Food Stamp Challenge
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Food Stamp Challenge
| Wed, 04-15-2009 - 5:06pm |
Some friends and I signed up for United Way's food stamp challenge. The rule is you have to feed yourself for $7 dollars a day. Since I have quite a bit staples at home (rice, flour, pasta, canned tomatoes, beans, etc.), I am going to limit myself to $5 dollars a day and see how it works. It will be interesting to see if it is still possible to stick to my vegetarian, mostly organic diet. If nothing else, I will save on grocery money! ;-)

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This would appear to be an exercise designed to perpetuate the fallacy that food stamps are intended to provide a family's entire food supply when the program was always meant to be a supplement to the family's own food budget.
I think it is probably designed to raise community awareness of hunger in America, especially during this recession with more than 4.4 million unemployed.
Regardless of what the reasons behind it (politically motivated or not), I think it's a good challenge to prove to yourself! Especially on this board, why not pinch some pennies and really prove to yourself that for $5 a day you can eat and be full! Shoot, one meal at McDonald's is usually over $5, so what a feat to prove that it's possibly to live with minimal dollars.
Eat some Ramen (this is the best advice a college student like myself can give) : )
-Kels
I don't think the intent is to perpetuate a fallacy about how hard it is to live on food stamps, but to raise awareness that there are people who don't have enough to eat or have a hard time finding healthy foods to eat.
Oh yes, the wonderful ramen! I am actually making it more challenging to do it and stay on a healthful diet at the same time. Just came back from the grocery store, didn't do too badly:
large bag of organic spinach salad $1.99 (it was on sale, so actually cheaper than regular bunch spinach)
organic zucchini, on sale for $0.89 a pound, got $1.53 worth
one large organic locally grown onion $1.12
organic apples (had to give up strawberries - they looked SO good), again on sale, $5 for 5
one dozen cage free eggs $3.49
1/2 gallon organic 1% milk $2.99
raisin bran and flax cereal $4.89
GRAND TOTAL: $21.01
I am not counting tonight, since I have leftover from earlier this week, but this should cover everything beginning tomorrow till breakfast on Monday. Looks like breakfast will be mostly cereal and milk, lunch could be peanut butter sandwich from my existing food stash, or frittata with spinach or zucchini, dinner would be rice and beans with a bit onion for flavor, or pasta and sauce (raid the pantry), and an apple a day, with one to spare!
Eat some Ramen (this is the best advice a college student like myself can give) : )
It is a good excerise in frugality and it will bring some awareness.
I think they assume there exist some scale of economy, because the rules are $7 per day for a person, but $12 per day for two people, and so on. I think in some ways there is, living alone with very little storage space it is sometimes difficult to take advantage of deals to buy in quantity and/or stock up when things are on sale.
Agree with you there are some compromise when one does not cook everything from scratch. I have a somewhat stressful full-time job, in the process of finishing a second graduate degree three-quarter time (taking 9 credit hours), and as much as I would like to have home-cooked meals, sometimes I do fall back on prepared food.
Hey, your savings is GROWING!
Norma
"Patience is the best remedy for every trouble"- Plautus
Bex -
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift -thats why its called the present."
Bex -
Also a good way to get rid of leftover bits of veggies, meat, even that 1/2 cup of rice or pasta you don't know what to do with.
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