Man vs Veggie

Welcome to our Live Below the Line challenge 2018! We will be living on £1 a day for 5 days to raise funds for BCDP.

Barnsley Churches Drop-in Project is a local charity which helps provide hot food, clothing and toiletries to those in need in Barnsley. I volunteered for them for several years and it's a really fantastic place filled with love and care. I have heard time and time again people tell me they don't think they'd still be alive if it wasn't for that place, so it's certainly worth a little hardship for us to help the charity continue it's work, and hopefully you'll think it worth sponsoring us!

I really enjoy writing the blog while we do this challenge. It gives me a focus, and an outlet for the emotion which inevitably accompanies it. So thank you for joining me, and I hope you feel inspired in some way by what we're doing. To donate, to volunteer, even to shop and eat in a more considered way.

So, the challenge!! This year there is an exciting twist, we're splitting the money between the boys and the girls! I was complaining that 25% of our budget was going on meat which neither Sophie nor I would eat. Les reckoned he could easily feed him and Matt on £10 and spend half on meat. Game. On!

As it's the bank holiday it would be nice to get the shopping done early, so we wrote the shopping list on Thursday night. Les didn't find it quite as easy as he thought he would but after lots of swaps and recalculations he got their total to £9.99. Pretty darn close! He's still lacking fruit for Matt (at the moment he's having cucumber instead) and celery which he'd really like for bolognaise, somehow I'm tasked with finding these for the remaining 1p... let's hope I can find some veg aisle reductions!

The girls on the other hand, have a pretty comprehensive menu for the bargain price of £7.57. It features lots of soup. I decided that if we have a mug of veg soup after school that should help fill Sophie up a bit and get some goodness into her, so if the tea isn't that healthy it doesn't matter as much. I'm feeling fairly confident. But then I always do before we get going! And I'm super enjoying the fact that I can buy biscuits and Les can't! I know I'll end up subsidising them, and I should have learnt by now it's never as smooth sailing as I think it'll be, but I think we're going to be ok. Food prices have gone up though and previous years I've managed to include crisps and biscuits for kids pack ups. This time I'm resigned to the fact that it might be a bit crap for them too rather than trying to fully cushion them. They won't starve, but the food might be a bit uninspiring.

I know we've not started yet, but I promise we will, so if you want to sponsor us the link is - www.mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/kateraynor2018 incredibly we've already received £70, which is amazing!