[As we enter the season of Lent, I have seen many Facebook posts commenting on what people are giving up, with most of them being things that have become pretty common – Chocolate, snacks, Facebook. This week’s From the Archive Friday from 2005 features a more unique Lent ‘experiment’…]
Last year as a family, in response to questions posed by our 7 year old son, we spent the month of February not spending much. We chose a budget of US$100 for the month, and stuck to it. It was tough, and we were glad when it was over, but we also learnt a lot about what life is like for our neighbours, grew in awe of their generous hospitality, and became much more gracious about their little requests for a bandaid, a pencil or a match!
Mostly, we have more than enough to keep us busy without tracking every rupee, and we are trying to learn to be generous. But still the discipline and learning of a restricted budget for a limited period seemed worth another shot. This year we decided to take it up as part of observing Lent (the period leading up to Easter -Muslims here who know little else about Christianity often have heard of lent as the time when Christians fast). Rather than setting a total budget, we decided to operate as though Mike were a daily labourer, who brings home cash each evening, and that’s what we live off until the next evening.
The first week our labourer brought home $3.50 each day, and we still managed to drink as much milk as we liked, eat cornflakes for breakfast, and catch rickshaws for short distances rather than walking. We realized that in order to have enough money to pay our monthly electricity bill ($3.50), refill our gas cylinder ($2.50), and recharge our mobile phone ($7.50), we would have to put aside 50 cents every day. No new clothes and chocolates this week, but no problems!
The second week our labourer brought home $3 each day, and we kept up our milk consumption by replacing the cornflakes with wheat porridge. We were getting in the habit of planning purchases and counting each rupee. Staples like flour and rice started running out faster as we had less snack foods in the house to fill up with between meals. Luxuries like sultanas and honey ran out and were not replaced.
The third week our labourer brought home $2.50 each day, which is about what a labourer might really bring home. As it turned out, we had guests for dinner one night, and had also invited friends to a picnic one day where we would provide all the food, so quite some time and thought went into creative catering on a tight budget. There was also a friend’s birthday party to attend – lots of yummy food for free, but extra expenses in transport.
The final week was probably the most realistic of all. We rolled a dice each evening to decide whether we would have $1 or $3 or something in between – a labourer can’t predict from one day to the next what he will earn. We rolled some bad numbers! But we survived.
This day-to-day existence was much more stressful for me than having a whole month’s worth of money to manage. Suddenly it became easy to imagine how someone’s house could be completely empty of food – it only took a few days for us to run out of lots of things. And our memories were all refreshed about people’s incredible generosity to us, and how far removed our lives are from those of our neighbours in many ways.
[Mike & Karen (names changed for security reasons) live in an urban poor community with their two young sons and work amongst Muslims in an Indian megacity. For more information about joining the team there email us on [email protected]]
