A WOMAN has told how she lived on a food budget of less than £1 a day for a week - surviving on lumpy porridge made with water and spaghetti mixed with cheap tomato sauce.
Katie Timms spent just £6.83 on her seven-day, stomach-churning supermarket shop.
Sloppy sardines slathered on toast were frequently on her thrifty menu, as too were 54 pence packets of soup, bunless chicken burgers and the occasional pear.
Her breakfast of oats mixed with water - with a dollop of jam added to "sweeten" the dish - looks more like a bowl of fresh vomit.
And just looking at the image of one of her meal concoctions - a sliced chicken burger with "low meat percentage" served on a bed of spaghetti coated in red sauce and accompanied by a few greasy potatoes - is enough to put anyone off their food.
Although she managed on the budget, Katie, a journalist at the Plymouth Herald, admits it was a struggle.
Eating the chicken burger, she said, was a “traumatic” affair.
But her lowest ebb came when, starving, she had to forego her usual roast dinner - and instead faced that revolting pile of spaghetti again.
Recalling her nightmare food regime, Katie said: "The first morning, I woke up wishing I could have boiled eggs, but instead I was greeted with lumpy porridge. The oats were mixed with water as I hadn't bought milk.
“The chicken burger had a very low meat percentage. For someone who normally eats Quorn, it was quite traumatic.
"Dinner was the most difficult of the whole week, because not only was it the last meal, but I had to turn down a roast dinner."
The Plymouth Herald journalist was inspired to take on the challenge as research reveals the average
Brit spends up to £81 a week on food.
Shopping in Tesco, she scoured the aisles for bargains, calculator in hand.
Yellow stickered foods were banned – because they “can’t always be relied on if someone was to replicate the £1 a day challenge”.
Katie said: “After one whole hour and 28 minutes, I had £6.83 worth of items in my trolley. After I had piled my shop into the bag, I wheeled my trolley out of the store, and to the car-park.”
But as Katie went to unload her shopping, she noticed a packet of spaghetti had burst open and the pasta was shooting out of the side of the trolley.
She explained: “Even though I did have money to replace it, I knew for this challenge to be as accurate as it could be, I couldn't just go and buy another packet.
“That pasta was two days of my evening meals, on the floor.Even though it was just a 20p packet of pasta, this is the exact moment, when the penny dropped, some people simply can't just replace it.”
Katie's £1-a-day meals
Breakfast: lumpy porridge made with water and sweetened with a dollop of jam
Alternative breakfast: two slices of toast with jam followed by one pear
Lunch: packet soup with dry bread or tinned sardines, swimming in oil, on toast
Dinner: bed of spaghetti coated in tomato sauce served with a chopped up low-meat content chicken burger, greasy potatoes and, occasionally, with some kidney beans and mozzarella thrown in
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It was tough going and repetitive, but Katie admits she’s learned a lot from the experience.
She said: “I realised that it was more about the luxury of choice and being able to just pop to the shop when I was hungry, rather than be organised and prepare meals the night before.
“It is possible to spend just £1 a day on food, but it isn’t easy.”
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