Living Below the Line Starts Tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the Live Below the Line Challenge.  As I stated in a previous post this is a charity driven campaign that BzzAgent invited both Mace and I too participate in.  Now we are by no means rich and frankly I try to maintain a strict meal budget all the times since we live so far away from a grocery store (130 miles away) but this is going to put my best week's budgeting successes to the test.  Each of us has $1.50 ($7.50 total for the whole week) to spend on each day's meals.  Granted because we are doing this as a couple it makes it a bit easier because cooking for two or more people is always easier than cooking for only one. 

So yesterday Mace and I spent an hour or so figuring out our meals, breakfast, lunch dinner, and drinks that would total under $3.00 for the both of us for every day the challenge is going on.  We've come up with some great and interesting ideas but I have a feeling its going to be easier for me to stick to the plan than it is for Mace.  One of the things we cut out for him for the week was Pepsi and switched him to drinking water which is something he absolutely hates.  I'm the kind of person that prefers water and end up drinking quite a bit each and every day.  Hopefully he wont go through caffeine withdrawals over this.  He's also a snacker which isn't going to work unless we plan for it.  Right now I have a about $2.75 left in our combined $14.00 total for the week so it'll give him a little wiggle room.

But the main thing is that I'm really looking forward to this campaign challenge because I think it will give more people an idea of how hard it really is to survive these days.  Groceries are horribly overpriced and there are a lot of people who aren't working right now so the poverty line is becoming more familiar to people that once never had to think about budgeting for anything let along a simple necessity such as food.  So please if you really want a challenge take this one up or at least donate a little something to a few of the charities participating in the Live Below the Line program.