About

I started this blog in order to participate in Vegan MoFo for the first time in 2013. The goal of Vegan MoFo was (is? I’m not sure if it’s happening in 2015 yet) to blog about vegan food at least 20 times during the month but some people try for every day, and I was just about able to manage it despite my laptop conking out halfway through.

In a strange way, the laptop’s demise encouraged me to carry on with the blog;  I decided to continue blogging with a spending challenge of £100 for food, travel, clothes, entertainment and anything else that wasn’t paid by direct debit, or required for an emergency as I found  while I was trying to save money on a limited income it was really helpful to be kept accountable in view of the world. I came in under budget that October, so I reduced the kitty to £90 for November. December I decided to ease up, but it seems that unless I keep strict accounts money flows from my wallet much like water, so it was back on the wagon for January 2014 with a newer, tougher challenge of £2 a day, or £62 for the month. I did find that very tough, but the sense of relief after the end is almost worth it! (I might never have realised otherwise what a joy it is to be able to buy a full-price avocado in a supermarke… Hah, I’m just kidding, I would never pay supermarket prices for an avocado!) Also, I was eventually flush enough to buy another laptop.

In April 2015 I took on the challenge of Live Below the Line, spending no more than £1 a day for food and drink over the 5 days from Monday 27 April to Friday 1 May, raising a bit of cash for charity and it seemed like a possibly worthwhile thing to do, also I liked the idea of joining other people in a money-based challenge for once. I felt slightly uncomfortable that people might think I was taking part in “poverty tourism” so there’s a lot of self-justificatory rambling posts over that time period! The project did tie-in with my long-time interest in maximising vegan nutrition on a budget and I still plan to do a lot more research and create more useful resources. So many ideas, not enough stick-to-it-iveness (yet!). Watch this space! 🙂

 

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