Day One done

So we managed our first day of living on £1 each without too many hiccups.

The main issue we seem to have is that Monkey has deemed the own brand cornflakes a no go!
I chose the cornflakes over the porridge in the end as I thought it would be better for him, but apparently not.
This could be an issue, but I'll try him again tomorrow morning and see what he thinks.

For lunch at school Monkey normally has a school dinner, which costs £2.05 a day. When you look at that in the light of £1 a day it seems really quite a lot, but I don't think its too bad really. I did give him the choice as to whether he would have a packed lunch, as I was prepared to cut him out of this part of the challenge, but he seemed quite keen to try a packed lunch. Unfortunately the only thing I could send him with was a jam sandwich, pack of crisps and 2 custard creams.

The juice bottle is just one I refill with cheap squash!

  I would have sent a banana too, but he ate one for breakfast instead of the cornflakes! I had a terrible thought once I'd packed his lunchbox, that some schools are super strict, and they have people checking the nutritional value of the lunches. I feared my meager offering may not meet their approval, but since I didn't get a call from the school I'll assume they didn't check!
I mentioned last year that its ridiculous that a pack of crisps is 1/4 of the price of an apple, and I will say it again. I'm thankful that my son gets fruit as a snack at school every day for free.

This year has made me really appreciate how important free school meals are for some families, but I'm also aware that some people who are living on an extremely tight budget and working don't meet the criteria for free school meals.

Todays menu for me consisted of

Breakfast: 40g Cornflakes = 8p
Lunch: Lentil soup,  bread and 2 custard creams = 23p
Dinner: Butternut squash curry and rice = 41p
A cherry yogurt = 8p
Supper: A slice of toast with Jam = 4p

Total 84p

I'm looking forward to tomorrows lunch at work getting my colleagues involved, and hopefully getting some more donations!

Here's a picture of Monkey enjoying his curry! You can find the recipe here from last year.