This is Day 16 of a month long food stamp challenge (on October 18th). If this is your first visit, please check out this link to see all of the posts and get a better understanding of what is going on.
In case there was ever a question about our sanity, last night’s conversation would have answered it loud and clear. Barely halfway through this month and John brought up the possibility of another food challenge! Lest you think that he was the only crazy one, I agreed with him and we’re already planning for next year.
Oh, SNAP!
I’m going out on a limb here to say that my personal belief is that any program that uses the words supplemental and nutrition in its title should in fact limit the scope of the items eligible for purchase using its benefits. When it comes to a government funded program aimed at curbing hunger, all the more reason to reduce support for such things as snack cakes and junk food while increasing support for whole food items like produce, meat and pantry staples such as flour, meal, eggs, milk and the like.
When I gave the short talk “HELP! We’re Fat and Starving to Death!” I pointed out just how far we have gone from eating wholesome foods to barely surviving on junk food while suffering from malnutrition and obesity at the same time. This is one area in which the government could do the right thing by the American people and truly impact a large portion of the population, encouraging them to eat a healthier diet and lowering health care cost at the same time.
Yes, such limitations would in essence mean that the government was controlling what you could buy with SNAP benefits, but it is called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, not “Michael’s Twinkie Fund”. If Yum! Brands (home of Taco Bell, Long John Silver’s & Pizza Hut) have their way though, you’d be eligible to use food stamps to buy fast food. My favorite quote from that article though has to be this one:
"If the pie’s only so big, nobody’s going to want to see the pie sliced thinner," said Convenience Stores spokesman Jeff Lenard. "I’m not sure that’s in the best interest of public health."
A spokesperson for convenience stores saying that they were worried about public health? If convenience stores truly cared about public health, they’d shut themselves down.
PURCHASES
| ITEM | SIZE | PRICE | UNIT | PRICE/ UNIT |
| bananas | 4 | .98 | each | .25 |
| corn meal | 5 lb bag | 2.92 | cup | |
| coffee creamer | 32 oz bottle | 2.70 [C] | ||
| coffee creamer | 32 oz bottle | 2.70 [C] | ||
| frozen peas | 16 oz bag | 1.07 | cup | .54 |
| margarine | 4 sticks | 1.00 | tablespoon | .03 |
| bell peppers | 3 | 1.09 [P] | each | .36 |
| onion | 3 lb bag | 1.61 [P] | lb | .54 |
| peanut butter | (2) 18 oz jars | 2.59 [P] | 2 tablespoons | .08 |
| vegetable oil | 48 oz | 2.71 [P] | ||
| whole chicken | 3.97 lbs | 3.80 [P] | ||
| sweet potatoes | .90 lbs | .68 [P] | lb | .68 |
| canned peas | (2) cans | .86 [P] | can | .43 |
| coffee | 33.9 oz can | 7.70 [C, P] | pot | |
| tilapia filets | 1 lb bag | 3.91 [P] | ||
| C: Coupon | P: Price Match | R: Reduced | D: Damaged |
While I may have personal issues with the company, Walmart’s new and much-hyped ad match policy has been a joy to take advantage of during this challenge. With a single exception there have been no problems whatsoever. An interesting interaction during yesterday’s checkout though; when I handed the cashier my coupons at the end of the transaction, she said that they now need them to be scanned along with the item they are to be used for. I’m not sure if that’s a corporate policy or one that is specific to our store, but if you shop there, it is something to check on.
Walmart truly makes ad matching easy though, and their corporate policy is that you don’t even have to bring the ad with you to get the lower price, though I always carry my competitor’s ad along with a printed copy of Walmart’s coupon policy, just in case.
MEALS
BREAKFAST: $.50
coffee
sugar
creamer
BREAKFAST NOTE: A last minute doctor’s office visit threw off our eating schedule for the day and we missed breakfast.
LUNCH: $0.20
peanut butter & jelly sandwiches
LUNCH NOTE: We have noticed that not only is the price of baking bread at home cheaper than buying it premade at the store, we end up getting more slices out of each loaf. The previous two homemade loaves have yielded 4 more slices each, plus the ends were used to make breadcrumbs that supplemented our recent burger dinner.
DINNER: $2.38
salmon
stir fry with rice
DINNER NOTE: The salmon filets were pre-seasoned and found on clearance. It gave us the perfect opportunity to use leftover rice and sautéed peppers along with some cabbage, carrots and onion and believe it or not, the stir fry itself was the star of this show! We both said that we would gladly repeat it for lunch, and that’s a meat-free meal.
