Day 6: Live below the poverty line – £1 a day

• Breakfast: 30g of coco snaps + water
  
• Lunch: Left over penne and chilli
• Dinner: Hoops on toast
• “Treat”: To be revealed 

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ve woken up craving something sugary and today I am employing my inner pinchpenny to get just that.

A Google search for “free food samples” reveals a number of potential avenues to satisfy my craving. Subway are doing a free cookie if you review one of their chains. Result! However as I click onto the page, my sneaky plan is foiled- I need a subway food receipt to obtain the chain ID! I mutter a few gypsy curses as dreams of the cookie crumble.

Back to the drawing board. A further search informs me that a gluten free specialist company called Livewell Free From Foods will send you a welcome pack containing freebie samples if you sign up to their mailing list. Form submitted, I can’t wait for my goody bag. Thank you celiacs!

As for today’s craving, I spot online that Krispy Kreme are giving away a glazed doughnut if you sign up to their mailing list too. Perfect! Within 10 minutes I’m dressed and hot footing it into town on a quest for my sticky treat. 

The kind man serving in Krispy Kreme took a photo of me with my bounty after I explained to him about the poverty challenge. Lovely stuff! I can also get a free item on my birthday (only 4 months to wait then, toot!).

Feeling giddy with success I wander up to a father and son perched on a seat in West Quay. I hope to get a snap taken on the escalator with my prize doughnut.  I politely interrupt them to explain about the challenge and am cut short by the father barking “I’m not giving you a pound”. I hastily try to explain that this is not what I’m asking and am warned “we’re not giving you any food neither”. Unsure if I’m speaking English I break my request down to “please can you help me by taking a photo of me eating my doughnut on this escalator?” only to be met with a similarly gruff “no”. Taken aback and a little hurt, I tell the man I am disappointed and apologise for disturbing him. The son pipes up to ask more about the challenge but by now I am crimson with embarrassment and conscious nearby shoppers have branded me a doughnut wielding beggar. 

I take my leave, tuck my tail between my legs and quickly shuffle off.

My faith in humanity is restored by a market vendor selling vapour cigarettes who, intrigued by the challenge, kindly obliges several photos and wishes me the best of luck.

After all of that palaver it’s at last time to scoff my reward. Krispy Kreme – get in my faaace!!