The End

Its is Sunday dear reader, two whole days since my living below the line experience ended. And finally I am fed and ready to sit down and sum up my living below the line week. (I'm only just now fed as I very foolishly forgot to buy in 'normal food' for Saturday and as it was teaming down I could get out the shops so had 18p noodles for tea!).

So here goes.....

I suppose I'm a bit of a sucker for a good cause, when the lovely Adam first punted the idea of some of our Liverpool Labour Group joining him living below the line, I saw it as an opportunity for us to bond as a group, not just over motions or in select committees.

I don't think I'm anything special because I'm elected, but I do genuinely think the position that we find our self in can be used to help and publicise good things like this and really I think we have a duty not to 'milk' it as such but to use such opportunities as much as we can to help others.

Day one and two as you will have read where as to be expected, but it was on day three that living below the line really got to me, and it got to me for a few reasons, of which I will try to explain without rambling!

I have this week thanked the lord, I have genuinely prayed and thanked him that my children have enough food in their bellies and don't go to bed hungry every night. Ive thought of what it must be like as a mother to know your child is starving, every mother would give her only grain of rice to her child and do without herself. That's just what mums do. But what about when you don't have that grain of rice, how it must feel.

I have cried at the thought of a child hungry, not having enough energy to concentrate, to be ill from malnourishment. I suppose we become conditioned, we see these things on TV often, and although we know they're terrible, its sort of if you see them enough it takes the edge off the shock factor. But this week as I have stood and at my dinner as my little girls sit at the dinning room table eating a hearty and healthy tea, more than once Ive become upset, that I can do that for them yet other children go hungry. Ive cried for the children but Ive cried for the parents who watch their children at the table and cant change it. I think I'd feel like I was failing, no, I KNOW I'd feel like I was failing as a parent. And regardless of where we live, me and a woman in Africa or India have one thing in common, that unconditional amazing love we have for our children. No child should go hungry, but no parent should have to feel that they let them either!

What feeds into that though is the other thing that has upset me, and its a common theme. I remember when i first emailed round the challenge to our group also saying 'And lets not forget that even in this city there are people who may not be living on £1 per day, but they're living below our own poverty line.' And Ive felt that more than anything this week, growing up at times for us was a really struggle and we where often, well most of the time below that line. That experience as a child always in built into me that I 'would never be poor, would always have a full fridge and leccy and gas' and that's what I work for every single day. I don't live below the line now thankfully, but I represent some people in my ward who if they're not, are very close to. There are parents that I represent who may feel just like those parents in Africa and India do.

Seeing in today's day and age pensioners and young mums in the ASDA still having to buy those 8p noodles or 20p meatballs. And not by choice because they're doing a stupid charity thing like this but because for them this is the every day reality of their lives. I saw how expensive as well it is to eat healthily on such a tight budget, there are no excuses for extreme child obesity levels for example in this country, but when you look now that even the cheapest bag of bananas for example are knocking on £2's door now, I cant emphasis with parents who do struggle to get 5 a day into their children's diets! Everything now days as well comes cheaper in bulk, retailers reward greediness, whilst those who live alone pensioners for example are left with packs too big and too expensive for them to buy.

I cried in bed early on Wednesday thinking of children all over the world laying in their beds with tummy rumbling, and its an image I just cant shake, an image that makes me cry now as I write this.

Ive come out of Living below the line with a few lessons learnt, and a few habits to change. My shopping habits for example with never be the same.

But its also motivated me and moved me to do something more, whilst I will continue to support the work of RESULTS UK forever more its inspired me to also start looking at children living on or below the line much much closer to home. I'm not Jamie Oliver and wont be starting to teach the parents of Croxteth to make vegetable couscous etc. But now newly re elected to my ward I have 4 years at least to try and make as much difference as I can. If happy healthy children and families come from being removed from poverty, then we need to look at what we can do to move them out, jobs and training etc. Because its a massive circle, these kids will perform better in school, they'll educate themselves out of the same poverty trap that their parents where stuck in.

I don't think in four years I'll be able to do that for every family who need it in Croxteth, but I'd just be happy with one 'score' in 10 years time if a little 'un, now grown came to me and said that their parents had struggled until mum got training that I'd help them find.

I'm so very thankful to Living Below the Line, because now I have a focus, now I have a goal! As a mum I don't want to feel like a failure, and I never want a parent or carer in my ward to have to feel like that too.

Finally thank you to everyone for reading, thank you to all my sponsors, thank you to all the amazing Labour Team for their support, especially Adam, its been an honour to be involved and I'm DEFO going to be back next year, just a little better planned! :)

God Bless All

Steph x

Day Four: The morning after the night before

I wont explain yesterday and the feelings and everything tonight, because I'm honestly still thinking about them, mulling them over and deciding what I'm going to do about the realisations I came too. Its my intention to finish tomorrow and then blog a final summing up on Saturday, hopefully by then after brunch in town on Saturday morning and a lie in, I'll be of clearer state of mind!
So today's post will come in the form of a ditty..........

