And that's why it's expensive to be poor. Even if you make really good choices, it's hard to get enough money at once to start gaining ground, and easy to lose it.
And that's why it's expensive to be poor. Even if you make really good choices, it's hard to get enough money at once to start gaining ground, and easy to lose it.
Just for me, and it would definitely go up if I went to restaurants. It may range lower than that. As I say, I've never toted it up.Originally Posted by kib
I have never tried SNAP, but I think it would be a challenge given my needed eating habits. Food here in NJ is really expensive...Catherine do you find that to be true as well?
Gee, I hadn't thought about it because I don't often shop anywhere else! I always thought it might be cheaper because of the competition in a densely populated state. But it's true that if you run into the supermarket for a couple of things it's hard to leave without spending $30. Sometimes I accept the higher prices, i.e. if I'm shopping at a farmer's market.
If I work hard at planning, I can definitely get my food budget down to $370 for two people (that's the SNAP allotment in our state). Definitely do-able, but I have to use Dave Ramsey's envelope system and plan meals properly and give up junk food.
"Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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First, I'd like to point out that SNAP stands for *Supplemental* Nutrition Assistance Program--it has never been intended to provide the entire food budget for an individual or family. There's a lot of confusion about this out there, and the entire idea of the SNAP Challenge seems to rest with the idea that the allotted SNAP money is all a family would have to spend on food. (Sadly, it may be, but SNAP assumes that the family has other money to spend on food, or that the kids are getting free lunch at school, etc.)
Second, I was on SNAP for about 5 months two years ago, when I hit rock bottom during a prolonged stretch of unemployment. In my state, I was awarded $189 a month, or $47.25 a week. My usual food budget, when fully employed, is $200 a month. So I basically ate the same food on SNAP as I did when working full time with a good salary. I bought fresh produce, and frozen vegetables, because they keep longer, and small amounts of beef and chicken, but no fish because that was too expensive. I really did not have to alter my eating habits at all.
But then, I was used to cooking from scratch, I had a working kitchen stocked with the necessary pots, pans, knives, measuring spoons, etc. I had the time to cook. I knew how to cook.
When I started working again, it was at two jobs, and the time I had for cooking was greatly reduced. I'm single, I can make a big batch of something and eat it for 4 or 5 days. Someone with a family can make a big batch of something and it's gone in a single meal. My return on the investment of time is much greater than someone trying to feed 4 or 5 people.
And if you are coming off a retail shift where you've been on your feet for 9 hours, you may not have the energy to stand in the kitchen for another hour to cook dinner. You want to sit down and eat something, so you can get on with cleaning the bathroom and doing the laundry and all the other tasks necessary to running a household. Cooking is one of the few things you can cut corners on, with processed food.
Time for food shopping is also reduced when you are working 55-60 hours a week. Reading the ads, making a list, shopping, putting the food away, cooking, cleaning up--all take time. It's a lot faster to do your meal planning by walking down the frozen food aisle and grabbing lasagne for one day, fried chicken for the next night and a frozen pizza for the next night. Saves a ton of time.
-As iris lilies mentioned, there can be a cooking challenge due to equipment (or lack of it). Many families don’t have a fully-stocked kitchen. We teach cooking classes at the Food Bank and choose recipes that can be made in a microwave or on a hot plate/stove-top, which is the equipment most families have, and occasionally a counter-top toaster/oven or oven. We also teach cooking classes for kids because they are often in charge of meals.
Many families don’t purchase ingredients to stock the kitchen, they purchase 88-cent frozen dinners instead. Teaching them the value of ingredients over ready-to-heat-and-eat is a challenge. Include that 88-cent frozen entrée, meal, or frozen pizza as your emergency back-up meal, not everyday meals. Ingredients give you more options and generally cost less. The same ingredients it takes to make pancakes (flour, egg (optional), milk, baking powder, salt and fat) are also the ingredients needed to make a cake, cookies, breads….. Instead of buying packets of instant oatmeal, buy a 42-oz. box at Aldi for $2.29. You will get MANY more servings of oatmeal (you can actually make your own “instant” oatmeal packets), plus with a few additional ingredients you can make cookies, granola, pancakes, muffins, scones, and many other things.
