cat hiding under the bed, and I ate: one portion of peas cooked with salt and oil. The portion is 1 cup and costs $0.38. I planned to eat the whole thing, but felt sated halfway through. I saved the second half and ate it a few hours later. This is clearly the hunger talking, but these are the most delicious peas I have ever eaten! I planned to heat them up with carrot, onion, and water for a soup, but I was so hungry and tired, that I ate them cold on their own. And they were DELICIOUS! Someone try this recipe and tell me if I'm crazy:

2 C dried green split peas

1 Tbs salt

1 Tbs canola oil

water for cooking

Cook until peas are tender but not mushy, about 2 hours.

Because I've only eaten one portion of peas for $0.38, I've got $1.12 available for the rest of the day. I think my stomach shrunk, because I'm handling today much better than yesterday.

No internet at my new place though, so I'll have to post when I can!

I hope the next time I log in, I find I've reach my goal of raising $1,000 to help lift women out of extreme poverty. If you haven't already, I hope you'll help my get there by forking over some cash: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/claire

-Selfish Blogger

End of day one

Here's I how I ended my first day of the Live Below the Line challenge:

I finished the second half of my lunch (brown rice and tofu vegetable soup) around 6:30pm. I felt energized, ready to take on the world. Though not full, I wasn't hungry, and It was a glorious feeling. But I knew it wouldn't last. The last of my food for the day was gone, and I had a Dodger game and night of packing ahead of me.

When we got to the stadium, my boyfriend suggested we take the escalator instead of the stairs so I could conserve my energy. I agreed. Once we met up with our friends and found our seats, I declined offers of food and used the opportunity to talk about the challenge - many of them had already read my blog. My best friend took the challenge earlier this month. The hardest thing for her was the monotony - eating the same food over and over. It made her feel nauseous, and at some meals she chose to eat more-expensive variety and experience hunger, rather than eat the same beans again. We talked about the comfort of knowing that the lack of proper nutrition will only last for five days, and how unfair that is. What if you had no end date?

Dodger tickets are $5, but this meal cost $17.50

My boyfriend bought a veggie dog, pretzel, and bottle of water for the totally reasonable price of $17.50. I would have loved to indulge with him, but I refrained.

$17.50. 35 meals.

Midway through the game I started to feel hunger creep back in. By 10:30pm my stomach was growling and I was feeling weak. Once we got home, it was time to pack. By the time we went to bed after 1:00am, I was passed hunger - in that place where I had been so hungry for so long that the physical feeling of wanting to eat wasn't there. The movers would arrive first thing in the morning. A day of hard work and hunger ahead…

I think the only thing that kept me going today was my sponsors. Friends and family have all chipped in to move me toward my fundraising goal - and almost half the money I've raised so far came in today - on day one of the challenge. I couldn't have imagined how much inner strength I'd need to get through this, and the support of friends and family has made the difference.

Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for helping end extreme poverty in our generation. And thank you to everyone who will join us: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/claire


-Selfish Blogger

Lunch Fail!

Lunch and dinner from my fav Thai place

Well, my plans were foiled when my lovely staff decided to buy me lunch for our last day in the office all together. I would have used it as an outreach opportunity, by refusing the lunch and explaining why I'm "living below the line", then asking for financial contributions instead of a lunch out. But one of my staff had an extreme, violent tragedy in her family 36 hours ago, and this just didn't feel like the best time to discuss "the less fortunate."

So I graciously accepted lunch, but said I felt like a light meal. I ordered a cup of tofu vegetable soup and side of brown rice to stay as true to the challenge as possible. I decided to eat half and save the second half for dinner. This would absorb the remaining $1.15 budget for the day. The actual meal cost almost $7.

By 12:30pm when we ate, I was so so hungry. Breakfast didn't fill me up, and I drank lots of water in the hours leading up to lunch to stave off hunger as much as I could. I probably could have finished my entire lunch, but I ate until my hunger was sated and set the second half aside.

By 4:00pm when I left work, I was experiencing all the terrible-ness that comes with hunger: stomach pains, light-headedness, lack of focus, weakness, and a less-than-chipper attitude toward the world. I told myself I could eat when I got home. I left work two hours early.  Driving home I kept thinking "I'm doing this wrong. I shouldn't be hungry. I'm doing this wrong." But then another voice in my head said "No, you're doing this right. This is what it feels like to go without."

It is easy to forget how painful hunger can be when you never experience it yourself, and my closest experience to real hunger is through fiction. Katniss Everdeen talks about "hollow days" in The Hunger Games - days when, no matter how much you eat, you can never get full. Harry, Hermione, and Ron quickly learn that a good meal means good spirits, and hunger means bickering and worse in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I have fasted before, but during time off when I would rest and read and take long baths and enjoy the garden - not in the middle of moving and changing jobs! I need all the energy I can muster.

Even in this challenge, I'll never know true hunger. I'm nibbling on the second half of my lunch/dinner as I type (it's how I'm managing to spit our mostly-coherent sentences). Tomorrow, I will have more to eat. One day of being sort of hungry and I'm falling apart. Pathetic. To people who live on less every single day of their lives, I am a spoiled, pampered girl who has never faced hardship.

Help those who do face hardship, every day of their lives: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/claire


-Selfish Blogger

Second breakfast

Bonus tofu, you were surprisingly tasty

That 1/8 cup of oatmeal didn't come close to filling me up. I was actively hungry after finishing my meager breakfast. So rather than head to work hungry, I fried up some tofu - about 2 oz - with a tablespoon of oil and a pinch of salt. The tofu, oil and salt cost $0.18. Add to that my $0.17 oatmeal, and breakfast cost $0.35. I wouldn't call myself full, but I'm not as hungry. $1.15 left for snacks and meals the rest of the day.

