Health comes first

I am sad to say that yesterday was my last day on $1.25 (USD)/day.

I had always said that I would put my health first, and that is the decision that I made yesterday as I began to feel that this challenge had become a hindrance on my day-to-day work and life. I had zero-to-no energy, I have had an onset of the flu, I was getting pain in my eyes whenever I would focus for long periods, I had lost about 5kg's in 3 weeks and I felt that I couldn't think constructively at work... all in all it was time to stop.

Starting this 4 week challenge has ended up being such a worldly decision to make, I had gained so much from it (including lethargy and the flu!) - the concept of $1.25/day really is extreme to me now. I would say that it is almost unlivable. Whilst I could consume enough energy to get through each day; I was unable to consume the food that could provide me with the right nutrients for my health and growth.

I will write a more detailed summary of my diet and nutritional failures later. However, I would happily say that removing 1.4 billion people from extreme poverty and to be living above 1.25/day is only scratching the surface of the challenge that faces our generation.

Shall I quit?

I feel lethargic...
I constantly are getting headaches...
I feel a flu coming on...
BUT I don't want to give up.

It has been 3 weeks since I started living on $1.25/day, and it has been a really hard test for me. My life has been extremely different whilst living on $1.25/day - only eating 2 meals a day, really missing flavours and really struggling for energy and concentration to get by day-to-day.

I have committed myself to make it through to next Sunday... however I feel that my work might start to lose out. Over the coming day I am tossing up whether or not to re-assess this last week.

Would love to hear your thoughts - enquiries@globalpovertyproject.com

Finding Opportunity

Hi all,

All is going well on the eating front, I had a tough few days as work took me to Sydney (all travel costs are bared by GPP). I was however left in a quandary on Tuesday night, as I finally took my first piece of charity on this month journey.

I caught up with my sister (who is studying in Sydney) for dinner and she insisted that she buy me dinner for the night. My dinner was a basic Pad See Ew (see picture) which cost $10 - almost my total weekly expenditure!

I was in Sydney to meet with Opportunity International - a ground breaking micro-credit organisation. They are changing millions of lives across the world through providing access to micro-credit and subsequent basic services around micro-credit.

The trip up to Sydney and my visit to Opportunity International really got me thinking about the advantages we have in our society to follow our dreams. If I really was living on $1.25/day there would be no way that I would have access to the opportunities that I do.

People living on $1.25/day really have limited access to opportunities and choice. If I think past the challenge of getting a sufficient food etc I have so many other opportunities outside living on 1.25/day.

I guess to really achieve my desired objective and fully understand the plight of the poorest of the poor, I would have to live in a rural village in Africa with no support at all. I would have to cut all lifelines and forget everything I know from my 17 years of education.

Sounds crazy.... but watch this space :)

A crazy weekend... however I am still kicking

Firstly, I apologise for the avid readers (yes - it also surprised me too that they exist) as I have been actually enjoying time away from my computer. To be honest I was doing my tax, which equals cleaning my room and finding my receipts.

The weekend was tough... not overly on the food front... just the curve balls that were thrown my way.

1) Football vs Dinner: finding time to eat twice a day shouldn't be too much of an issue, right? hmmm, not for me! With tickets to both of the AFL semi-finals on last weekend (purchased pre-crazy idea) I found myself not able to eat til after 10pm both Friday and Saturday night. The smell of a meat pie has never been so saddening.

2) House party: My flat mate had his birthday party at our house on Saturday. The food and drink available was even more saddening than the meat pies at the footy. Whilst everyone was throwing back the beer and wine, I was chugging down my 80 proof tap water. I called it a night just after midnight, being a grandpa and going to bed whilst the music pumped on into the early morning. The hardest part of this party was that my flatmate woke up and cooked himself the most tantalising hungover breakfast ever!

3) Another Flat tyre: Yes, it has happened again. I was on my way to a friends place for a few beverages (read: tap water) and my back tyre started hissing at me again. I had to pull over and walk my bike back home and break my rules again and drive to my friends house - this event saw me being over 30 min late to her place.

Apart from those few events, things are going well. I do feel a bit more lethargic, I am getting sick of oats, pasta and egg, and I AM CRAVING ANY FORM OF FLAVOUR...

But I had some big wins on the budget front (excusing the fact I drove 3 times!). These included:

- I ate less than I had planned for... ok, I know this is probably a bad thing, but it has given me some more money to spend on healthier and flavoursome items.

- Baked beans were 10c/can cheaper this week (may sound little, but this is giving me 5c/dinner more to spend of things with flavour!)

- Spinach is in the garden!!!! (5yo Richard would never have thought he would be celebrating that front!)

