Day Five Challenge: "Your child comes home from school, having heard about the empty refrigerator in the story read at school. He looks at our bare refrigerator and asks if you are poor. How do you explain your finances to your child?"

Wow, this is a tough one. I think I would have preferred a five dollar cut to my budget versus having to explain this to my son.  Well, here it goes...

I think I would start the conversation by asking my son why the refrigerator in the story was empty and align my explanation to his response. I would explain to him that people who work for a living, make different salaries based on the type of job that they have. I would provide him with a variety of examples of low to high income types of jobs. I would then explain to him the importance of getting a good education so that he would get a good paying job in order to support himself and fill his refrigerator. I would end the conversation by telling my son how much I love him and that I would do what ever I could to ensure that his needs were met and that he was safe, happy and loved.

The "walk a mile in their shoes action against poverty challenge" has been a learning experience for me. It has been a real eye opener and has given me some insight as to what people living in this situation are faced with on a daily basis just to make ends meet. I encourage everyone reading my blog this evening to provide support to those less fortunate in any way that you can.

I'm super proud of the Valleyview Vipers who supported their admin team throughout the five day challenge. I'm also very proud of them for wearing red at school today and donating nonperishable food items for the Salvation Army food bank. Valiant effort Vipers!

Au revoir day five. Thank you for taking it easy on me today. Looking forward to treating myself tomorrow morning to a cup of coffee sweetened with Vanilla International Delight creamer.

Day Four Challenge: "Its a neutral day, no challenges, no windfalls. What is your response?"

I was pleasantly surprised to read my challenge this morning. It makes me wonder though what tomorrow's challenge might bring. Will I make it through the challenge without going over my 63 dollar budget? I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning.

With tomorrow being the last day of our challenge, the staff and students at Valleyview Public School have been asked to show their support for Action Against Poverty Week by wearing red and bringing a perishable food item to donate to the Salvation Army food bank. I'll let you know how it goes in my final blog entry tomorrow evening.

Thank you for taking it easy on me today day four. Looking forward to getting through day five and finishing the challenge without breaking the budget.

Day Three:

Today's Challenge: "Your oven broke. You can use your stove top but not your oven for the rest of the challenge."

I had planned to cook chicken breasts this evening to prepare for Greek chicken salads for the remainder of the challenge. Since my oven broke, I cut up my chicken and cooked it in the frying pan.

As the week goes on, I find myself thinking about how fortunate I am. You don't realize what others are going through until you walk a mile in their shoes. It's pretty hard to imagine having to plan your life around your financial state of affairs. I think being exposed to this five day experience just scratches the surface of what people living in poverty are exposed to on a day to day basis.

Throughout the last three days, my thoughts have been consumed with all of the things I take for granted like filling the shopping cart without worrying about the cost of groceries, shopping for clothes on a whim, buying shoes just because, getting my hair styled and my nails manicured as I see fit. When you go through this experience you get a clear picture of what your lifestyle would be like if dictated by a constrained budget of 63 dollars per a five day period.

With only two days left in the poverty challenge, I'm hopeful that my 63 dollar budget will be enough to get me through the five day challenge successfully. In reality however, a person living on this budget line would be challenged with the difficulty of making 63 dollars stretch over a five day period when they have to worry about the cost of putting food on the table, clothes on their back, paying utility bills, transportation, medical expenses, etc. I don't know how people would do it but I do know, I have a greater appreciation for their ability to make do with what they've got in order to make ends meet.  It also makes me wonder what happens to people when they can't make ends meet? What supports and resources are available in our community to help people living in poverty make ends meet?

Au revoir day three. Looking forward to getting day four and five over with.

PS. Hang in there fellow poverty challengers, day six is in sight!

Day Two:

I opened today's challenge - "Your only bath towel got soaked while you were showering. How will you dry off?"  I thought about drip drying while getting ready but the bathroom was pretty chilly this morning so I used my face cloth to pat dry my body and I put my housecoat on to take care of the rest. I thought that was pretty clever lol.

I found today's eating challenge was relatively easy as I was preoccupied with meetings for a good majority of the morning. I ate breakfast (cereal, banana and milk) at noon and then I ate my lunch (corned-beef and pickle wrap and an apple) around 2 pm. I have to admit, the taste of the wrap didn't appeal to me so I just ate my corned-beef and pickle. The wraps were on a discount sale, so I guess you get what you pay for. For supper this evening, I ate a Greek chicken salad and I drank a lot of water.

I spent most of the evening proofing a set of report cards and that seemed to keep my mind off of the usual pre-bedtime snacking.


Au revior day two. Bring on day three!

Day One:
I woke up this morning and opened up my first challenge card. "You are staying in a shelter. The shelter doesn't open until 8 pm. Find somewhere to go from 6-8 (don't rely on friends or family)."
I thought of this for a bit and decided the rec center would be a good place to spend time while waiting for the shelter to open at 8 pm.
Being the first day of the five day challenge, I ventured to Walmart and Safeway to purchase food items for my five day meal plan. At first I found it quite difficult to plan the meals based on a limited budget of $63.00. I'm happy to report that I found some really good deals on healthy food and spent a total of $47.66 for my five day meal plan. That leaves me with a whopping $15.34. I'm crossing my fingers that will get me through the rest of the week and will take care of any incidentals that cross my path. Au revoir day one. Bring on day two!