Sleepless night because of empty plate,
Meant Cllr Till was running late.

No time for regular crunchy nut,
To attempt to fill my empty gut.

Post gym, finds time for a barm on the run.
But with no butter or mayo it was zero fun.

Savvy shopping brought beans and hash,
and left me with spare left over cash.

Today was better, not really so bad,
Think when its over I may feel slightly sad!

Thank You for reading, thank you for all your support, I'm pennies off my target now and every pound helps so please do sponsor me, sponsor me or I write more poetry,,,,,,your choice! :)

http://my.livebelowtheline.co.uk/CllrStephTill

x

Day 3: Bitter Lemo and Tears

Today really hasn't been what Ive eaten, day 3 and I'm in the routine of cereal for breakfast, noodles for lunch and something crap for tea. Except tea wasn't that bad, I had a jacket spud 15p, a pitta 5p and a tin of cheap Asda chicken curry. It wasn't great but it was better than eating pitta off the floor!
The revelation food and drink wise came with a big bottle of the most vile tasting fizzy pop from ASDA, 18 for a big bottle, its vile, it has a weird bitter aftertaste, but its fizzy and rammed with sugar so it will do for now!
But as I said today hasn't been about the food at all, today was when my emotions came, saw and conquered.
I'm an emotional person, I'm passionate, and I think about things too much and I feel things too much as well. I can often come across if you don't know me as being very head screwed on and level headed, maybe even slightly cold. But nothing could be further from the truth, I suppose I'm just quite good at keeping it all to myself and retaining a stiff upper lip!
But today I feel too emotional and I feel too tired, Ive cried, TWICE for reasons I'm not too sure of. I had all intentions of blogging tonight about how this is all making me feel and how its making me seriously question certain aspects of my life, but honestly I CBA.
I will address all those things and I will explain them all, but not tonight, perhaps in my summing up at the end of the week.
For now its off to bed with a crap lemo, thank you for following, and thank you to all who have donated, its much appreciated!

GoodNight GodBless
x

Day 2: Butchers Pencils and Floor Pitta

Its fairly grim that its day 2 of my living below the line and Ive just called this blog day 3, realised I was wrong and felt sad. Its also fairly grim that after cereal for breakfast like yesterday, I went the gym and to my mandarin lesson and realised, 'Hmmm the plan for noddles for dinner doesn't work when your on the go all day and have neither a cooker or a bowl in your bag.'
Ive felt 'scatty' today, for those who don't know scatty is a scouse word for like a proper space cadet, I couldn't concentrate in my class, my teacher thought I wasn't paying attention and sadly after 3 lessons I haven't yet learnt to say 'Sorry miss I'm bloody starving, because Im raising money for a charity who lobby to end poverty.' I also whilst sitting on the bus on the way home thought 'Hang on, this isn't the way to my house'.
So after a 25 minute walk home, I need sugar STAT, the noodles where put firmly back in the cupboard and out came the crunchy nuts! So it was cereal for brekkie and cereal for lunch!
But the benefits of such unimaginative eating meant SCORE 60p Dinner!
Which was,,,why it was fake KFC of course...I say this,,it was cheap chicken nuggets in 2 pitta breads, total meal price 58p....it tasted nothing like KFC,,,,,the chicken nuggets,,,well if your getting 20 in a bag for £1 its not surprising the meat content on the back said 'about as much as whats in a butchers pencil'.
Oh but I tell thee, the grim part, getting my pittas out the toaster and dropping them both on the floor. It could have been the moment that broke me, but I'd lost my dignity hours ago when the window cleaner had watched me slurp every last bit of my milk out my cereal bowl, without a bat of an eyelid, the pittas got ate, I ate floor pitta!

In Your Face Colonel Sanders!

So its nearly 10pm now, Ive had a 3 hrs residents meeting and there is literally nothing I wouldn't go for a big milky sweet coffee, serves me right for having my tea at 4.30 because I was hungry!
So there you go, this was today,,,,a proper moany blog entry.
But I must say today hasn't been all bad living below the line doing it with friends from the Labour Group Malcolm, Luciana, Adam, Liam and Steve has really helped! Trading emails all day including the recipe for Steve Rotherham aka Delia Rotherhams Cheesy beans has pulled us all through I think! Doing it as a team, whether its the urge for me to beat Malcolm 'olive oil' Kennedy or just little tweets to Adam and Luciana supporting each other has been great, If your thinking of doing this Id recommend doing it as a team defiantly! (And much luck to our girl Joanne who starts next week too).
And finally a thank you to all my sponsors who I wont name, but you know who you are! Thank You for your generosity, very kind of you, god bless you all.

