

How to Eat on a Dollar a Day - matthewking
http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/about/

======
PStamatiou
Yikes, would love to see how this goes! I read about all these live on $X for
a month and shy away, mainly for nutritional value every very cheap diet I've
seen has a fairly bad mix of calorie distribution. Is this always the case?

That being said, food is the one place I'm not stingy. Apartment? Sure. I
downsized from a highrise condo to a small loft apartment. Got rid of
satellite/cable TV, and did small things like removing unlimited texting from
my phone, etc, I just can't find/get myself to eat cheaply. I try to get
groceries on the cheap... then I just end up going out to eat 3x a week with
my friends that have regular jobs and have lots of disposable income.

------
dschobel
On a slightly offtopic note, what the heck is a "Social Justice teacher" ?

~~~
sunburnt
Apparently this is a frequently asked question. See #9 here:

<http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/food-log/>

------
msluyter
Whatever the motivation, these sorts of living experiments always intrigue me.
The book "Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping" (Judith Levine) is another
example. I informally decided to go a year without buying any clothes back in
January, and while I haven't totally kept to it (have bought a few t-shirts
from Threadless), I've managed to spend much less than usual and not look like
a hobo.

The point of most of these seems to be that we can manage, quite well in fact,
on a much lower level of consumption than we might be used to. Worth
remembering, imho.

~~~
potatolicious
_"we can manage, quite well in fact, on a much lower level of consumption than
we might be used to"_

True, but this is attitude is a double-edged sword, it can just as well be
applied to money-hypermiling (i.e. gross over-optimization of spending, in
older terms, being a cheap bastard).

------
planckscnst
This is just an advertisement. If you want the real content, click on "Home"
then the last link in the top post.

~~~
matthewking
An advertisement? I thought the about page was a good introduction to the
site, from there you can find the rest of the content without being thrown in
randomly.

But for those who want to go straight to the diary, here's the link:
[http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/it-
star...](http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/it-starts-
today/)

~~~
planckscnst
Thanks! Didn't realize we could post links here (relative newcomer).

~~~
hughprime
I'm still having difficulty finding many posts of the form "here's what I ate
today and here's how much it cost". There seem to be only a few posts per
month, which is a pretty poor showing.

------
noodle
reminds me a lot of this submission a few weeks ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=732770>

these guys have more of a purpose behind what they're doing, so its harder to
say that its a bad idea due to sacrificing personal health.

~~~
jcw
I was about to post the same link. I would rather read that guy's excellent
and concise article than buy this couple's book or sift through their entire
blog for details.

------
scorxn
<http://hungryforamonth.blogspot.com/>

~~~
hughprime
Wow, that's a much better version of the same basic concept -- more details,
less preachiness.

~~~
hughprime
Though now I've actually read it, it turns out that the real answer to the
question of how to survive on $1 a day is "slowly starve". The guy ate a diet
consisting almost entirely of rice and noodles, and wound up losing 18 lb (!)
over the course of the month.

------
ggchappell
An unexpectedly good site.

These sites about eating very cheaply show up now & then. But in my
experience, most of them end up pushing very unhealthy diets. This one at
least makes an attempt at variety and health. Still, if you look at the menus,
their meals are starch, starch, starch. Not ideal, but at least they tried.

What I'd really like to see is someone who is trying to eat as cheaply as
possible, with a diet that is lower in grains.

------
tjic
Idiotic.

People spend most of their money on things other than food, so to save money
by cutting your food budget is silly. It's far more efficient to cut your
housing budget by the same number of dollars.

Also, this reeks of muddy-headed thinking - they're "Social Justice" teachers?
That's basically an extreme left wing ideology. Wikipedia says _"Social
justice, sometimes called civil justice, refers to the concept of a society in
which "justice" is achieved in every aspect of society, rather than merely the
administration of law. It is generally thought of as a world which affords
individuals and groups fair treatment and an impartial share of the benefits
of society._

Under this LITERALLY beyond-communist ideology, if some people generate a ton
of value by hard work and risk taking, their resources should be redistributed
to everyone, including the lazy and indolent.

The reason that $1-per-day eating is tied up with this is that social justice
folks want to redistribute ALL resources, across the entire planet.

So, rather than generate utility themselves, these folks are making plans on
how we can all live on drastically (and artificially) diminished resources.

