Below is my daily menu for the Live Below the Line Challenge. I’ll be having the same thing every day except Friday. That day I will have my breakfast meal twice and a burrito for dinner.
It looks like I didn’t do a very good job with my shopping. My daily calorie count is too low. In order to get enough calories I needed to buy food that was higher in fat and/or sugar. I will have a little bit of cereal and milk left over so I could add in a couple bowls of cereal somewhere.
Since I’m about 40-50 pounds overweight and the challenge is only for 5 days it wouldn’t be impossible to get by on this level of calories. That being said, I have full day continuing legal education classes on Wednesday and Friday. There will be free food provided there and I most likely will eat some of that free food. Doing so will mean I fail the challenge but I’m ok with that. If I can go Monday through Friday without spending anything on food I’ll feel like I accomplished something. For me the challenge is more about exerting a little self control over what I eat more than it is about seeing how little I can spend on food each day.
This menu may seem unhealthy to many of you, but it is actually healthier than what I usually eat. Compared to my usual diet of fast food, soda, chips and other junk food this menu isn’t that bad. Also, I will be having at least a little bit of fruit and vegetable each day which is not usually the case. This challenge does show that it is very difficult to eat healthy on such a low budget. Healthy foods such as vegetables just don’t have enough calories per dollar to make up much of a super low budget diet. I might use the knowledge gained from this challenge to do the challenge again next month and see if I can come up with a healthier menu that provides a higher number of calories.
So you need approximately 15 meals.
You can get a bag of lentils from Wal-Mart for $1, a Preggo sause for $1.50 and have about 6 meals. Buy one bread for $1.50 to go with it.
Get a dozen eggs for $1.50. Eat two eggs for lunch ( prepared anyway you like it) with the bread. That’s 6 meals
Get a pound or two of bananas = 50 cents/$1; This could be 3 – 6 bananas. This could mean a banana for breakfast every day. That is 3 – 6 meals
You would also have 50 cents/$1 left over for snacks. And we have 15 – 18 meals in total.
Thanks for the suggestions. I already bought my food for the challenge, but if I decide to do another challenge I will probably buy eggs and bananas. I might get dry beans or lentils too.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. I would have thought Pork & Beans would have more calories than that.
I would have thought they had more calories too. I definitely should have calculated the total calories from my food before I made my purchases.