Completion Of The SNAP Food Budget Challenge - Living On $29 Per Week
After two weeks of spending $29 on food, this is what I still had.
This is the completion of my food stamp challenge that I embarked upon back in October. With Steemfest and a family trip to England the day after the challenge was completed, I never told you all how I ate during the last week.
If this is the first time reading about my food stamp challenge of living on just $29 per week of food, then you can read about week 1 here and week 2 here.
The bulleted points are the self-imposed rules of my challenge.
- I only shopped once per week, and only at the 99 Cents Only (not a full grocer, just dollar store type stuff) store – to simulate being in a ‘food desert’.
- No using the oven or microwave to cook – a deeply impoverished family might not have a working oven or microwave.
- I started from absolute scratch – nothing but what I purchased with my weekly $29 can be used.
- This challenge lasted for three weeks. Normally people only do this for one week. I extended it to get a full picture. I can’t do one month as I had my trip to England.
Now it's time to go shopping!
Wait.
There. Is. Nothing. On. My. EBT. Card.
I thought I would simulate a government error. I know, I know. The government never makes mistakes. But just this once let's pretend that something went wrong and my EBT card didn't get reloaded. I get in contact with them and they tell me they will look into it and I can expect it to take a week before it gets funded.
I have no money for food and have to survive on what I still had remaining.
What would you do? That is the money you were expecting to feed yourself. You would just have to make whatever you have work.
This is what I did.
Day 1 - $2.20
- Banana pancakes - $0.22
- Spaghetti w/Mexican squash + cookie - $0.96
- Homemade Spätzle w/bacon and asparagus, avocado toast, milk & cookie - $1.02
Day 2 - $2.20
- Banana pancakes and half a peanut butter sandwich - $0.30
- Spätzle w/bacon and asparagus + cookie - $0.70
- Queso tortilla with a bean and avocado dip, plus fries and a glass of milk - $1.20
Day 3 - $2.25
- Brown rice w/two scrambled eggs - $0.34
- Spätzle w/bacon and asparagus + cookie - $0.70
- Spaghetti w/Mexican squash, onions, garlic, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, and Braunschweiger liverwurst - $1.21
Day 4 - $1.89
- Banana pancakes - $0.22
- ½ spaghetti and ½ Spätzle - $0.87
- Brown rice w/sardines in the pasta sauce, plus milk and a cookie - $0.80
Day 5 - $2.12
Peanut butter and banana sandwich - $0.27
Leftover rice and sardines + cookie - $0.68
Spinach salad w/tuna, butter noodles, and milk - $1.17
Day 6 - $2.10
- FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST! Two fried eggs, one scrambled, fried tomato, mushroom, bacon, beans, Braunschweiger liverwurst (blood sausage fill-in) and two pieces of toast - $1.30
- Brown rice w/sardines in the pasta sauce, plus milk and a cookie - $0.80
Day 7 - $1.91
Egg and cheese sandwich - $0.38
Noodles w/bacon in a cream sauce - $0.63
Ramen w/egg, spinach, Mexican squash, sriracha ketchup + cookie - $0.90
Week 3 total: $14.67
Week 1 total: $13.34
Week 2 total: $15.82
Total food cost for 3 weeks: $43.83
Average cost per day: $2.09
Wow, did you think I would have ended up spending just $2.09 per DAY on food? I sure didn't. Halfway through the challenge, I discovered that there is another food budget challenge based off what Elon Musk did in his early days.
Elon wanted to see how little it would cost him to live while he coded his projects. So he decided to eat for just $1 per day. Now this was back in the early 1990's, add in inflation and you get $2 today. So without trying to, I nearly completed this challenge as well as I was only 5% off the mark.
I am sure if I was focused on it I would have easily finished that challenge as well.
However, the entire experience was well worth it for the lessons I learned.
Like Musk I am now confident in my ability to survive should I lose my job.
I could go on the defensive budget-wise. At around $63 per adult per month, my family of two adults and two young children could live on a food expense of less than $200/month.
That is peace of mind.
I also learned that my normal portions were way too much!
Normally I would think nothing of just eating the whole banana. I mean, it is just a thing that normal people do. While on the challenge, I found myself using half of things. I wanted to stretch my resources and by using half of what I would normally eat ended up being no problem. After the first day or two, my portions were much smaller and I felt no hungrier.
It is good to have a 'big' meal at least once per week.
I am a pasta fiend. Love the stuff. By having a 'large' pasta meal once per week I felt like it recharged me greatly.
Something sweet is nice.
Let's face it, some of the meals were cheap and bland. Having just a little strawberry or a cookie to savor at the end was so very welcome.
Speaking of savoring.
In my 'regular' eating mode, I would have no problem eating half a dozen cookies. When living on this budget I had to ration my treats or they would not last long. By eating the strawberry or cookie in small bites and savoring it, I felt as if I had eaten 2 or 3 times as much!
You need storage devices.
