Can You Live On £2 A Day? | #2poundchallenge With Zamcog & Voucherbox

It costs £2 to feed and educate a child in Zambia every single day, a mere £2 to allow them to have future prospects, and keep them healthy; well, as healthy as can be achieved through nutrition alone. Yesterday, I spent £4.40 in Starbucks before 9am - the White Chocolate Mocha’s are great - but are they worth two days worth of education and how many meals per day? Jordan was peckish last night and spent £8.00 in the Kebab shop alone. I hate to admit it, but we are throwing money down the drain. For us, we’re throwing away a few extra pounds towards our mortgage deposit. Whilst it adds up yes, it’s not leaving us hungry, or without school for a day. What would would we do if we had to live off of a measly quarter of what we are spending each per day? This week, we found out.


This January, Voucher Box has teamed up with UK based charity Zamcog to present to you The £2 challenge. It goes without saying, we’ve been challenged to see if we can feed our entire family, for £2 a day, in an effort to reduce the spending, and the waste we produce, for one single day. 

Julie-Anne Uggla, Founder of Zamcog says:

“We’re delighted to work with Voucherbox.co.uk to raise awareness to one of the integral aspects of Zamcog’s work. At the Shitima School we not only educate children to improve their lives but also provide basic needs such as food and clean water. Any money raised from this campaign will go directly to funding nourishment at the Shitima School.

So how did we do? 

We have £6 to spend for a family of 3. Our Aptamil tub lasts us six days, so provided Harrison loses a feed or two and cuts down a little to 5 6oz feeds, he’ll manage just fine on £2 per day. Given that he is only 3 months old, I won’t be forcing him to test out that theory, so let’s just pretend he went slightly hungrier today. So £2 gone left me and Jordan with £4.

Shopping List:
00.42 Soft White Toastie Bread
00.69 Mild Mixed Lead Salad
00.89 Sliced Ham
01.59 Unsmoked Gammon Steaks
00.28 Golden Vegetable Rice
00.59 Cheese Triangles
= £4.46

Breakfast 

Toast and cheese. No fruit, no coffee, no orange juice. Nothing to dress up an extremely boring breakfast with little nutritional value. I'd have loved to be able to say that we managed to somehow make a fabulous Instagram worth yoghurt and fruit conception for pennies, but let's fact it, on £2 a day let's just be thankful the bread isn't dry.

Lunch 

We needed something that Jordan could take to work - and with a VERY stretched budget, it looked like or loaf of bread and cheese spread was just going to have to stretch that little bit further. Cheese and ham sandwiches - how extravagant.

Dinner

Our dinner didn't really go together all that well, but when we were down to our last £1.50 to spend in Aldi, everything got a little bit desperate and the notion of what 'goes together' went completely out of the window. Gammon steak, rice, and salad leafs. No sauce, no salt, nada. Add to this the lack of dessert and I'll be the first to admit it was a fairly lackluster day.

Snacks 

On £2 a day? I wish.....

Feeding my family was nowhere near as easy as initially anticipated - there was no room for luxury whatsoever, and even Harrison would have to cut back on his milk, which is easier said than done with a hungry baby. We didn't manage technically - we went 46p over our total, but we did not eat all of the bread, so I suppose if done for longer than one day it would balance itself out.

Could we live off of £2 a day? Yes, the answer is yes we could have. Would we enjoy it? Absolutely not. Bear in mind although we managed to scrape by on the basics, there was no room for juice, for salt, for tomato ketchup - it was a dry and bland day, with little fibre and virtually no greens.

With that being said though, we wouldn't go hungry, and the £2 can stretch far if made to. For every person that does this challenge, £50 will be donated to Zamcog, which in turn will allow 25 individuals to be fed and educated for one day. One individual to be given a better quality of life for an entire month almost. For that reason, I'd like to nominate a few other bloggers for this challenge. Also because I’m curious to know if I am the only one who spends a ridiculous amount on food per day - purely down to my own greed and need for expensive coffees. For every post done on this challenge, Voucher Box will donate £50 to Zamcog.

Georgina, Lucie, Rachel and Chelsea, it’s over to you.
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