-Tradd – would “love to see what a really frugal person, who actually eats some meat, would do with this challenge” – I do it all the time on a $125/month food budget. I try to keep meat to $2 or less a pound (although that’s getting harder to do), and no matter how much it is per pound, I only budget $10/week for meat. Some weeks I don’t purchase any because there isn’t a bargain, or I already have enough in the freezer, so that means I transfer that meat money to the next week when I might find a bargain and could spend $20 instead of $10. We consume two 3-oz. servings of meat (or meat alternative) each day. By using low-costing meat alternatives like eggs, beans, nuts, dairy, grain/bean mixtures, gelatin, nutritional yeast flakes, I can serve less meat. You get some protein from nearly all food, not just meat. We enjoy steak, chops, roasts, ham, chicken, turkey – but it’s all purchased within the budget. We also have a lot of vegetarian meals, and still get the appropriate amount of protein. I read recently “the U.S. is the only place on earth where “poor” people eat meat twice a day”. I use mixtures of grains/beans for a complete protein: 1 c. lentils, 1 c. rice, 4 c. water – cook like you would rice for a vegetarian substitute for ground beef. By mixing beans/grains you get a complete protein.
With meat prices going up, I’ve switched to ground turkey instead of ground beef. I even use ground turkey to make “sausage”. Ground turkey is often reduced for quick sale ($1.99#) for an even bigger savings. Jane V2.0 said she’d “eat a lot of tuna and eggs”. When lg. eggs were 99-cents a dz. around Easter, I stocked up and even froze several dozen. I generally purchase medium eggs after reading “Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half” by Steve & Annette Economides. “Given the small difference in average liquid volume between medium and large eggs, a sharp consumer ought to always check the price of medium eggs. If the price difference is less than 5-cents per dozen, buy the larger size. If greater than 5-cents, buy the smaller size.”
Tuna actually isn’t cheap – not when you price it per pound. A 5-oz. can of tuna at 69-cents = $2.21 (rounded up) per pound. I just purchased a huge ham for 99-cents per pound. You can lower the cost by mixing tuna with low-costing meat alternatives like eggs and beans to make more servings. The ONLY way you can “stretch” a protein is by adding a less-expensive protein. Adding more starches/carbs in the form of pasta/noodles, is adding to your daily source of grains, not meat/meat alternatives.
Kid – You can buy in bulk, as long as it’s within your SNAP budget. In fact, it’s recommended to purchase in bulk when possible. Dried beans are cheaper than canned. A heaping ½ c. of beans = one 15-oz. can. A 1# bag of beans is roughly the same amount as 3 (15-oz.) cans of beans. Buy the largest bag of frozen vegetables you can afford. Use a portion as mixed vegetables, but separate out the remaining bag into individual vegetables. Now you have mixed veggies, as well as corn, green beans, peas, carrots, etc. (whatever the combination is). Within my frugal budget, I purchase enough powdered milk to last us a year. That’s not possible for SNAP participants, and that’s the difference between a frugal cash budget and a regulated purchases on a SNAP budget.
Here’s a little guideline for breaking down a food budget to cover all the basic foods needed for a healthy diet each week:
For Every $25:
Vegetables - $6
Fruits - $5
Grains - $4
Protein - $4-$5
Dairy - $4
Other - $1-$2
We also teach to use $5 each week to buy ahead - taking advantage of discounts, specials, and other reduced food options. Not to mention growing your own (seeds for planting are also covered by SNAP) and finding free food.
-As Miss Cellane pointed out, it is a “supplement”. And it may not be the ONLY supplement. Some also receive WIC and free or reduced breakfast and lunches at school.
I like this food blog though its heavy on carbs; she did the Snap Challenge last year:
http://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/10/s...inal-thoughts/
The key seems to be educated, mindful, and frugal--and avoid waste. No matter how careful I think I'm being, I still seem to throw out spoiled vegetables.
[QUOTE]I still seem to throw out spoiled vegetables. [/QUOTE
I did too until I started saving bits and pieces to make vegetable stock. The rest goes in the compost pile.
I tend to buy best deals in produce with little thought to how I will use so my meals are ingredient driven by what I have on hand.
Jane, yeah. I have a tendency to nibble. Cheese, berries, nuts, cherry tomatoes - the easy parts of a salad. So I shop for "salad" and then basically eat around the lettuce because it's too much bother. Then I'm ready to make The Salad one day, at which point I realize the leafy vegs have gone bad. I'm fine with produce I can just pop in my mouth, I'll even eat a red pepper like an apple, but the ones that require prep or cooking tend to go to the back of the fridge.
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