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!