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I want to share what a friend of mine is doing.

She read somewhere that the average Middle Class Person in India only spends USD 2.50 a day on food, and the poor & poverty stricken spend much, much less.

It got her thinking about how much abundance we have & that while our grocery budgets may be stretched to the limit at times (especially now), we are still better off than most in the world.

Her goal for Lent, is to feed her family of 4 as frugally as possible without sacrificing nutrition. Because she maintains a monthly grocery budget, it was easy for her to prorate what they would spend daily.

Each day she creates a menu/dietary plan to come in under that daily budget, and the excess goes into a rolling bank. She & her family have yardstick to see daily how they are doing.

At the end of Lent, she is going to donate the money they save to a food assistance oriented charity.

While she realizes this will not produce giant sums of money, it is an exercise for her family to stop and take pause. She's been blogging her progress, what they eat, and the sum in the bank for charity. I can tell you from reading it, they are eating well but frugally (and thoughtfully).

Whatever amount they end up donating, it will have come not from their excess....but rather from their sacrifice.

When it comes to Lent or any religious practice, you can take or leave it, regardless of your own beliefs. Regardless of the reasons, I think my friend is teaching her two daughters a wonderful lesson...to be both grateful and thankful for our relative abundance of food....and to be charitable to others even to the point of sacrifice.

It's a better Lenten exercise than using no meat on Friday as an excuse to grab a .99 fish filet or hit red lobster for all you can eat shrimp!

Watermelon and strawberries!

I'm giving up caffeine. I work at Starbucks. This is gonna be interesting. :D

I'm Presbyterian, so it's not mandatory for me, but it's a good form of self-discipline and preparation for Holy Week. I also think it's a form of countercultural action, since we live in a society that thrives on consumption and instant gratification; it's a way of saying, no, I don't always have to have what I want when I want it. I don't have to let my desires control me, but instead be ruled by the Lord.

Diet Coke...I've been drinking way too much. Actually, all sodas are off limits for lent this year.

My fiance has decided to give up eating between meals because we are big snackers... being its Girl Scout cookie time, i try to explain to him that just because he eats the whole box of thin mints "for lunch" doesnt make it any better than eating it between meals...

I am giving up chocolate... sigh... however, like Perky said, "it's a small sacrifice to pay for Jesus' sacrifice for me." Well said, Perky! Oh yeah, and my family is giving up meat on Fridays.

Last year I gave up alcochol. This year I am also ditching the cancer sticks. I think if I can make it forty days I'll just stick with it and hopefully be a non-smoker for good.

Sausage and bacon...two divine creations that will cause serious heartache, though the side benefit may be less heartburn.

I'm giving up religion.

I am not a religious person, and neither is anyone else I know that gives up something for Lent. The idea of giving up something for forty days is much more appealing than making a New Year's resolution, which I never do. This year I am giving up burgers, as well as all fast food. (Burgers will be most difficult, because the restaurant in which I work makes fabulous medium rare burgers covered in manchego...yum.) It will be a difficult forty days, but I plan on rewarding myself at Flip when my time is up, so it won't be all bad.

Nope, atheism/Freethought FTW.

McDonald's sugar-free iced coffee.