COOKIES: $.71
36 sugar cookies [recipe]
COOKIE NOTE: We’ve had desserts a couple of times so far, but nothing that has been more snack-like. This very basic cookie recipe came from an old cookbook that John wrote about in March. As it turns out, the cost breakdown is barely 2¢ each, so even a big snack of half a dozen cookies is just 12¢. Pretty sure that you’ll never find a dozen made from scratch cookies for 71¢, much less three dozen.
TOTALS
- Consumed Today: 3.79 [+5.21 for the day]
- Consumed To Date (week): 8.18 [+11.12 for the week]
- Consumed To Date (month): 68.64 [+75.36 for the month]
- Spent To Date: 195.91
- Remaining Balance: $83.27
QUESTION OF THE DAY:
What would you think if there were stipulations on food stamps that gave extra incentives to those who used their benefits to purchase non-convenience food items? For example, someone who purchased flour, sugar, eggs & butter as opposed to a bag of cookies or snack cakes or whole chicken instead of a frozen dinner.
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Very interesting question! I think maybe my answer would be yes! My biggest issue with using food stamps for junk food/soda/etc is that is endangering the health of our children!!! They have no choice but to eat what their parents feed them regardless of what it does to them.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing junk food removed from all grocery shelves. It would make my shopping a lot easier — less temptation to fight with : ) If I want cookies, cake, etc I’m perfectly capable of making my own from scratch, and I know they taste better and are a lot cheaper, but as I mentioned earlier this discussion has made me really take stock and realize how lazy I have become over the years — mostly since all the kids moved out. Thanks for the reality check!
I think KFC is also part of the YUM brands along with TCBY — food stamps at fast food joints — really??? I think that qualifies for “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore!”
I’m excited you two are doing this and despite some setbacks did not give up — a lesson to us all!
Could you please post the recipe for the cookies? The link takes you to a site to download the book, which I did, but navigating doesn’t seem very user friendly — I’m sure I just don’t know what I’m doing — that education thing again : )
I read John’s article and the 2 posts that followed it — I think one hit the nail squarely on the head — “I never knew you could make tomato soup” — that seems to be a very common problem, especially with anyone younger than 35 or so. I taught my kids (boys and girls) basic cooking and housekeeping skills. Even as recently as 25 years ago, one of my kids’ teacher was surprised that he knew what an iron is — she said most of the kids (4 & 5 yo she dealt with) had no idea what it was!
Anyway, this started out as a post just to ask for the cookie recipe : ) I have a cookbook I used to use a lot that belonged to my grandmother — time to dig that out again too — it has an awesome molasses cookie recipe, although I don’t know the cost it makes several dozen cookies.
In some places, you can double food stamp benefits, up to a certain dollar amount, like $10 or $20, per visit at participating farmers markets. This has been a HUGE incentive for me to go to the farmers market at least once a week (it is too far to afford the gas more than once a week most weeks). The way it works here is you take your EBT card to the office and they pull the amount you request off your card and give you tokens for that amount. They then give you DUFB tokens for every $2 you have taken off the EBT up to $20. The DUFB tokens can only be used for Michigan grown fruits and veggies.
Even if I didn’t normally eat like this, this program certainly would be an incentive to eat well. Unfortunately, the program isn’t very well promoted, certainly not by the government.
Chris — that’s awesome! I knew some Farmer’s Markets accept food stamps/EBT cards, but doubling your value is great! Definitely an incentive to add more fruits and veggies.
Wow! That is a great incentive.
While i definitely think that soda pop should not be allowed with food stamps, too much regulation makes me extremely nervous. Just what the “Occupy Wallstreet” is trying to combat: Big Business having their hands in everything and dictating what we can do, buy, eat and grow (Monsato, anyone?). I’m afraid once they start saying “yes, this” and “no, that” that all the permitted items will be those by Nabisco, Dole and all those other big food “product” companies, and people would not even be able to GET real food.
That is good if they let you double the food stamps @ the Farmers’ Markets: Here in Portland I cannot afford to buy ANYTHING at the farmers’ markets, because they charge twice (and more) what the produce is at the stores. I find that rather nauseating, as the point of them (i thought) was supposed to be to take the middle man out, so that the farmers could get a little more and the people could buy at a little less…like split the price the “middle man” would have gotten. But that is not how it works here at all! It is more like a yuppie market here, and i am priced out of it.
If you don’t want the government to dictate what you buy…….you keep government out of it and out of your life. I would like the government out……waaaaaay out of my business and my pocket. I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions and taking care of myself.
“Just what the “Occupy Wallstreet” is trying to combat: Big Business having their hands in everything and dictating what we can do, buy, eat and grow (Monsato, anyone?”
