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How to eat healthily on £1 a day

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#21

Post by jiggy2011 »

shubb wrote: post #3

The problem with this article is that a lot of things that are cheap for one serving go stale before you eat the second. For instance, on day one, he adds some mint which cost ~50p to buy, but he calls 1p because he only eats a little. He does not eat the rest of the mint that week, so it cost him ~50p, i.e. half the days budget. I am poor and eat very cheap. I do that using dry bulk foods and frozen veg. This is imp…

Entirely agree, when you are poor your biggest problem is not actually quantity of money. It's the flow of money.

So the problem is often not "I have £50 to plan food for the rest of the month" but "I have an unexpected expense and now I have £2 I found behind the sofa and a bare cupboard/fridge to feed myself until I get some more money".

I also found that when I am poor I am much more reluctant to go out and buy in bulk. Even though it would at least give me food enough to last, there's something scary about blowing your entire budget in one go.

If you are poor it is also harder to get to places that sell things cheaply in bulk (because perhaps you don't have a car) and you are more likely to get things from a corner store as needed where there is a higher markup on prices.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#22

Post by gnosis »

mtct wrote: post #17
cbhl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article also excludes the cost of electricity/gas to power the stove/microwave, the cost of water to cook e.g. pasta and clean the pans after, the cost of the pans amortized over your meals, the cost of plates and utensils... If someone else is paying utilities (say, your local university, or your landlord), and you already own kitchen equipment (say, hand-me-downs from your mum) perhaps this is a reasonable assu…

Actually, in first world, not even an homeless gain less than 2$ per day. So we can safely leave all the expenses for fuel and cookware out of the math.

If you think there aren't homeless people (and others) who don't gain any money at all, you are living in a fantasy world.

Some don't get $2, not even $1. Some are lucky to get $0 instead of losing money every day.

Sure, some homeless people get assistance from public or private sources, but many others are too mentally ill, depressed, or self-destructive to seek, find, or even accept aid (when aid is available, which it not always is).

And yes, these people do die of starvation, exposure, malnutition, illness, suicide, drug overdose, etc..

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#23

Post by coldarchon »

gnosis wrote: post #22
mtct wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, in first world, not even an homeless gain less than 2$ per day. So we can safely leave all the expenses for fuel and cookware out of the math.

If you think there aren't homeless people (and others) who don't gain any money at all, you are living in a fantasy world. Some don't get $2, not even $1. Some are lucky to get $0 instead of losing money every day. Sure, some homeless people get assistance from public or private sources, but many others are too mentally ill, depressed, or self-destructive to seek, find, or even accept aid (when aid is available, whic…

Sorry but I don't consider people who don't want to get help as homeless people. They have issues.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#24

Post by GigabyteCoin »

icebraining wrote: post #16
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the bbc article the woman's diet for day one consisted of: Breakfast: - one piece of toast and margarine (6p - cost of tea) - one cup of tea (6p - cost of toast - cost of margarine) - one "unethical" egg (8.7p) Lunch: - one ham sandwhich, presumably just bread and ham (29p) Snack: - one "value" scone with jam (6p) - one apple (free?) Dinner: (37p combined, I imagine there are some more "free" ingredients in here)…

Not sure where you bought that apple, but I'm pretty sure that's more expensive than a full kg an a grocery store.

It most certainly is. A kilogram of fresh apples costs $2 to $4 here in Canada. $1 if you can get it from an orchard. I was just trying to exemplify that Apples are not free.

When I paid $4 for that apple: it was the middle of winter in Paris, France. I was in a grocery store, or Paris' equivalent of one at least.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#26

Post by voidlogic »

rwmj wrote: post #6
shubb wrote: post #3

The problem with this article is that a lot of things that are cheap for one serving go stale before you eat the second. For instance, on day one, he adds some mint which cost ~50p to buy, but he calls 1p because he only eats a little. He does not eat the rest of the mint that week, so it cost him ~50p, i.e. half the days budget. I am poor and eat very cheap. I do that using dry bulk foods and frozen veg. This is imp…

If you're on a budget and you're buying fresh mint, then you're doing it wrong. Mint grows like a weed, in a patch of garden, or on a windowsill. Herbs like rosemary, thyme, mint, coriander, basil you should always be growing.

