Challenge 46: Live on $5 a Day For Food

Livin on a Budget

“You want some of this don’t you?” My brother was spooning spiced and salted chunks of buttery avocado into his mouth and all I could do was stare and salivate.

“God, that sucks! Should have budgeted for them.” I’m pretty sure the daggers in my eyes took a year off his life.

Have you ever watched someone eat one of your favorite foods when you, for whatever ridiculous reason, can’t partake? It’s not long before you turn into Bitter Betty and curse the person, the world, and the diet, detox or challenge you’ve accepted.

In theory, surviving on $5 a day is not difficult, especially if you only have to do it for a week. I’m currently in San Diego where we have this great natural foods market called Henry’s that is like Whole Foods but a tenth of the price, and it provides for low cost healthy living. But even though I shopped here for my groceries, $5 a day has its limits.

My strategy was to plan meals for the week that used some combination of the same ingredients, and to come in under budget so I could splurge later in the week if I wanted to. The Sunday before I started, I bought five bunches of green kale for $0.79 each, six grapefruits and three oranges for $0.29 each, green and yellow bell peppers, a two pound bag of carrots, two onions, a cucumber, four apples, two kiwis, barley flakes for breakfast, white rice and yellow split peas at $0.79 per pound, and almond milk. I also bought a half pound bag of coffee for $5 but then decided I would rather forgo caffeine for the week and have that money saved for later.

All-in, my grocery bill was $23. Pretty impressive huh? I was feeling very good about my purchases until Monday morning. My normal breakfast entails a bowl of oatmeal brimming with berries, banana and occasionally mango (I’m spoiled), but I couldn’t afford these luxuries, so when I made my barley flakes with almond milk, it looked like bowl of soggy recycled paper and I began to pout. And then when I compared my breakfast to my brother’s bowl heaping with color, the seeds of sibling bitterness took root and I felt immediate resentment. This was going to be harder than I thought.

For lunch, I made a huge Kale salad, cooked half a cup of rice and a half cup of split peas, ate a quarter cup and saved the rest for dinner. I followed this routine for another two days before I felt malnourished. Luckily I got a break on Wednesday night because it was my mom’s birthday and Fidel’s was her restaurant of choice. I had a $6 bean and rice burrito and at least a pound of free tortilla chips and salsa.

I think my voracious appreciation of the free chips and salsa caused my dad to worry about my diet because on Thursday he started offering me food like tomatoes and left over rice that they “weren’t going to eat anyways.” So this is what it feels like when people think you’re starving.

I figured at $29, I could accept a couple of tomatoes and a quarter cup of cooked rice and still have a few dollars left over, so I went back to Henry’s, bought a dozen eggs for $2, and ate like a queen for the remainder of the week.

This challenge was an interesting lesson in “need” vs. “want” and portion control. I had to ration my food so that I didn’t run out, which meant that even if I was still hungry after my planned meal, I had to decide if I really needed more food, or if I would survive without. There were a couple of times I felt really weak so I made more rice (my cheapest food), but most of the time I got by without.

And while $5 a day for food is extravagant by many of the world’s standards, it was a glimpse at what life would be like if I really did have to choose my purchases carefully. Until this week, I don’t think I ever completely grasped what this was like.

Growing up, I would never say we went without. We were not flush with money but we always had plenty of healthy food around, the gourmet sandwiches my dad would pack in our lunches were legendary and we even got pizza on Friday nights. And in college when I was on budget, if I ran out of food, I would just go over to the sorority house and eat in the snack kitchen for free.

So even though the mere sight of yellow split peas made me nauseous by the end of the week, I’m glad I experienced this. Separating need from want is important in all aspects of our lives and in this time when there is turmoil across the globe because people cannot meet their basic needs, I think we could all try a little harder to be conscious of how our actions might affect others.

The other day NPR did a story on quinoa and said that because this health food is so en vogue, consumption has risen, which has caused prices to rise, which has made it impossible for most Peruvians to purchase the grain they grow in their backyard (a standard consequence of globalism). There is a finite amount of resources on this planet, so consumption is very much a zero-sum game. More for you does actually mean less for someone else. I’m not suggesting people stop eating quinoa, or anything for that matter, but if we all took a look at our habits and tried to consume a little less, then maybe the less fortunate could have a little more. It’s just something to think about.

Update on Nude Modeling

I know I owe you two blog posts (eating for $5 a day and taking lessons for three different forms of dance), but I wanted to give you all an update on my career as a nude model.