Bah.

~~~
electromagnetic
Social Justice isn't a farther than left policy, I was taught it by a far-
right conservative Catholic, it's actually supported by the Vatican.

The idea of social justice is to extend laws and rights to everyone and every
thing. The key part of this is in politics, if a politician promises something
_they have to deliver it_ or it becomes a breach of an agreement, just like a
breach of an implied contract.

Another example is the use of welfare. Under social justice theory, it's
perfectly acceptable for no welfare system to be in place, it would however be
completely illegal to prevent a person or group from access to what
hospital/unemployment services are available, even if it's just insurance.
Basically it would make _everyone_ insurable, there would be no ability to
deny insurance, but the cost is still free to fluctuate _before_ you get the
contract. There would be no denying people care with insurance.

In countries with welfare systems, it would reinforce access to them. I know
in France they have a welfare system, yet in some areas people can't get easy
access to medical care; I know in one area it can supposedly take over an hour
to get to the nearest emergency room, over two hours if you call an ambulance.
The French take this as unnacceptable already, which is right in line with
Social Justice, and right now they've got a conservative in power.

The benefits of society are not cold hard cash, they're whatever benefits are
available from society. If you're not a communist country, getting cash handed
to you isn't a benefit of society, however in the west access to certain
services is seen as a benefit of society. Impartial means non-prejudice, so
you can't be denied access to one of these benefits on account of race or
religion or such; no stupid no-fly lists as air-travel is expected in the
west.

Justice is just, and believing life should be fair and just everywhere isn't a
leftist theory as it's implemented in both political sides of the argument.

The shame about social justice is that now when it's discussed people want
money hand-outs. What really should be discussed in Social Justice isn't all
the rewards, but the punishments. Anti-social behaviours that harm other
peoples social entitlements are supposed to be harshly punishable;
trespassing, noise pollution and such, that are rarely handled by police until
it's a big deal.

The biggest shame of social justice, however is that it believes set things
are right and wrong. Short-shorts weren't always acceptable, so if we embraced
social justice 60 years ago, would people be allowed to wear them? Should
women be allowed tattoos, because they were originally ' _just for men_ '.

This is where their philosophy falls through. Morals _are_ relative in our
society, they don't have to be but we chose them to be, which our government
and police right now allows certain laws to be disregarded as they become more
irrelevant, like public decency laws (now uncovering the nipples, labia majora
or anus are the only violations for women, on non-nude beaches), but certain
places enforce their own clothing rules (no shirt, no shoes, no shopping)
where there are publicly acceptable low decency expectations (beach fronts).

Either way, I generally agree, social justice is a stupid impractical
philosophy.

~~~
hughprime
_Social Justice isn't a farther than left policy, I was taught it by a far-
right conservative Catholic, it's actually supported by the Vatican._

The Catholic Church can't really be placed on a "left-right" axis -- they have
a lot of "left-wing" views on money combined with a lot of "right-wing" views
on what you should be allowed to do with your penis.

I've always thought of "social justice" as a left-wing buzzword rather than an
actual policy.

~~~
onreact-com
Who cares for left or right as long as it's the best way and more people live
a good life? So stop talking divisions focus on the justice like in "just"
here.

~~~
hughprime
Unfortunately the "left-right" divide is at the very crux of figuring out what
"justice" and "living a good life" actually mean, so we can't bypass politics
and go straight to "making things better" until we agree on what "better"
means.

Briefly, left-wing folks think that it's best when everybody is equal, right-
libertarians think it's best when everybody is free, and the Catholic Church
and other religious types think it's best when everybody does what God says.

~~~
onreact-com
Yeah, but it's insane to construct left-right divisions into issues like
social justice and cooking! Basic human rights (social justice is a synonym of
those) are universal. Check some definitions:

"Fair and proper administration of laws conforming to the natural law that all
persons, irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race, religion,
etc., are to be treated equally and without prejudice. See also civil rights."
[http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/social-
justice....](http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/social-justice.html)

------
pchristensen
This has got to piss off the people that eat on a dollar a day _because that's
all they have_

~~~
onreact-com
Well, not really. Those people are rather pissed because we in the West waste
resources eating for 10 or 100$ a day while they have to starve or survive on
one dollar.

When we curb our consumption there is actually more left for the rest of the
world. It's that simple.

------
sharjeel
In my country, considerable population makes a dollar a day and fulfills all
its needs with it