To cut down on meal prep, you need to make a batch of a few meals at a time. To store this food until you need it requires some sort of way to keep it fresh. If I didn't have plastic containers to save the food for later this challenge would have become much more difficult.
On food waste.
The MOST important thing is to not waste any food. You have to watch the perishables for the signs of rot setting in. Some meals were not what I was planning on eating, but had to be cooked as the ingredients were about to go bad. On such a budget, any waste is a huge hit.
Do not let anything go to waste. I am pleased to report not one thing was wasted. I can prove this by the fungus green color of the avocado toast on day 1. People, it was still good!
This is a bonus for the environment as well.
Well, there ya go.
I am pleased to have completed the challenge. Challenges make you a better person as I have recently written about.
I now know what it is like to have very little, at least from a safe distance.
What I mean is I could have, at any time, went out and spent as much as I wished on food – either at the supermarket or a restaurant. I also had no worries about my electricity or gas being cut off because I had no money to pay the bill.
But the Buddhists have a prayer that goes like this: “Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion be truly fulfilled.”
While no one needs to create their own problems and challenges, sometimes undertaking one can improve your life. A challenge can make you better. A challenge can give you a glimpse of life from another angle. A challenge that is overcome can be the rocket fuel for an even bigger goal.
Very impressive indeed.
You've provided yourself with a decent diet on what would appear to be a very tight budget. It just goes to show how necessity breeds creativity.
Many people around the world are forced survive on so much less, it doesn't hurt to see that in the west you can still provide for yourself on relatively little.
We are so well off in the West, but it is as if almost everyone complains about costs. But that is just how most people are, they like to complain.
Plus, we produce so much food in an efficient manner that many of our food costs have actually decreased compared to 50 or 60 years ago after taking inflation into account.
There shouldn't be anyone going hungry in the USA when it costs just $2 per day.
You are so right. Think about how people 60 years ago used to talk about "living on beans" when they were poor--meat was expensive! People these days take food way more for granted than back then.
Well done! And you even managed to make somewhat nutritious meals on a low budget. When I first moved to Ireland 6 years ago, there were weeks when I had to live of 10 euro (about $12/13 US) with three kids (aged 2 to 9). I have learned a lot in that time. I knew all the prices in all the shops and would walk an extra mile to get milk 1 cent cheaper. The kids had full meals and I ate their leftovers. We'd have a cup of tea and a cookie as desert. The funny thing is, is that the kids still say that that year was their best Christmas ever. Everything they got was second hand and we made ginger bread houses spread out over two days. They still remember that! So even though I wouldn't really want to do it again, it is a good experience to have.
When you live simply it gives you the experience to know when you have it good. People that have always been well off bitch and complain about things when they have it so good.
It gives perspective in life.
very true. And even though my story above was 6 years ago, I still know all the prices of a lot of products (if they haven't changed) and the best shops to get them. So I got to train my brain too :)
Good job. My family of three did the SNAP challenge about a year ago. In our state, SNAP recipients get an extra couple dollars per person, so we used that number instead of $29. I already knew that we could pull it off because we had done so while actually on SNAP benefits in the past. But I wanted to take part in the challenge and take pictures to document it. We only did it for one week and we spent our entire budget, but like you, I found that we actually had extra food left over at the end of the week. We also did like you and got all of the food from the dollar store. It's all about eggs, beans, and rice, really, to create filling meals and provide sufficient protein for cheap. One thing I did have trouble with was that a couple of the items we purchased at the dollar store were inferior in some way. For instance, the package of tortillas smelled and tasted like laundry detergent, even though the package was undamaged and it was a brand I'd had no problem with before. It occurred to me then how difficult it would be if I was really on a tight budget, and perhaps had no car, to deal with having to return a grocery item. End observations: It's hard to be poor, but if you're thrifty and avoid waste, you can still eat fairly well in our mostly-capitalist society.
Oh yeah, the dollar store noodles I bought would get soft so quick. I don't know what it is in pasta that gives it a bit of strength, but these ones lacked it.
Luckily my tortillas were perfectly fine! The dollar store has some good deals, and plenty of poor ones. I could have eaten MUCH better if I hadn't limited myself to only the dollar store. I mean I can get like 8 chicken thighs for like $3.50!
But to put myself into the shoes of the really disadvantaged person, I had to throw in the extra challenges.
I've been missing your stuff in my feed, I gotta remember to check up on your clickbait :D
I haven't written any clickbait in quite awhile, but this humorous sci-fi post might satisfy a bit of your craving:
The Most Relatable Beer in the Galaxy
I've been working on a novel, and have some short stories in the revision pipeline, too. :)
I'm not as funny as you, but I wrote this up the other day https://steemit.com/family/@getonthetrain/how-to-fly-with-a-baby-or-toddler
What are you talking about? That was hilarious!
@getonthetrain, your shopping experience feels extremely alien to me.
Asparagus? $5.99 a pound.
Eggs? $4.50 for 18.
Milk? $4.50 a gallon.
