Here's a tight food budget for anyone interested and some a way of highlighting the issue of "1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty, surviving on just US$1.25 a day" (or $2 Australian).
Global Poverty Project Blog
US- Aid Democracy
Taking it further is the book below
Portfolios of the Poor - Book Link
A MELBOURNE man is living on a diet costing just $2 a day to teach Australians how to live below the poverty line.
He wants them to turn their backs on cheap fast food and the celebrity diet culture.
Having survived on his extreme poverty diet for the past 52 days, Richard Fleming is hoping to recruit 1000 Australians to eat for less than $2 a day for five days through his Live Below the Line campaign.
Having devised diet-based serves of such things as home-made soups (37c), hummus (24c), dahl and rice (41c), marmalade (5c) and peanut butter (8c), the Ivanhoe resident has shed 10kg so far but is still fit, healthy and easily manages 20km cycling each day as well as working.
"There is a level of stupidity in all this, I don't deny that," Mr Fleming said. "That is what has engaged people. It is about battling your hunger thoughts, and that is not with me any more because I think I have become stronger than them now.
Global Poverty Project Blog
US- Aid Democracy
Taking it further is the book below
Portfolios of the Poor - Book Link
Portfolios of the Poor: How the World's Poor Live on $2 a Day (Princeton University Press, 2009) tackles the fundamental question of how the poor make ends meet. Over 250 families in Bangladesh, India, and South Africa participated in this unprecedented study of the financial practices of the world's poor.
These households were interviewed every two weeks over the course of a year, reporting on their most minute financial transactions. This book shows that many poor people have surprisingly sophisticated financial lives, saving and borrowing with an eye to the future and creating complex "financial portfolios" of formal and informal tools.
Indispensable for those in development studies, economics, and microfinance, Portfolios of the Poor will appeal to anyone interested in knowing more about poverty and what can be done about it.
The authors thank the Ford Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and Financial Access Initiative for their generous support