It is important to be able to see how this challenge affects us, so John will be sharing his perspective throughout the month as well. Here he talks about conflicting feelings and a little about his own history with food scarcity.
The food challenge has another face, and it’s one that will not be found in the photos or videos. It still has a voice though, one that says, “I am confident, but with concerns.”
That voice is mine.
Michael introduced this challenge to me, and frankly, I think we can do it. I have been a cheap ass most of my life – not accruing much wealth but eating regularly, having a good time and buying the things I want, pretty much when I want them. That includes snacks. As Michael explained, we have approximately $4 each per day to spend on food. When I worked this week, I looked at my purchases for just snack foods and soda. My daily average was over my daily food allowance for October!
We have a joint challenge ahead of us, one that Michael feels nervous about, but I was comfortable with until I realized what I spending without a second thought.
I once survived for 6 weeks on overripe bananas, mayonnaise sandwiches and Ramen that gave me the occasional opportunity for a hot meal. Not by choice, but out of necessity. The bananas were given to me by my local grocer, the bread was quarter-a-loaf and days old, and the mayo came from packets I’d saved from eating fast food. I never was good at asking for help when I needed it and when I did I was met with some scoffing as I explained what left my cupboard bare.
We all land where we land at times it’s a matter of making sure we have the basic necessity to maintain our strength and spirit. I have never been as humbled as I was by someone standing next to me in a restaurant once asked me to buy something for their child to eat. I agreed, asking what they would like they refused, saying “just something for my children”. I knew that they were standing on their feet in front of me but inside they were praying, scared and on their knees.
This month I have a sub-challenge that Michael won’t have to do because he works from home. No snacks or sodas at work and no money spent on food of any sort that comes from my pocket. After all, if I were on SNAP, I would not be able to pull out that card and buy what I wanted if I had others to be concerned for.
I’m still confident that we can meet this challenge head on. It is important that we do. For that reason and for Michael’s fear, I am giving up my “treats” for the next 31 days.
Wish me luck.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Good LUCK!!! Last month I tried to do the Brown Bag Challenge and failed on many days. That was just trying to take a lunch to work 5 days a week not eat 3 meals a day on $4.09. I am not really into snacks, but Pizza Hut mild buffalo wings are my down fall at lunch.
My first day was DIFFICULT. I planned to drink tap water and eat my sandwiches. Where the water HAS TO BE consumable for drinking, it doesn’t have to taste good. I made it through, but now know, I will have to find an alternative to the water at work. I don’t know if it’s my disliking of drinking “just water,” or if it’s the fact it has no fizz. Either way, Day 1 is a success at work…and at home too. Missy, try it again! You and I will do it together…not for the cheapness, but for the support we could give each other. Nothing like the sense of accomplishment when you can say, “I did it.”
Good luck, John! I agree plain water can be very boring. I’ve been trying to break the soda habit with iced tea, and that gives me some variety. I’ve also found that it helps me to keep a couple of snacks in my desk in case lunch didn’t cut it. I usually have one or more of these: oatmeal & brown sugar that I can make in the microwave, a handful of nuts or dried fruit (sometime added to the oatmeal), and a jar of peanut butter (since I can buy a bagel for 50 cents in the cafeteria).
Watching with interest!
popcorn……it’s easy and cheap. (Not the microwavable kind ;)
Is the water at home better than the water at work?
Or do you just not like water? I usually put a little lemon juice in my water.
It’s easy to make microwave popcorn using the cheap regular popcorn kernels too.
John, I can totally empathize. If water tastes awful, I have a very hard time making myself drink it. We’ve saved a lot of money at home with a Brita pitcher because it means I am not going through several bottles of water a day. I live in Indiana and the water up here is full of minerals and other yuck. (Though, Georgia water wasn’t much better…it just was more chlorine flavored than mineral deposit.)
When I was reading over this I had a thought that seemed silly but I figured I’d share anyway just in case: Kool-aid. Lots of stores tend to put it on sale fairly regularly and it is not much per packet if you buy the larger ones anyway. If you have access to a fridge at work you could make up a pitcher and leave it there. If you don’t have access to a fridge, you could make it at home and then freeze it in bottles and take those to work. For the first one of the day, you freeze half of it and then add more from the fridge. For later in the day, you freeze all of it. (I’ve done this with water bottles for field trips and it works out well.) It would give you something with flavor and a bit of sugar and it might help tide you over between breakfast and lunch.
Upon thinking about it, the sugar could be the trickier part, but when bought in bulk it is not as bad. Also, if your office has coffee for the staff then sometimes you would have sugar available there and I believe that WOULD fall into the parameters that you guys are working with.
Even if you couldn’t manage it every day it could break up the monotony some days and that can be important. Also, Brita and at least one other company have actually started making single serve filtered refillable bottles. The concept is neat in theory; it is a bit more annoying in execution from all of the reviews I’ve read. http://www.amazon.com/Brita-24-Ounce-Bottle-Filter-Twin/dp/B004GN6QV4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317633626&sr=8-1
(Also, I just was skimming the 1 star reviews and someone was talking about the water at their workplace being horrible and the filter not helping. Someone very helpfully commented that they soak their filter in “clean” water and THAT filters the unpleasant water which makes sense.)
I know you two try to cut down on plastics and the like; however, those were the things I could think of. Freezing things in freezer safe plastic drinking bottles works really well and keeping them in an insulated lunch bag or even a regular lunch box can help keep them cold longer. (We also freeze capri sun pouches and use them as the ice in coolers for road trips but capri suns, even on really good sale like we try to buy them, is definitely not on your budget for this month.)
Anyway, I will stop rambling at you now, but I wanted to share my idea. :) Good luck!
Wow- John and Michael, yall are awesome for doing this.. It really hit me -when you talked of the person asking you to “just buy something for their kids to eat”. You literally put the light on how that person must have felt, standing there, but being so scared praying and on their knees inside.. Almost brought tears to my eyes..b/c Im a mom and would never want another mom or dad to feel that way. You guys are amazing and … genuine.
I took on a slight reality experience yesterday that I ended today. I, at breakfast around 10 am on October 3, ate 3 small pancakes with about 1 tablespoon of syrup. From that point on, I ate nothing for 24 hours. I needed to see exactly how I coped with my hunger. I didn’t cope so well. I found myself at the check out with my regular snack and before it could be rang, I decided that despite what some might think, I put it back. I set myself a challenge, not only to test and improve myself, but to bring awareness to the fact that people do go hungry.
I did drink 2 liters of water that had only the value of fluid. No added nutrition, after all, most that do go hungry do have access to water, even if it is from a public source; my source was the tap I refused to drink from on a previous day…and once you get past the first 6 ounces or so, it’s not that bad.
I won’t call it a fast, a hunger strike, even a point to be made…just a mere assessment of my character as it has been questioned before. I ended my hunger with a single cup of coffee with powdered, unflavored cream, and a single piece of dry toast. As for the rest of the day, it might carry on as yesterday seeing it was a very enlightening experience for myself.
John, I’m not a fan of plain water — for some reason it seems to make me feel nauseas. I usually add the juice of a lemon to half a gallon of water. If I can’t get a good price on lemons, I will use bottled lemon juice. I usually don’t add any sugar or other sweetener. I wish you well on your snack/soda challenge this month. I don’t drink soda, but I do snack (most of my eating, except supper).
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