Jess Whittlestone

In the first few days of January each year, people around the world set resolutions - things they’d like to change, start doing, or stop doing in the new year to come. The beginning of a new year provides a nice opportunity to take a step back and reflect on our lives. It provides a feeling of a “fresh start” - a renewed sense of hope that we can make positive changes, that we can do things differently.

Whenever I stop to think about how my life is going, I also try to remember to put it in perspective. While I might not have done as much exercise as I’d like this year, I am in the richest 5% of the world’s population. The fact that I’m able to worry about whether I should be shifting to a low-carb diet, or whether I should be doing more high-intensity exercise, is a sign of just how well-off I am. Because you know what I don’t have to worry about? Getting enough food to eat, or keeping a roof above my head, or catching malaria. If these worries so much as peaked their heads into my day-to-day life, I’d certainly be worrying a lot less about how much time I was spending meditating.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we’re wrong to think about these things, or that our problems are trivial. I think striving to improve yourself in every way is awesome, and that many people in the developed world face genuine struggles. But it’s also important to recognise that in most ways we are in an incredibly privileged position in the world. The fact that we are even able to set New Year’s resolutions is a sign of that.

an excellent video made by Cambridge University students

taking the Giving What We Can pledge as their New Year’s resolution

 - pledging to give 10% of their income over their life to the most cost-effective charities. For most of us, donating just 10% of our incomes would barely change our own lives - I’d still be in the top 6% of the world’s population, for example. And in fact, 

research suggests that giving actually makes our own lives happier

 - making giving more to charity a great resolution for improving your own life in 2015, too.

As with any New Year’s resolution, though, it’s important to make a commitment you’ll actually feel motivated by and be able to stick to. If you haven’t exercised once in the past year, resolving to go to the gym every day in 2015 might be a bit unrealistic. Similarly, donating 10% of your income might feel like too big a leap straight away. But it needn’t be all or nothing. When we’re building new habits - and donating to charity is in many ways like any other habit - initially it’s important to focus on small goals you’ll actually meet and feel good about. So if it feels more realistic to you to start by donating a smaller percentage, and to commit for a shorter period of time, 

 might be the perfect resolution - pledging to donate a percentage you choose for a certain period of time.

We needn’t face a choice between improving our own lives and improving the lives of others, because we can do both. So this January, as well as resolving to get fitter, eat better, and be more productive, I’m resolving to use my incredible position in the world to help others more - especially those who don’t have the privilege of being able to set New Year’s resolutions.

New Year's Resolutions and Giving

On Saturday morning, I met a friend for breakfast at G&Ds. I had a large cappuccino and a blueberry muffin, which in total cost me £4.50, just 50p less than the budget I'd been living on for 

This was the first "unrestricted" food I'd eaten since finishing the "live below the line" challenge, and whilst I'm not going to deny that I enjoyed eating something that wasn't rice or spaghetti, it also made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I became very aware that for those that live below the poverty line, or in worse conditions in reality, there is no such "Phew, I'm glad that's over and I can go back to my normal diet" moment. Celebrating such a moment suddenly felt pretty distasteful.

Thousands of people over the world have been participating in this challenge, and I imagine many have been blogging about their experiences: what they ate, what the hardest parts were, what they learned. But before getting onto all of that, I wanted to reflect briefly on my reasons for taking the challenge.

Of course, these reasons might seem pretty obvious. 1.4 billion people today still live in extreme poverty. To put this in perspective, the campaign website points out that this is 20 times the total UK population, which I find pretty staggering. By taking this challenge, we're raising awareness, and more importantly, fundraising to bring about change. The Giving What We Can team are still top of the teams leaderboard, now having raised over £16,000 for SCI.

At the same time, I think it's important to realise that what we're not doing by taking this challenge is "simulating poverty" or getting any insight into what it's like to live below the poverty line in reality. On day two, someone shared with me 

, which is quite strongly critical of the challenge for just this reason. The author points out that living on a pound a day for 5 days no more gives you a sense of what it's like to live in poverty day in day out "than you could empathise with the plight of a wrongly convicted death row inmate by spending 24 hours alone in a room. In your house. With the door unlocked." Whilst I think he's overly aggressive in his message (read the rest of the article and you'll see what I mean), and misses the bigger point of raising funds and awareness, I think there is an important message to take away here. We're not doing this to get any sense of what it's like to live in extreme poverty. What it does give us, though, is a sense of extreme appreciation for our own situation - and so hopefully, a strengthened motivation to help those less fortunate.

Porridge. Rice. Spaghetti. Tomatoes. Lentils. A few beans, a few precious teabags.

Pretty much all my meals looked like this:

A little monotonous, but really not bad all things considered. I thought I might get hungry, but actually with big enough portion sizes and the fact that Tesco Everyday Value rice and spaghetti are astonishingly cheap (40p for 1kg rice, 19p for 500g spaghetti), I got by just fine.

Given the point I just made about not even getting close to simulating poverty, I'll first say that relatively speaking the challenge was a stroll in the park. At the same time, it was certainly difficult at times comparad to the way most of us live normally, so I'll share with you some of my hardest moments:

Being invited out for dinner with friends after a talk on Monday evening, and having to say no.

 I mean, I could have gone and not eaten, but by this point I was getting pretty hungry and had my 33p meal waiting at home. Much of my social life revolves around food, and having a limited budget means missing out on things. The "chilli" and rice I'd pre-cooked the previous night tasted surprisingly good, though.

Having a HUGE chocolate cake sat right in front of my nose in the office on Tuesday afternoon when I was just starting to get hungry

.... this was pretty unbearable. The smell wafting in my direction was just so tempting. Why is it that this is the first time we've 

Going out to a chinese restaurant for lunch on Friday and watching everyone eat yummy looking food whilst sipping water

. Unlike Monday's dinner, it was harder just to avoid with Peter Singer there... fortunately the conversation was interesting enough that I just about managed to distract myself from my rumbling stomach!

What did I miss the most? Fresh coffee, without a doubt.

That we pay a huge amount for convenience. It's much easier to go and grab a quick bite after work with friends than to go home and cook, but the former probably costs at least 5 times more. I don't think I'd quite appreciated this before, or how much money I could save if I planned ahead and was prepared to make that little extra effort.

It also just reinforced for me how much eating is a part of my social life, and eating out incredibly ingrained in our culture. Most of the ways we socialise involve spending some money on food or drink - going for dinner, grabbing coffee, meeting for a beer.

On a more positive note, I learned that planning ahead can save you huge amounts of money, and you can really live very cheaply if you stick to a budget, buy food and cook in bulk. I feel I've learned some useful strategies for making the most of my money which I'll use to spend less on food in the future.

Going to the pub on Friday evening after work and meeting Alan Fenwick, director of SCI, the charity I've been doing all this to raise money for. So far I've raised enough money to deworm almost 3000 children, which is well worth missing out on a piece of chocolate cake for!

What a £5 coffee break taught me about living below the line

Jess studied Maths and Philosophy at Somerville College, Oxford, and obtained a PhD in behaviour change from Warwick University.

Jess Whittlestone

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New Year's Resolutions and Giving

What a £5 coffee break taught me about living below the line