After a year of £1 a day challenge weeks I decided to go extreme and challenge just myself to £1 a day for 7 days. It’ll be hard as while the rest of my family are munching away on delicious treats. I’ll only allow myself the food I’ve brought.

Although this is just a challenge for me, it’s a reality for many single people across the country week in week out. I decided to do this challenge in January when the month seems extra long as people usually get paid before Christmas and may not have a lot of money left by the end of the month.

This challenge week is dedicated to all of us that have in the past, over spent at Christmas. I’m hopefully going to show you that you can survive and eat quite well for just £7 for the week if you plan very carefully.

As before I will give you a list of minimal usual stock cupboard ingredients for the weeks meals to check before you go shopping that they haven’t run out.

The list of extra stock cupboard items to check on are, Dried Chilli, Chinese 5 spice, soy sauce, plain flour, Cooking oil, Lemon juice (Jif), Milk, tea, coffee and sugar. These ingredients are usual items found in most cupboards, but you’ll use them time and again if you don’t have them, and they’ll last for ages if stored correctly.

I also used Fresh mint, Fresh parsley, Fresh rosemary and Fresh coriander (optional) all from pots on my window sill although you can pick them up quite cheaply in Asian supermarkets.

I haven’t used porridge this time for my breakfasts as its quite expensive for just a week and it means I have to buy extra milk too. Although it’s a great filling breakfast if you were doing the challenge for longer.

Although I have tried to use as much vegetables as possible on the small amount of money. If you were doing this challenge at other times of the year you could supplement them with foraged wild food like nettles and berries, which I have used before for a few other recipes.

I also have used tinned vegetables as the nutritional value is similar to fresh but they last longer and can be stored without the need for a fridge or freezer. I often have plenty of frozen vegetables in my freezer to supplement my fresh so just using tinned was a new experience for me and they were ok. Just remember don’t cook them for too long just heat up as they’ll go squashy as they are already cooked.

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