Lucy Devine
A woman has been living off £1 a day in a bid to highlight the dangerous impact of the cost of living crisis.
Kathryn Leech, 26, from Manchester, wanted to investigate how difficult it would be to live off £7 per week, documenting the results in videos on TikTok.
You can watch the clips below:
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Kathryn chose to shop at Aldi for the challenge, and stocked up on pasta, frozen sweetcorn, tuna, bread, kidney beans and tortilla wraps to last a week.
“With the current cost of living crisis and the constant rising inflation, a lot of people are having to cut back just to get by,” Kathryn told NeedToKnow.online.
“For a lot of people it doesn't matter how much they budget; the real issue is that the average cost of living is consistently rising but salaries aren't at the same rate.
“This is quite an extreme food budgeting challenge, but it was interesting for me to see if it's possible to live on a budget this small which some people might actually have to do.
“I ate the same thing every day for the whole seven days. I had toast, kidney beans and pepper wraps, and Tuna and sweetcorn pasta."
Kathryn continued: “It was extremely difficult to make meals with such a small budget, and I had to eat the same thing every day which got incredibly boring.
“It also wasn't healthy as there was no way I could get enough nutrients in, and I definitely didn't eat enough calories. The hardest part was eating the same food every day. It wasn't filling and it wasn't healthy.
“However, I made the food in bulk, so it cut down on cooking time as I only had to cook a couple of times for the whole week, and I just warmed it up each day.
“I think it's an eye-opening challenge, and I would recommend it if anyone wants to try an extreme food budget to see if they can do it.”
Kathryn shared the challenge on TikTok – and other users were shocked at the video.
One user wrote: “The point is... you shouldn't have to.”
“Couldn’t eat that 3 times a day for a week. No meat either. No proper sustenance. Vitamins protein,” said another person,
“That's a snack?” wrote a third person.
Another user suggested: “Always buy a whole chicken u can do so much with it.”
You can follow more of Kathryn's tips over on her TikTok.