Although I thought there was no way I was going to continue sitting for Lynn after my initial 10 week commitment, it has now been 14 weeks and I not only sit for her (and others) twice a week, but I have taken on figure and portrait drawing classes at a local art studio. It’s not something that I will do forever, but for now, I love it. I love to go to Lynn’s studio and get paid to hang out with a group of women that are so talented and warm and funny, and who occasionally spray me with water on accident.

My love affair with the Lynn Forbes School of Sculpture started about a month after I started sitting. A woman named Ann, who is a pint-sized burst of positive energy, started coming to sculpt my portrait and we clicked immediately. She is goofy and funny and has already flattened the back of her sculpture because she sent it tumbling to the ground, so of course I love her.

Then starting the first week in January, we got another addition- June, a snowbird from Salt Lake City. Her wry sense of humor complements Ann’s and every time the three of us are in the room together, I’m either getting sprayed by the water bottle meant for clay (June claims this is an accident), they’re making fun of my ponytail because it’s never centered at the back of my head, or we’re just laughing for no reason at all.

Now the class has grown and on any given Wednesday or Friday, there are between four and eight people sculpting some version of me. Sitting for the large group was a bit horrifying at first because when I took a break, I saw that one woman had formed these giant, fake-looking breasts, a man had given me a huge beak-like nose that covered half my face and another had given me a butt the size of an Escalade. I seriously pretended I had to go to the bathroom so I could study myself in the mirror and make sure they weren’t right. But then as Lynn came around and corrected them, and as they started to form more definite shapes in the clay, I could see my likeness come through and I eventually started to see the sculptures as their art, not representations of me. As I relaxed, the sessions became more fun.

Today, Ann was trying to get the nostrils to look right but Lynn’s explanations weren’t making sense… so they decided to get a closer look.

“Ok so you see the hole here?” Lynn had her pinky finger millimeters from my face while Ann squatted at my feet and looked up my nose. I couldn’t help but wonder if I had any green “friends” hanging around.

“Oh yea, I see what you’re talking about.” She was now right under my chin, peering like a kid at science camp.

“So you see how dark the hole gets, we’re not going to go all the way into the darkness, but-“ and with that, I, and everyone else in the class, burst out laughing. I’m ok with people studying every curve of my body while trying to re-create it in a cube of semi-solid mud, but when they start to dissect unflattering orifices, I draw the line. It’s a good thing Lynn has a sense of humor.

The figure drawing classes are definitely more structured and not as fun as sculpture. I have to sit on a stage under a light that’s too hot and awkwardly placed at the crown of my head like a branding iron, and the artists take themselves very seriously.

The first class I sat for was on a Friday night at 7pm, right in the middle of rush hour traffic, so of course I was running late. I flew into the parking lot at 7:07pm, sprinted into the studio, spit my apologies at the instructor who directed me to the bathroom to change, and barely closed the door before I started ripping off my clothes. I came out in my bathrobe and hurried to the stage, paying very little attention to my surroundings. Once the instructor had positioned me lying on a chase lounge and set the timer, I turned to face the room and realized there were twelve pairs of male eyes staring at me. I almost threw up.

I tried my best to keep a pleasant, blank look on my face, but as a trickle of sweat began to make its way from my armpit down the side of my body, I’m sure my face was pure horror. I couldn’t help it. I have never been more uncomfortable in my life. What made it worse was when the guys tried to talk to me during the break. I was wearing my bathrobe, but I could still feel my naked image through their mundane questions of, “So…you from here?” I mean, really guys? After the third break, I just stayed on stage and pretended to huddle near the space heater.

The classes got progressively better after that, and some of the students and instructors have turned out to be really cool, but it’s not something that I’ll continue after this school term.

Posing nude for art in all mediums has definitely helped me to become savagely comfortable in my skin, and more confident, but it’s not for the faint of heart. My brother’s girlfriend asked if I would recommend it to other people who need a positive jolt in the body image department, and I had to tell her, “Maybe.” It really depends on how insecure you are. It’s not easy to have people study every line, curve and pock mark, and if your self-image is so poor that you can barely look at yourself in the mirror (no matter how beautiful people tell you, you are), posing nude is not for you. At least not yet. But if you’re “fine” with how you look but have never thought of yourself as particularly pretty or attractive, then I would recommend it. The instructors and students will complement you and point out the parts of you they find stunning as they create, and it can only boost, or at least pet, your fragile ego.