If you haven't sponsored me you can do at http://my.livebelowtheline.co.uk/CllrStephTill

This is hard, much harder than I thought, but also feels like one of the most worthy things Ive ever done, its getting lots of attention for Results UK who do amazing work, and Its made me think that after friday I really dont want this to be the end to my work with them!

Thank You for reading, Im off to bed, to dream of baileys ice cream and jaffa cakes.

x

Day One AKA Diet Coke Detox

My head right now is banging, I feel crap, tired and grumpy, welcome to day one of living below the line!
I must point out though its not because of food or lack of it, in fact Ive probably ate more today than I would in a normal day, oh no I'm going cold turkey........from diet coke!
As a none tea drinker and I'll only drink coffee if its laced with caramel, topped with cream and costs a small fortune in a poncy coffee shop, I drink diet coke ALL DAY, and when I say all day I mean I probably drink 6 cans a day, and I'm craving it now!

Apart from said headaches, today has been surprisingly good! It started with cereal and OJ and 18p noodles for lunch. But the glory moment surely came with dinner....
2x Spicy Beef Kebabs 50p (£1 for 4, I shall eat the other 2 tomorrow)
And Savory Rice 7p 1/4 of a 21p pack that I'll eat in the week.
A Pitta Bread 4p
Ohhhh and smug wasn't the word,,,it looked alright,,,,decent even,,,,,,,,,,long story short the kebabs where full of gristle, the rice was hard and the pitta bread wasn't enough to fill a small child!



Grim!

 But of course I'm lucky, I have the choice now to leave this food knowing tomorrow is another day and another meal awaits, tonight million men , women and children will go to bed not out of their choice!
Its thinking of this that makes my diet coke headache seem even more stupid and if I'm honest it makes me feel ashamed. This week already feels like its going to become something so much bigger than the £150 I'd like to raise, all of a sudden it feels kind of life changing.

Thank You to all my lovely sponsors, day one I'm 30% of the way to my target! :)
You can join my amazing group of sponsors by visiting http://my.livebelowtheline.co.uk/CllrStephTill

Thank You
*Argagagahgsgagahahah* That was my tummy rumbling thank you too! :)
x

The 3p Dilemma

Cornflakes and pure orange for Breakfast, 5 Packets of noodles, one for everyday for lunch, pasta, rice, cheap spicy kebabs and pitta breads and a bottle of 13p cordial to wash it all down with. Smug wasnt the word, I carried my basket to the check out thinking how good I was and how easy it had been, my shopping for £1 a day was done!

'Thats £5.03 please'
'What? No thats wrong I've added it up'
The man on the checkout looked at my face filled with confusion
'Dont worry if you havent got the 3 pence hun, there is odds here' He smiled kindly.
But it did matter, because for someone living in Poverty if they didnt have that 3 pence then they wouldnt eat, simple as, no kind person to let them off with it.
'You'll have to take something off' I said clearly now looking deranged to the queue behind me with heaving trollies. I handed my cordial back with my £5 note and slipped my 10 pence into my pocket.

Shopping away, I filled up two big jugs with water and put them in the fridge along with a couple of ice cube trays into the freezer and I thought in reality I was miffed at having to drink tap water all week, whilst really I should have been happy that the water that I had just put in the fridge was clean and safe. A basic right that EVERY person should have, yet so many living in poverty do not.

To sponser me to raise money for ResultsUK please visit http://my.livebelowtheline.co.uk/CllrStephTill

Thank You x

Why?

My £4.90 Shopping Basket for the Week

How many of us when we get home from shopping, before we put our food away in the fridge first fill up a carrier bag of food we haven't ate, stuff that's gone off, stuff you bought and you haven't a clue why?
I know I do, I say it to myself as I'm chucking it into the wheelie bin, what a waste.
I spend too much money on food and honestly I'm sick of it, so when I heard from my friend Adam about Living below the Line it seemed an idea opportunity to give myself a kick about my eating, shopping and spending habits!
So today I have wandered round the ASDA basket and calculator in hand and instead of returning with bag after bag of food I returned with one, one little carrier bag which will be my entire diet for the following week.
I was honestly surprised, it worked my mind actually thinking about what I was putting into my basket. Instead of being swayed by fancy packets and the smell of fresh bread and chicken being pumped into the air, I shopped with purpose. I found it so satisfying to come home and have enough food for a week for what I would normally spend on a Latte, £4.90 for a weeks shop!!

And of course this isn't just about me and my consumerism. The main purpose of this is to raise some money for the brilliant Results UK, you can read about their great work here http://www.results-uk.org/.
If you'd be so kind to support me you can sponsor me at http://my.livebelowtheline.co.uk/CllrStephTill.
Wish me Luck! :)
x