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Food Stamp…Challenge?

Hello Internet, let me introduce myself. I am a recently married, recent college grad, who doesn’t make anywhere close to the the above average pay that college grads are promised when they sign up for all those loans. I was raised in a lower-middle class family, who at times needed to be thrifty with our food choices.

I’ve heard a little about the Food Stamp Challenge lately. So I looked up SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) eligibility requirements, and my husband and I are just over the limit. Which means we have about a hundred or so more dollars a month than people who qualify (or about 30 some dollars a week).

Honestly, the whole hubub makes me a little angry. It’s awesome that people are raising awareness of the fact that hunger is still a big issue in the US, but there are a few things that most articles have overlooked.

For starters, it’s a supplemental program. When your eligibility is assessed, they figure that 30% of your income is going towards food (http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility). While I will be the first to tell you that it’s not always possible to reserve that much, if the government gives you $29 per person per week extra, and you only have $13 to add from your income instead of the estimated $33, you will still be ok (keep reading). (Side note: $29 is the average, but it goes up to around $40 as the max)

Next, there are lots of things besides food that we can waste our money on. Yes, limes are extravagant, but so are cable TV, magazines, cell phones, and pets. We need internet in our house because of my job, and we have pets (I put about the same amount of effort into saving on their necessities as I do on my own, see below). But we don’t have cable, only get the free newspaper for grocery adds, have the cheapest phone plan we could get (no data), and don’t get out for entertainment (ie the movies) all that much. We picked a few luxuries and had to say no to the rest.

Also, eating the same things day in and day out does not require that it taste the same all the time. If you spend a few bucks on dried spices each week, you’ll have a decent spice rack in about two months. Use it.

In addition, it is still entirely possibly to eat healthy with a small food budget, you just have to do a heck of a lot more work than what I’ve seen people write about.

1. Find a cheap grocery store. There are two grocery stores in town, but I will drive an extra 15 minutes to go to the cheap one, because the savings exceeds the cost of gas. (Disclaimer, I live in the country, so public transit is not an option, but if it were, I would give that some serious thought as well.)
2. Find a Bent & Dent or Day Old store. Did you think stores just threw everything out if it got damaged or went out of date yesterday? (Admittedly, this is a true fact for much of the food industry, but not all, as proven by the existence of discounted grocery stores.) The one I go to is eclectic, and a little hit or miss for what you will find there, but if I need some processed food, I will look there first. I hope everyone out there is aware of the fact that most expiration or sell by dates are just how long the manufacturer felt like testing them for. You do have to be a little careful, making sure that dented cans don’t have any leaks, or that smashed cereal boxes still have their bags intact. But after over a year shopping there, I’ve had maybe two bad buys. Which amounts to less than $5.
3. Sales and baseline prices. Keep track of how much things cost. If you shop two stores and find butter for $3 instead of $4, don’t assume that it’s the best price out there. After a few weeks of shopping, you’ll start to remember (or a least have a decent list of) how much different items usually go for, and what a good sale price is. If something is on sale, if it will keep, and if you can afford a little extra for the week, go for it. Example, a pound of rice around here is usually between $1.20 to $1.50, so when I found a 20 lb. bag on clearance for $10, I went for it, even though that was 1/3 of our grocery budget for the week. (yes, you read that right. For a typical week, I try to keep groceries for two people below $30.) I haven’t had to buy rice for a few months, and I won’t have to for quite a while.
4. Limit processed foods. Pancake mix is nice, but you can buy flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt for a fraction of the cost, especially since you were going to buy at least half of those items anyway. I’m a cereal addict, but I don’t buy cake mix. We require peanut butter to be in the house at all times, but I rarely buy bread. (I buy both cereal and peanut butter at the bent and dent store.) Pick a few things you can’t live without, and live without the rest of them (or make them from scratch).
5. Learn to cook and plan meals. You don’t even have to buy a recipe book because of the internet, but some of them do offer good explanations for why/how foods are made. You can save soooo much money by learning how different ingredients complement each other and making your own food. Not just finding tasty recipes, but recipes you can make with what you have (or plan to have based on sales) for that week. If you splurge on fresh peppers, make sure you have enough meals that use them in a week so they don’t go bad.
6. Cheap nutritious foods. If you’re going cheap, you can’t afford to get your protein from red meat, and fresh veggies are much more expensive than the equally nutritious frozen varieties or slightly less nutritious canned ones. I went about 4 months without buying ground beef since it was so stinking expensive, but you can bet that I snapped it up (and froze a bunch of it) when it went on sale. The list above has some good cheap foods you can start with.
7. Freeze more things. You’d be surprised what you can keep in your freezer. If there’s a sale, buy more than you need and keep the extra in the freezer. Bread, butter, meat, soup, cut up fruit — will all keep a good couple of months in your freezer. Until the next time they’re on sale.
8. Suck it up people. Not every meal that you have is going to be an artisan dish. Let’s remember that a good chunk of the world survives on ONLY rice and beans. Every. Day. If you were ever really hungry, I hope that you wouldn’t turn down a bowl of rice and beans because it didn’t taste too great, or you’d had too much of it. We’ve spoiled ourselves with variety, and I hope we can work on appreciating simplicity a little more.

As I said before, I’m glad that people are raising awareness of the challenges that hunger presents to many families in the US. But there’s so much more that’s missing in this conversation.

Those raised in lower-income families aren’t often handed down the skills of cooking economically, and the result is their continual struggle with hunger. Those raised in higher-income families rarely have to worry about how much is in the food budget, and the result is a misunderstanding of the effect food has on their lives beyond their health.

Let’s help lower-income families learn how to be wise in spending the little money that they have.

Let’s share recipes that are truly economical as well as tasty, and not the ones where the garnish costs more than the main ingredient.

Let’s focus less on brand names, and more on price-tags.

Let’s remember that if we don’t care what we pay for food, neither will the food industry, and prices will continue to rise making it more difficult for those less privileged to afford good food.

Let’s worry less about weight loss and super foods, and more about the kid down the street that didn’t have a lunch.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy some eggs because they’re on sale this week.