I remember a young journalist in my country that tried to do that a long time ago. He was a rich spoiled kid who got into the newspaper by nepotism and wanted to make a name for himself. He had no clue what it was like to live on minimum wage (which is earned by the majority here). On the first few days he was already way beyond the budget. He actually went to the restaurant "just once". Readers were laughing how clueless he was and he'd be starving before the 3rd week. It didn't happen because the column mysteriously vanished after week 2.