Final thoughts on my live below the line challenge

It's 5h30 on Friday afternoon and I'm close to finishing the challenge.

My final thoughts:
- surviving on $7.50 a week is tough, tougher than I thought it would be
- i had underestimated the impact on my emotional health - you need more food than this to feel good
- it was a great way to raise money, almost 2000 dollar so far!
- i'm so grateful for being able to go back to "normal" and will keep those in mind who don't have that luxury
- we had a great team in Cincinnati, it was so powerful to come together to do this

See you next year...!

Live below the line - Day 3 pain

Day 3 is definitely the worst day so far...

- hard to get up
- feeling weak
- somehow have this idea that I can't eat anything so even when I'm eating my carrot at 4pm for a second I think I'm cheating and am not supposed to eat... (yeah...)

but on the positive side:
- ramen noodles are surprisingly delicious after 2 days of beans and rice
- I'm still going strong, haven't cheated!
- having lunch with the below the line colleagues is encouraging: other people are as grumpy as I feel :)

Live below the line - day 2

It's 9pm on day 2 and here are my observations for the past 2 days

- tap water in Covington tastes really really bad
- people are surprised to see that I can get a full plate of rice, beans and 4 taco shells for less than 1.50 a day
- i'm not really hungry, but more bored with what to eat. very excited about switching to ramen noodles tomorrow for lunch!!
- having a snack was a good idea, i get excited about eating my carrot around 4 pm :)
- my stomach doesn't really hurt but feels like it's shrinking
- your social life pretty much disappears when you don't have money to eat (wanna go for dinner? errrm, no...)
- best idea is to have lunch at your office with other people doing the challenge to encourage each other. today i had a lunch meeting with pizza and it was pretty hard sitting there on my own eating my beans and rice
- i'm glad i don't usually drink coffee, it seems tough for the caffeine-lovers out there!

My dinner tonight was exactly the same as yesterday... but tomorrow I get ramen for lunch and carrots with the rice and tacos for dinner....!

Living below the line this week

So this week I'm living below the line: surviving on $1.50 a day for food and drinks for 5 days... Right now I'm at the end of day one...

You can follow my adventures on my live below the line blog and also support me and my team there: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/me/louisedejager 

Thank you!

Louise