I understand now why so many people in extreme poverty go without breakfast. I wasn't terribly hungry before I ate my oatmeal. I probably could have made it through a few hours without needing to eat. But once I ate that little bit of grain, my stomach started working and it wanted much more than I had to feed it. I suck at being poor. Being poor sucks.

Help end extreme poverty. Donate: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/claire


-Selfish Blogger

Meal one below the line

Breakfast for 17 cents: 1/8 C dry steal cut oats, cooked.

Breakfast is 1/8 cup dry steel cut oats and a sprinkling of sugar. Well, the plan was to add sugar. I left out the sugar because I'm worried I'll need those few pennies to buy extra food. The steel cut oats cook up to about 1/4 cup of grain. My goodness that looks like a small amount of food! What if I didn't set aside enough food for the challenge? For ten meals, I only planned on four cups dried lentils/peas, a pound of tofu, and a few veggies. Is that enough? I have no idea!

My colleague asked "Is there a way to do this challenge without going hungry?" I thought there was - I still think there is - but my first breakfast is making me worry that I wasn't smart enough to make sure I have adequate food.

In the months leading up to Live Below the Line I was careful to track my food spending, but I never paid attention to how much I actually eat! I guess we'll see how the first day goes. I left a little wiggle room in my daily budget: $0.11. I was hoping to spend it on half a piece of fruit. I might need to spend it on something a little heartier...

Remember: Live Below the Line is a fundraiser to end extreme poverty. Do your part and contribute today. https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/claire


-Selfish Blogger

How to live on $1.50 a day

Most of my food for the next 5 days

The Live Below the Line Challenge takes lots of planning. The challenge is designed to raise funds and awareness toward ending global poverty, by asking folks to feed themselves below the extreme global poverty line of $1.50 a day.

One rule of the challenge is you cannot accept donated food. This is the reason I'm starting the challenge a few days earlier than everyone else - I'm in process of changing jobs, and my coworkers have planned goodbye lunches and parties for me. So I've scheduled my 5 days of modest eating between celebrations full of food.

The most common response I heard when asking friends to join me in living below the line was "let me check my schedule". Cooking everything from scratch and carefully checking prices to stay within budget takes a lot of time. What luxury we live in, that we can choose whether or not to live frugally. Adjusting my schedule to fully participate in my goodbye celebrations means I'll be eating on $1.50 while I move from my house to an apartment on the other side of Los Angeles. I'm going to be hungry and tired. Who wants to cook on moving day?! I can already feel my empathy growing for those people working hard labor jobs while eating very little.

So, what will I be eating for the next 5 days? Here's my grocery list:

1 Onion - $.50
15 oz tofu - $0.98
1/2 head of cabbage from the soon-to-expire shelf - $0.45
2 carrots - $0.20
2 cups dried split peas - $1.46
2 cups lentils - $1.33

That comes to $4.92, or almost $1 a day. That leaves me with $0.50 per day for seasonings, a little oatmeal or rice for breakfast, and maybe half a piece of fruit as a snack. I've set aside the following for a little added flavor:

10 Tbs Canola oil (2 Tbs per day) - $.50
5 Tbs salt (1 Tbs per day) - $0.15
5 Tbs sugar (1 Tbs per day) - $0.50

That will put me at $1.22 per day. I can squeeze in 1/8 cup steel cut oats for breakfast ($0.17) with $0.11 to spare. Maybe I can indulge in 1/2 a banana.

I'm going to start cooking so I have pea soup ready to eat tomorrow. Stay tuned!


-Selfish Blogger

Preparing to Live Below the Line

Next month, I'll be taking the Live Below the Line challenge (which I blogged about earlier this month). It means feeding myself on the global poverty line of $1.50 per day for 5 days.

To prepare, I've been tracking my food spending for the last month or two. The last time I tracked my food spending closely was in 2005 and 2006, when I was fresh out of college and making about $18,000 a year. Back then I was spending about $25 a week on food. There was hardly a packaged item in my house. The freezer was empty, except for portions of soup that I'd make from scratch in large batches. Meals were based around lentils, beans, dried peas, potatoes, rices, and pastas. The fresh vegetables I could afford were primarily cabbage, carrots, and onions.

Today, I'm spending two or three times as much on food: $50-75 a week. I admit, I was a little surprised my spending was that high. But it is easy to look around my kitchen and see why. My freezer is stocked full of cheese-less pizza, Gardein chickin' fingers, veggie potstickers, and coconut ice-cream. My pantry contains not just modest dried goods that cost $0.99/lb, but fancy french lentils, heirloom beans, and a rare Italian grain called farro that sell for $4.50/lb at Whole Foods. Raw nuts and dried fruits at $7-10/lb are in stock, and at least three different kinds of non-dairy milk. I see a few avocados, which cost $0.50 each on a good day, but up to $2 a piece if you aren't paying attention.  I see chips and crackers and chocolate bars. Those were $2-4 a package. Add in a $10 restaurant lunch during the work week... yup $50-75 makes sense. But how unnecessary.

I don't remember feeling deprived when I was eating on $25 a week. I'm not exactly sure why I drifted from that life-style, except that I was living without cable or internet back then, and I hadn't established a group of friends in the area. All that free time meant I was happy to prep lots of food from scratch - it's not like I had anything better to do. If I avoided Hulu and Facebook, I bet I could pull it off again. But I'm lazy and I have the extra cash. So I've been making the selfish choice to spend far more on food than I need.

But even at $25 a week, I was still way above the global poverty line. The money I use to spend on food for the day will need to stretch to cover 10 meals during the challenge.

I've got some planning to do...


-Selfish Blogger

P.S. You can donate through my Live Below the Line page here.