We survived

Well, I did it. I fed four people for seven days given a budget of five pounds a day; I spent 35 pounds in total for the full week, providing three meals a day for me and three kids, food on the table.

I cheated three times. Once by transferring my evening beer to the Entertainments Budget; once by smuggling a mackerel home in my handbag (purchase took me two pounds over budget but I was desperate); and once by eating out. (Not at the Ivy. Three pasties at Euston Station, but they still came to over a fiver and I ate nothing.)

A fiver a day? What's the going rate? How low can we go?

I don't know what the rest of miserable Britain is doing, because here I am following Shark's Rule. She wants to see what dinner is like, eating on a fiver a day. Maybe she is preparing for student living, and planning her cooking early.

If so, I have done her proud. I won't detail the gory (many lentils; plenty of reduced-bucket veg; potatoes past their best; not enough fruit) but will concentrate only on the glory: home-made burgers; cheese, onion, potato pie; vegetable stews; fruit curry and a delicious pitcher of home-made strawberry and orange smoothie, thanks to my shamelessly aggressive elbow technique at 20p mark-down time.

The kids said it was 'alright' albeit not enough fruit. I thought it was jolly hard work. I had to ignore any special offers or bulk-buy deals that took me over budget; I had to deny whims, fancies, and delights; and I had to shop with a mix of steely purpose and competitive opportunism, the like of which seemed to prove the existence of a gene for survival of the fittest down at the supermarket.

I concentrated on price reductions and felt miserable, becoming the recognisable woman hovering around the man with the reduced ticket sticker. I didn't have any feelings of camaraderie in recognising the other women daily doing the same. I merely saw them as opponents for my strawberries, and I resented the man with the ticket machine for having power over me.

Shark, of course, felt none of this. She was high on her Captain Mainwaring streak, following this home-made personal rule as if it was a point of decency and morality.

And she saw the end result, which looked and tasted fine to her.

Verdict. I am glad we do not live it every day, but am glad I know we can, should circumstance or need force my hand.

Now, I shall quietly prepare for Shark's next brilliant idea of three pounds a day or less by stocking up on lentils, hiding away my beer, planting the courgette seeds, and stocking up the freezer.