These three items alone might eat up as much as half of your weekly budget if you were living in Ontario, Canada. The food remaining in your photo would cost about $50 here. I don't think I've ever seen fresh produce at a dollar store, only canned goods.
The concept of a "food desert" is very foreign to me. Even when I used to live in a low-income neighborhood, bus routes took you to the grocery store in a reasonable amount of time for about $2, or you could get there in 15 minutes by bicycle/ 30 minutes walk. How bad is it in the US?
I would love to try this challenge (And probably will at some point, but based on a budget from the Canadian welfare system) but I would have to use a regular discount grocery store. Shopping at the dollar store would mean no fresh fruits/vegetables whatsoever. I think the culture is very different here - Public transport makes everything fairly accessible. The main Canadian dollar store, Dollarama, is generally grouped into strip malls alongside discount grocery chains such as NoFrills or Superstore. I don't think it's common for people to have access to a dollar store without also having access to a regular grocery store.
I don't spend time in low-income areas but as I was reading up on this challenge I heard complaints from people that said it is impossible. I then read the excuses and decided to prove them wrong. One of the excuses was that they lived in a food desert. Supermarkets close up because of huge amounts of theft and problem customers - it just wasn't worth the effort.
I live in southern Arizona along the main transportation route of Mexican produce - it is super cheap! I can get a box every Saturday that has a random amount of vegetables, up to 60 pounds in total, for just $10. It is veggies and fruits that won't make it to their intended destination before going bad. Here is a post with pics: https://steemit.com/food/@getonthetrain/how-i-get-40-60-lbs-of-produce-for-just-usd10
I would like to see you do the challenge. A week is nothing, easy street! :D
Neat! Offers like your produce box are rare up here since there's very little in terms of local produce other than potatoes and occasionally apples in the summer. Anything heading here on a truck is usually destined for a store in my city.
I have had some luck with Walmart deals. They used to throw out the remaining produce when they went to restock, but lately they've started bagging it up and selling it for $1 per bag. Most of it's perfectly fine, although you run across the occasional bad apple (Pun intended). Just today I got three cucumbers, four avocados, and about fifteen bananas for $3 total. Normally this would have run between $10 and $15.
I'll try to remember to tag you when we try the challenge. My girlfriend previously talked about this sort of thing and seemed pretty interested in giving it a shot.
PS - I was in Bisbee a few years ago on vacation. We flew into Tucson and took a car from there. The desert was an awesome change of scene from our Canadian winters, and the heat was a welcome break :) Nice area you live in.
yeah...sometimes we should accept to take on some challenges. When i was still young I used to fast for prayers. so we could spend the whole day studying and praying up to 6:00 Pm. This used to happen each wednesday and friday cause all the guys in the youth ministry were supposed to respect . So, we became used to that and could sometimes forget to eat during other days.
Moreover, at the beginning it was so hard but slowly we got used. Some of us started having stomach problems and as we were not yet fit for life, we shifted for fasting only once a day. Still though we shifted some couldn't afford since their were not able to take on the challenge.
I hear fasting has long-term health benefits, but am not sure. I don't think I have ever fasted.
ahhahhaa...please try. I never reduced anything. Though starting is hard, i believe its adds a lot to our existence . When you fast, you learn to persevere hunger and try to live a better life ( charities, visiting orphans, forgiveness, love, neighbourhood,...).
For others its easy since some have really big issues to pray for.
I don't actually know your religious background and i'm really sorry if i do inconvenience you.
I'm so glad to see the end of this story! You did an amazing job. I tell people all the time that is is so much better to cook for yourself - and cheaper for better ingredients.
Thanks so much Sharon :D
While doing this did you find yourself feeling hungry since you were eating smaller portions than what you were previously used to? As a student I am always looking for ways to cut back on expenses... I've found that oatmeal breakfasts (and dinners if you add in pepper + basil) are very cost-effective! 😂
Only during the first day or two. After I became accustomed to the new amounts, I was fine. I mean, it wasn't like I was starving myself - they were perfectly fine portions. It was just that I normally had larger ones, but it wasn't needed.
@getonthetrain Thank you for sharing this with us. I think I just lost 50 pounds knowing that I cannot eat what I want whenever I want................Always be Prepared.
Thanks @stokjockey
Very good job, is worth a try, we are always in the waste extra food, although the idea of a lot of people thought, but people like you to own practice, come on, I will pay close attention to your orders!
Thanks so much
Amazing all the cheap food available in America. It just shows the power of the free market.
Good for you for trying this out and be prepared if anything goes wrong. Although I think at least in the crypto sphere everything will be good!
Cheers!
I'm thinking about everyone down there in Venezuela in such a screwed up market. The government can never control everything and should stay out of things. Otherwise, everyone suffers but those who created the suffering.
That’s right, as it’s usually the case with socialism, our politicians are living the great life. But I think this year would be very important for the future of Venezuela. You will probably see a lot of news soon.
I'm surprised it has lasted as long as it has!