The Final Countdown!

Today was my last day of living on $5 a day! A lot of people have asked me if I'm excited about transitioning back into my old habits of consumerism. To be honest, I'm excited to eat burritos the size of my head and buy the occasional PSL but I won't be jumping in to old habits anytime soon.

It has been nice to know exactly what ingredients I am putting into my body and exactly measure out my portions. Also, I have been able to differentiate between what I want from what I need. Do I need to buy a large coffee every morning or buy those new shoes? Probably not..

On the flip side, it will be nice to eat as many servings as I want and not be crunching numbers in my head constantly. 

Obviously this experiment wasn't perfect.. I may have had rice for dinner, but I am still writing this blog on my laptop and checking email on my smartphone while laying in bed in my room in a city..

Although I was still focusing on the money I was spending, I didn't have to worry about my next rent payment, what clothes to wear, or where I was going to sleep.  However, I definitely have a further understanding of what a dollar can actually mean.

I will follow up soon with a post-experiment post! I'm sure my body wont be too happy with transitioning back to meats and raw veggies. 

Thanks for following me on my journey! 

Yakira

Updates and Food Stamp Budget Cuts

Hi all!
My computer decided it would be fun to delete my food diary.. so I have been starting from scratch. This is a pretty lame excuse as to why I haven't posted in over a week..but I just wanted everyone to know I am still living on $5 a day. I have been backtracking and filling back in my food excel diary from memory (thankfully I eat the same three meals almost every day...) I'll post clippings from it soon.

Here are a few updates:

• Since September 1st I have already lost 10 pounds. (note: this should not be a reason to try this experiment, I am seeing this as a negative side effect) 
• I am craving burritos and sushi (not at the same time...)
• I had a nightmare I spent more than $5 in one day and woke up in a cold sweat..
• The government cut funding on food stamps.
• For families of three, the cut will be $29 a month — a total of $319 for November 2013 through September 2014.
• The total cut will add up to over $5 billion dollars in FY2014
• This is HUGE! I am finding myself with some health concerns after only living on $5 a day for a month, and now we are asking Americans to do live on even less as a lifestyle

What do you guys think about the budget cut? I want to hear your thoughts!! Almost 2,000 people read this blog so lets hear some of what you think!

More updates soon,

Yakira

Blog post on reweave

Hi all,

A few posts ago, I mentioned an article that would detail the effects this experiment is having on my body. It was posted on reweave's website today!

Check it out!

Day 11 - 14 - September 11th-14th 2013

There's this listserve called "the listserve" and it is meant to be a listserve to the world. They pick one email (of someone signed up for the listserve) at random to write to the listserve and they send one email out per day. Anyone can sign up on their website, and the idea is to make people think "If you could write an email to the world, what would you write." About 25,000 people are signed up. Today, I was chosen to write the listserve post and I wrote about this experiment. (How many times can I say listserve in one paragraph!)

I have already received about 50+ emails, linkedin views, etc. from people who are looking to help me with this experiment or who just wanted to say that my post allowed them to look at their expenses and compare their wants and their needs. Pretty cool! Also, I gave reweave a small plug and the website has already had 200 more views since the post was posted!

Here's my food journal for the past few days:

Here are my notes:

9/11 

• We had lunch at work and it was free for all!

9/13

• I had dinner at home for the Jewish holiday so it was free

9/14

• My dad saved leftover pizza from a free work dinner for me (thanks papa)!
• It was Yom Kippur, a holiday where it is traditional to fast, so I didn't have breakfast or lunch
• Chia Seeds are a great source of protein, vitamins, and omega-3!

Day Seven-Ten - September 7th-10th 2013

Hello!
Sorry I have not posted in a while. I was writing up an article for reweave about my first week and I guess my own personal blog fell to the wayside! (Check out the article when it gets posted mid-September!)

As you see, I have definitely been making my meals more full and balanced. 

Notes on my food spreadsheet:

1. September 7th:
1. The reweave retreat ended up being in Brookline and was accessible by t - so the problem in my last post was averted and now my parents have clean dogs and a mowed lawn for free!
2. My food is only chips because breakfast and dinner were made by my family and lunch was a potluck with reweave (I brought aforementioned chips).
2. September 8th:
1. Breakfast was free because I was home
2. Lunch was free because I had a meeting and they provided free pizza for all! (Thanks Sweet Tomatoes!)
3. September 9th:
1. Lunch was free leftovers from September 7th
4. September 10th:
1. Protein Powder was buy one get one free, my mother gave me her free carton (Thanks mom!)
2. My friend cooked dinner for a group of us and it was free for all! (Thanks Robin :) )

I do have an update on the effects this experiment is having on my body (and trust me, it is taking its toll), but if you want to read that, you'll have to check out the article on reweave when it posts!

Day Five and Six - September 5-6th 2013 - A problem occurs!

As mentioned before, being home has reduced my spending over the past 2 days. My only real expense was buying a toothbrush ($2.13) - luckily I didn't have to worry about food that day!

The past few days have posed me with my first conflict: the reweave retreat. This retreat is meant to be a time where we can kick off the school year and all be together as a team before we send Rae off to co-op (for reweave in Bali) and Gabrielle to live in French Polynesia. Originally it was meant to be at my house but transportation issues occurred and our retreat ended up along the route of a commuter rail. This led me with two options: spend more than $5 a day for the commuter rail OR don't go on the retreat.

After the team and I racked our brains to find a solution we found a few more options:

1. Take out a microcredit loan from a team member and pay it off throughout the month
2. Do odd jobs around my house to work for the round trip ticket

Both of these solutions are comparable to what someone living off of $5 a day would do. The problem with #1 is that I would be going in to debt with a friend and that breaks one of my three rules (see first post). So, for the past two days I have been working around my house to pay for the ticket - this includes things such as washing the dogs and mowing the lawn. 

With this solution I am neither paying more than $5 a day nor am I going into debt - thus diffusing my first dilemma during experiment.

Tell me your thoughts on this solution in the comments! Is there another route I could have taken?

Day Four - September 4th 2013

Today I got to work about an hour early and for some reason all I wanted to do waste some time and some money and buy a coffee. That's when I realized that a huge part of my day to day was being bored and spending money. There is always free coffee at work, but for some reason the more you pay, the better it tastes. 

I didn't buy the coffee.

Tonight is the beginning of the Jewish holidays so I will be spending a lot of time at home and probably wont be spending more than a dollar a day. That is also why my dinner was free tonight. Something interesting to note is that I was eating smaller portions even when I didn't have to limit myself. Also, eating lean meats and raw veggies negatively effected my body. I must be adapting to the sugar and sodium overload from the past 4 days.