Living on $1 a day?

Recently I watched a documentary about how more than 1 Billion (yes, that is with a B) people in the world live on the equivalent of 1 US dollar per day, or less. These folks make life and death decisions based on a few dollars. The spare change in the couch cushions we ignore, is a day’s wages for someone else in the world.  I started thinking about what my per-day cost is for my lifestyle. (Keep in mind, my income is considered “poverty” in the USA). I created a spreadsheet that details my actual daily costs over the past few months and it is pretty amazing; the table below shows my per-day amounts for individual items over the most recent  3-month period…

Total Travel is a combination of gasoline and camping.
Total Food is a combination of groceries and dining out.

I was very amazed to see how much I spend on a daily basis. Personally I would have thought that spending $25 a day would have been a lot for me, but once everything gets added up I am well above that.

I know I can not survive on $1 per day, but I can’t help but wonder what I could do to reduce my daily average. Challenge accepted! While I plan to continue my traveling and current lifestyle, I wonder if I can do with some minor tweaks to reduce my costs without making a huge lifestyle change.

I realized just how fortunate we are just to be born to Mother’s and Father’s already living in certain geographical areas. If I were born in another part of the world, my entire life would be very different.