That is all from me tonight... thanks for supporting me through the first week.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day as I fly off for a day's work in Sydney - we have a really exciting partnership forming up there!!! Wish me lunch and that I have energy for those meetings :)

What does $1.25 mean?

In the presentation we talk about USD$1.25 - and it is this section where we refer to it being worth 2 bowls of rice with vegitables in Indonesia that got me thinking about how I really didn't understand what living on so little meant.

I have lived in the slums of Dhaka for part of my time living in Bangladesh. There I was surrounded by families whom were living on less than this figure developed by the World Bank . The figure of a dollar was developed a few decades ago as a representation of the average global costs (in US terms) for consuming enough food to get by. More recently this has increased to an average cost of USD$1.25.

It has even been through my experiences and understanding of extreme poverty that I do not fully understand the plight of 1.4bn people in our world and I found myself walking through my local Coles supermarket (note: commercial plug for my sponsors!)

So what can a man buy in Fitzroy Coles??? (note: second plug - they better give me a good deal on the rotten bananas next time)

Answer: A lot more than he thought he could buy for that!

Whilst it was a positive to find I could buy more than I thought... It still ain't much.

In my true nerdy fashion I have created a spreadsheet to work out what is the best combination of foods that I could come up with that would: 1) keep me healthy and 2) keep me from being hungry. This is what I came up with:

Breakfast:
Oats - 71.5g @ $1.19/900g
Skim Milk - 333ml @ $3.99/10L (powdered)
Sugar - 33g @ $0.89/kg

Dinner:
Baked Beans - 210g @ $0.69/420g
Pasta - 142g @ $0.59/500g
Egg - 1x @ $2.39/dozen
Frozen Vegies - 142g @ $1.59/kg

Overall I am spending about a dollar a day on this food... the rest of the money I will be using to buy fresh veg to keep healthy.

Have a look at these photos of my yummy dinner for last night:

First Morning - First Rule Broken!

So... 3 hours, that is what I was able to last before breaking my rules!

After all the planning - the spreadsheet breakdown, the discussions with doctors, the nutrition analysis and the last supper (a massive Mongolian beef dish - no rice of course!); I couldn't last more than 3 hours!

I had settled down to my first 100g's of oats for breakfast and gouged myself with the biggest breakfast ever and then I quickly had to run off to an early meeting. Grabbing my bike, I was off for my zero cost ride to work... until I saw the flat tire!! BAH!

Knowing that I would be late for my 9am meeting, I weighed up the option to walk to work and decided to break my first rule and drive :(

All is going well so far... but I am sure that more curve balls are on their way.

What am I doing???

So after announcing my decision to live off a dollar-twenty-five I have been pounded with the question - "What are you doing?"

I regretted announcing this decision here on the blog before I told my beautiful girlfriend, my family and my GPP colleagues. Everyone had a similar response to this:

Don't get me wrong, I love it (and you for it)! But please please don't let yourself get unhealthy! I don't know how you are going to manage to eat in Melbourne for a 1.25 a day...

So to truly answer these questions - "I don't know!"

But here is an outline of how I plan to do it -

1) I have restricted it to not include my rent or my utilities (maybe later on in the year)

2) $1.25USD = ~$1.5AU

3) I will do my weekly shopping for ALL food for the week on $10.50 (I am thinking WeetBix, Oats, Cheap Vegetables etc)

4) My transport will be on my bike to and from work

5) I will be starting on Tuesday after the busy weekend of proposal writing for our Monday AusAID submission.

Rest is game on...

I am still very nervous about doing this. But hey... lets really understand the plight of 1.4bn people.

Why do something so stupid???

As the Australian Manager of the Global Poverty Project, I have seen the presentation 1.4 billion reasons over 50 times now (yes there are many sections that I recite in my sleep).

However every time I see it, I am still astonished by the figure 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty. I visualise the populations of India and China and I cannot believe that the equivilant population size live in extreme poverty - be that 1/5th of the worlds total population.

Whilst I can try to comprehend the size of the population living in extreme poverty, I do not think that I really comprehend the severity of extreme poverty.

In '1.4 billion reasons' we remove the monetary value of extreme poverty and focus on the 'lack of choice' that it provides the individual. Noting that it can only just buy your basic meal (2 bowls of rice and vegetables), what happens when a family member becomes sick, who pays for you children's school fees??? This is the lack of choice they face.

So even though I have lived within poor developing countries - the stupid thing that I am about to do is spend the next month getting by on less than $1.25 (USD) a day.

I have made many stupid decisions in my life... however this one might just top it off!