This is so true. We grow all those herbs in small pots. We also grow chives, beans, peppers, tomatoes and squash in a few medium sized pots and topsy turveys. No traditional garden needed.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#27

Post by shubb »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #21
shubb wrote: post #3

The problem with this article is that a lot of things that are cheap for one serving go stale before you eat the second. For instance, on day one, he adds some mint which cost ~50p to buy, but he calls 1p because he only eats a little. He does not eat the rest of the mint that week, so it cost him ~50p, i.e. half the days budget. I am poor and eat very cheap. I do that using dry bulk foods and frozen veg. This is imp…

Entirely agree, when you are poor your biggest problem is not actually quantity of money. It's the flow of money. So the problem is often not "I have £50 to plan food for the rest of the month" but "I have an unexpected expense and now I have £2 I found behind the sofa and a bare cupboard/fridge to feed myself until I get some more money". I also found that when I am poor I am much more reluctant to go out and buy in…

Yeah, this is an important point. When I said bulk, I meant £10 of stuff, rather than the massive quantities you can get from Amazon.

I think instant pay day loan companies like Wonga have done a lot for the cash flow problem. Personally, I've never used them, but if you have a bill and need to avoid a £50 late penalty, you can get a $100 loan at 1% interest a day, which is a brilliant value proposition if payday is a week away. I've seen a lot of criticism of these companies, but I think it's from people who don't understand the problem.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#28

Post by hexonexxon »

cbhl wrote: post #11
shubb wrote: post #3

The problem with this article is that a lot of things that are cheap for one serving go stale before you eat the second. For instance, on day one, he adds some mint which cost ~50p to buy, but he calls 1p because he only eats a little. He does not eat the rest of the mint that week, so it cost him ~50p, i.e. half the days budget. I am poor and eat very cheap. I do that using dry bulk foods and frozen veg. This is imp…

The article also excludes the cost of electricity/gas to power the stove/microwave, the cost of water to cook e.g. pasta and clean the pans after, the cost of the pans amortized over your meals, the cost of plates and utensils... If someone else is paying utilities (say, your local university, or your landlord), and you already own kitchen equipment (say, hand-me-downs from your mum) perhaps this is a reasonable assu…

true, I also don't like these articles when the guy magically has a rice cooker, strainer, pots/pans and all cooking utensils ready to go.

these articles should be done starting in a single room occupancy hotel with a hot plate and nothing else, because that's what you get when you are poor: nothing.

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#29

Post by everyone »

shubb wrote: post #3

The problem with this article is that a lot of things that are cheap for one serving go stale before you eat the second. For instance, on day one, he adds some mint which cost ~50p to buy, but he calls 1p because he only eats a little. He does not eat the rest of the mint that week, so it cost him ~50p, i.e. half the days budget. I am poor and eat very cheap. I do that using dry bulk foods and frozen veg. This is imp…

Yeah youre right. This article is total BS. He is not actually living on that amount of money

Re: How to eat healthily on £1 a day

#30

Post by EliRivers »

cbhl wrote: post #13
dobbsbob wrote: post #8

A loaf of bread where I live is $4. Blew his daily budget with one purchase. Cant buy single eggs even from a local farmers market here so thats another $4-6. Cheese is probably the most expensive item at $10. If you bought everything this guy ate youre looking at $60 or so and it will last about 5 days, which is 7gbp per day. Must be cheap food in the UK

The trick to the author's math is this: A loaf of bread has, say, 24 slices in it. If you ate two of them, then the cost of bread was that day $0.34, when you amortize the loaf of bread over twelve days. If you can find a $2 loaf of bread with 24 slices, it's only about $0.08 for a slice of bread. But yes, I agree -- if you actually had to maintain this budget, you'd probably buy one kind of breakfast, lunch, and din…

Here's a loaf from Tesco for fifty pence (seventy-seven US cents). Looks like twenty or so slices, so call it 2.5 pence per slice; about four cents a slice.

http://www.tesco.com/groceries/Product/Details/?id=262358089

As I recall, however, you have to be quick. The cheapest bread tends to vanish from the shelves within minutes of being put out.

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