Is that what the Occupy Wallstreet is all about??
What big businesses are dictating whay you can buy eat or grow??
Last I checked, I make my own choices. Don’t give big business your money if you don’t want to support them.
You have that option………….well, not anymore…….since they get it through our tax dollars!
I’ve never been to the Portland Farmer’s market, but I’m sure they are overpriced. Sometimes we have people who ask if they can pick on my parent’s farm for the farmer’s market. If you want to cut the middle man….go direct to the farm. I picked all our strawberries this year for free with my kids.
Blueberries for $0.80 a pound (just made some bluebery pie :0)
Find solutions……not excuses….
CeeCee — I run into the same problem at the Farmer’s Market here (Ohio) as well. I can get a few things like corn on the cob, maybe tomatoes. I can’t see paying $2.00 for a head of cabbage when I can get one for less than a dollar at the store. It is frustrating sometimes because I would like to support local farmers, but if they can’t even come close to supermarket prices I just plain can’t afford it. Oh well, I’m hoping for a better yield out of my tiny garden next year : )
That’s too bad that some of you don’t have good prices at your farmers markets. At every farmers market I’ve been to, I’ve found that, as long as you buy peak in-season, you get really good deals.and it typically is a better quality than what you find in the store. I’ve also found that building relationships with the vendors by being regulars can get you even better deals. I had one farmer lady at the market we went to last year tell me that, since she thought it was so great how much my kids loved fruits and veggies, so if we were short of money & needed something, let her know. I never had to take advantage of her generous offer, but whenever I bought something from her, she always threw a little extra in. Other times, other markets, shopping toward the end of the day, I’ve had vendors give me bunches of stuff free that they’d otherwise toss, or gotten deals like mass quantities of zucchini for just a couple bucks.
I’m much more worried about the fatty, cheap meat like hamburger and pork, that they buy than the junk food. You can’t get away with buying much junk food on FS. It’s too expensive. Most FS recipients I see don’t spend a lot on chips and soda. They just buy starchy, unhealthy, fatty foods because that’s all they can afford. Rice, potatoes, shortening, margarine, fatty meats…all this is cheaper than healthy stuff. I read a study once about how many long term food stamp recipients were obese and had diabetes, and I can believe it. The ones I see are buying whatever is cheapest to feed their families. If they buy a few bags of chips for their kids once in awhile, God bless ‘em! It’s not worse than feeding them white rice and potatoes at every meal.
I just found you (your blog,I should say). very cool. I’ve been meaning to do something like this on my blog. But we really do live on Food Stamps so it’s not a challenge, it’s reality ;-) Recently our food stamps was reduced by almost $100, so now it really is more challenging – I’m feeding a family of 8 on less than $500/ month.
First off, I’ll say that here in GA, it seems like we get significantly higher benefits on FS than in other states. For our family of three, we were getting around $238/month.
We used that to buy the better quality meats (not the top-end high-priced stuff like Filet Mignon) like ground chuck or (if it was on sale) ground sirloin. Overall though, our ground meat purchases declined in frequency. We tended to buy flat-iron steak or London broil, both only when on sale, and mostly purchased boneless skinless chicken breasts in quantity. (I know, I know, after reading all of this so far, I could’ve gotten much more for my money by buying whole chickens, but until recently, I wouldn’t know what to do with a whole one if you handed it to me) While we did spend some of our EBT on occasional junk like chips and sodas (again, on sale), and once in a while a bag of candy as a treat, we spent so much more of our budget towards fruits and vegetables. Two of our favorite things to cook while on (and off of) food stamps were Beef Stroganoff (with a large side of steamed broccoli) and Curry (beef or chicken with onions, bell peppers, carrots, and potatoes served over steamed rice). Here’s the catch though (and I think y’all might be able to help me solve this conundrum): I LOVE the taste of stroganoff. My husband and I both HATE mushrooms. So when we make stroganoff, it consists of buying a box of the Hamburger Helper stroganoff, and then we add in flat-iron steak or London Broil instead of ground beef. While it’s still boxed crap, the nicer meat REALLY brings up the the flavor factor and makes it seem like a much nice dish. I get though, that we’re still eating a lot of processed crap that comes in that package, so my question is this: Does anyone have a beef stroganoff recipe that will give me that awesome taste and flavor that I love without the mushrooms?
I wouldn’t support FS recipeints getting more benefits if they are buying staple foods.
“Regular” people don’t get this option. That’s like saying to the boss..if you pay me more money I promise to buy healthier food. The boss doesn’t care, because it is not concern, nor should it be.
As Molly said, if the recipient doesn’t government involvement…don’t be on benefits.