A Walk In Other's Shoes - Poverty Challenge - Family

This challenge is asking families to attempt to stay within a social assistance budget for five days. Ontario Works benefits provide a maximum basic needs for a couple with any amount of children is $458.00; this sets the challenge budget at $75.00 per family, or $15 per day. A single parent would receive $344.00 per month, therefore, their challenge budget will be $60.00 or $12.00 per day.

The budget includes all food and drink, entertainment, some personal supplies and transportation costs. Each family will be given challenge cards which will reveal additional challenges to be completed before the end of each day. As the family completes the challenge, they will blog about their experience.

Boucher Family

Boucher Family

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Kids normally have cross country skiing on Saturday mornings,but we didn't use the $1 to drive there because we can use that dollar elsewhere.We can't really pay the dayrate either and after the kids did their long walk from town yesterday,the energy level and enthusiasm is just not there. Life without coffee is hard and the balance for the rest of the day is pretty well shot,(if you are laughing) give it a try. Ange is experiencing withdrawal already and having the headache that goes with that.The boys and I will tread lightly today, may have to spend that precious dollar to save our necks. Ange is doing laundry by hand because the challenge today is NO LAUNDRY SOAP, need to wash the bare minimum and doing laundry for a family of 5 would come close to killing the poor lady.If we lived closer to the downtown core, she would have scraped together enough change from the couch(thank goodness for visitors) and pockets she would be at the laundry mat. Todays breakfast was cereal for the kids and Ange and I settled for toast and tea, just like the old days for me,lunch is going to consist of grilled cheese and homemade tomato soup,(tomatoes were given free last fall, thank you mom Enns)and Ange canned it up totally free of cost. She it thankful for the canning skills she grew up learning. The kids have already wandered into the kitchen looking for snack and have had to leave with out getting any. In the past they have often complained the there was no food in the house (even though the cupboards were full, just not their favorites)now we really don't have food in the cupboards. This will hopefully change their attitudes about the food we have in the house. No video games or computer for the us during this challenge. The kids have been reading up a storm. Very thankful for the library. We are letting the kids watch the movies they borrowed from the library today as that is a resource that many low income people do use.

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