Live Below The Line: eve

When I was eleven I signed up to do the forty hour famine. These were in the days before you could simply make donations online and had social media to help you. In my primary school years I struggled with weight and self image. I would be the last person to consider giving up food - and it's not like these days where you just give up Facebook or technology or chocolate - back then you gave up food and nobody asked questions about it.

I remember planting myself out in front of my Mum's workplace on a brown bench held together by two yellow concrete slabs in the shape of 'lions', decorated with home made signs about sponsoring me to do the forty hour famine. People would come and ask me what it was all about and I would tell them what I was doing. Even as a fat eleven year old with an addiction to junk food I knew that there were people less fortunate than me and I wanted to help them. As an eleven year old I didn't understand that there were administration costs, I just fundraised and there were no questions asked.

A decade and a half later I am a mother, and while I'm coming to terms with this new identity that I've taken up, I have made a decision to do more to help people some how. While I don't have the money to get on a plane and feed the hungry physically, there are things I can still do. And while I've tried to promote and get excited about Live Below the Line of course there had to be some comments about what I was doing on a Facebook photo (sometimes I hate Facebook) and generally gave me the gist that what I was doing wasn't worth while. That living on $2 a week is not going to help anybody.

While the act of living on $2 is not going to generally help anybody, and just like fasting food for 40 hours doesn't do much in itself, it's the greater awareness that makes a difference. This is in no way a detox. In no way do I think this will be easy. In no way is my food going to be incredibly super healthy. But this is something we value in our family. Children won't ask cynical questions like how much is going to fund a fancy office in Southbank. Children will make real connections with what you do. And as much as I could sit quiet about what I'm about to do and let it pass by, then how would other people ever see what I'm up to and feel inspired?

I think this guy knocks it on the head:

(yes I realise Live Below The Line is with the Oaktree foundation, I just like the point Tom puts across).

So anyway, cynical Facebook comments aside, today was shopping day! It was actually a lot of fun because Hendrik was as excited about it as I was. Luke wasn't though. Luke despises food shopping.

We walked around with my Note 2 in my hand and wrote down all of the things we bought and the costs. We were in the nut aisle when we realised we were $2 over budget. I sadly put the mixed nuts back and bought some mandarins with the extra $1.70 we had. It was actually really a mathematical challenge, one that I can see us valuing throughout the years as Luke grows older and we can teach him the value of money and then link it with greater world issues.

I carefully positioned the groceries in the shopping trolley, stuck my bottom out like a true posing instagrammer and huzzah:

All with 25c to spare. But damn we forgot eggs! Oh well, that's the weight of our negligence. I think next year I want to be way more strategic about this.

There's still time to join or support me: Click Here!

Live Below The Line: T-minus 2 days

I'm planning what I'm going to feed our family for our budget of $20 for the week this morning. I'm writing down ideas on a page of lined paper from an old uni notebook that I have kept since 2007. I feel really overwhelmed by the challenge set before me. Living on $2 is not unrealistic, but it is definitely going to be a challenge, particularly because I am going to have to work through withdrawals from sugar and caffeine.

I initially was going to budget an extra $10 and include Luke. Although it isn't a lot more to add, I just feel overwhelmed by the prospect of putting him under any pressure. We are currently battling with him and food, as he thinks he is a vegetarian, eating no meat, or vegetables. Yet he loves his fruit, yogurt and breast milk. We're exploring other ways for him to get some protein into his diet.

So at this stage in the game, I think it would be unfair to include Luke in Live Below the Line, but at the same time it has challenged my thinking: people battling poverty wouldn't just say, "oh, Luke, it's okay if you don't want to eat this, I'll buy you this instead" - there isn't money to do that. People in poverty wouldn't just throw food away because it's a failed attempt of him eating it. People in poverty don't often have the nutrition to breastfeed effectively. People in poverty don't have the choice of, oh he can't choose whether he wants to participate in it or not. He would just have to. But nonetheless I think I will save Luke's live below the line for when he can appreciate it.

In the meantime I'm still trying to comprehend how I will cope in the next week. I'm afraid I won't make the week, but I'm going to give it a red, hot go. I've also got to live through mothers group and MOPS, one of which includes the Biggest Morning Tea which I can't participate in if I fully pledge myself to $2 a day. (Donated food is 'not allowed'). But I think part of this challenge is kind of like the 40 hour famine, in that you are missing out on a way of living we take for granted in the west. It's more than just raising money, you are actually experiencing a piece of what it's like to live below the line. Support me?

Donate/join me: 

www.livebelowtheline.com.au/lovelifeluke

Live Below the Line: Team LoveLifeLuke

Hello friends,

Here's a picture of me in a Hoodie hiding most of my face due to coming down with my yearly Autumn snuffles and looking gross. But really, don't pay any attention to my hoodie, pay more attention to what I'm holding. 

From May 6th to 10th I will be living below the poverty line on $2 a day. Yes, that means my daily coffee of $3.50 will have to cease for 5 days.

Live Below The Line is organised by the Oaktree Foundation to fundraise funds for extreme poverty in unreached places, as well as raise awareness about how we spend our money and how much we have to be grateful for. I'll be tackling this by meal planning (because that's my thing now) and, yes, you will get the recipes I will come up with - Take that Curtis Stone, and your 'feed for your family for $10'.

The inspiration came from not only picking up this postcard as I was roaming around like a snot bag in the city on Saturday, but also because I feel incredibly passionate about this. My passion for social justice on a world wide scale has been driven by a book I'm reading and a journal I'm reflecting on and seeing that I don't have the resources to be physically making a difference over where it's needed, I'm going to do what I can with what I have. I also want to make a value out of this that I can pass on to my kiddlets as they grow older.

And here comes the next bit - I want you to get involved. I have set up a team called LoveLifeLuke. You can get involved in two ways:

1) You can donate to our team - who get's none of the money by the way - it's all for the people who NEED it.
2) You can become a part of our team.

Anybody who becomes a part of our team, or donates any amount of money, be it 50c or $500, I will personally POST you a thank you given that you supply me with an address anywhere in the world. Promise!

Our target is a humble $400. Can you help? Will you take the challenge with me?