Food Stamp Challenge, Day 7

Well, I've been Food Stamp Challenged for a week now. I lived on $30 worth of groceries for the past seven days, and I only cheated a little bit. The first way I cheated was by going to the Cub Scouts' Blue and Gold Banquet at church on Friday and eating there--but hey, I don't schedule these things. The second way was that Sarah came over on Sunday and we made dinner and I opened a jar of the good spaghetti sauce. By "good" I mean the $2 store brand kind already in the cupboard, or in other words, anything but pasta sauce in a can. The most important lesson I learned this week: pasta sauce in a can may cost 75 cents, but it also tastes like crap. I'd like to think I would have suffered through it on my own, but I wasn't going to start subjecting my guests to it.

Some other thoughts, reflections, and lessons in no particular order:

1. I enjoy oatmeal for breakfast. I might keep that up. One serving, unlike with any cereal I've encountered, fills the whole bowl. And it's natural, and has fiber, and all that.

2. I got used to not having coffee surprisingly quickly. I miss it, but more as a morning comfort, rather than as a headache and general fogginess alleviater. That's good, because I doubt it's fitting in the budget anytime soon. If I could buy it at all, I couldn't buy fair trade--and I stand by my coffee ethics!

3. I have been extremely hungry every day between lunch and dinner. This is one reason I ordinarily spend so much money eating lunch out: I have almost never managed to be full on a lunch I pack for myself. At the beginning of the week lunch was a peanut butter sandwich, applesauce, carrot sticks, and a banana. Then I ran out of bananas. Either way it wasn't enough.

4. But dinner's been OK, too. Beans and rice taste OK with just a little salt and pepper. It's annoying to have to soak and cook dry beans for so long before I can eat them, but it's not so bad if I plan ahead, and they're tons cheaper than canned. Another thing I might keep up. And on pasta days I missed the cheese on top, but once we opened up that jar of real sauce it was just like normal.

5. It is possible to eat healthy on a food stamp budget--in fact, this is healthiest I've eaten in a long time. I've had to pay attention to serving sizes and variety in a way I never do. I've eaten an egg each day as a cheap, protein-filled snack, and I looked up nutritional info to make sure I wasn't getting too much cholesterol that way. Then I checked the rest of my groceries--that was the only source of cholesterol in my diet. It is true that my meals have been carb-centered (but all whole grain) and I had to ration my fruit and vegetables more than I would have liked. Oh, and the one thing I probably didn't get enough of: calcium. I had some milk each day, but I am used to getting a significant portion of my dietary calcium from cheese in all forms and expensive Greek yogurt, neither of which I could afford.

6. I have a few things left over: some oatmeal, and beans and rice, and frozen peppers. Hopefully this means I can go shopping tomorrow and increase my stock. I'm especially excited for some yogurt and more fresh veggies.

7. Being social is awkward (I mean, more than usual) on a food stamp budget. I went to a movie with Kim on Saturday but couldn't buy anything to eat before or after--where do you talk to someone when you can't buy food? And Sarah almost didn't know what to do with me when I said did she want to hang out but I couldn't do anything food related--though we did end up having a lovely day walking around Waller Mill Park. Still, I'm glad for that reason that this is the end of my "strict" week--that now I can go out to eat with friends, and just donate double the amount I spend to our Lenten Offering at church.

8. My pants fit better. This makes me not want to start going out to eat again at all.

Saturday I'm going to Atlanta on Wesley's spring break mission trip, so I'm not sure I'll be able to control much of my diet there. Still, I'm looking forward to learning more in the next few days and weeks--how much I can save with coupons, how much I can save just by shopping at Walmart, what difference it makes to spread $60 over two weeks instead of $30 over one. We'll see

Food Stamp Challenge, Day T-1

Tomorrow begins this year's Lenten discipline: I'm taking on the Food Stamp Challenge.

From now till Easter, I'm attempting to live on the average amount given to food stamp recipients in Virginia in 2011. It works out to just over $30 a week for one person. I hope doing this will help me to understand a little better how some of my neighbors in this community live. Lots of the people I see for financial assistance are on food stamps. In fact, one article I found said that about 1500 people in Williamsburg receive food stamps--a number that is growing.

I wasn't sure how I felt about not being able to go out to eat with friends for all of Lent, though, so I'm doing things this way: for Week 1, starting tomorrow, I'm going to be strict about it. After that, I'll give myself a little leeway. I'll still keep careful track of what I spend on food, but if I go over the $30 (or eat out) I'll donate twice the difference to my church's Lenten offering.

I've been spending the last week using up food that's already around so I can't fall back on raiding the fridge. Yesterday I took stock of what I still had that I didn't want to use up or get rid of: half a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I subtracted $4 from the $30 to account for those.

Then today I went shopping during my break between bells and staff meeting. It was a different experience than usual to be sure. I'm used to looking at prices and buying the cheaper versions of things, but I'm not used to having to add everything up as I go. I'm not used to having to weigh whether it's worth more to spend 30 extra cents on something with no high-fructose corn syrup, or to rationing my vegetables.

I left Martin's with rice, two kinds of beans, a box of pasta and a can of sauce, peanut butter, oatmeal, bananas, applesauce, a big can of mandarin oranges, a bag of whole carrots, a potato, a bag of frozen broccoli and a bag of frozen peppers. Oh, and some salt and pepper.

It came to $23.68. I left satisfied that I still had a little over $2 to ration throughout the week--maybe to supplement the banana supply. Except that when I pulled back into the church parking lot I realized I hadn't bought any bread to go with my peanut butter. No problem, I thought--I'll stop at Walmart on my way back from the hospital this afternoon. I don't usually shop at Walmart, but desperate times, after all, call for desperate measures.

I found the bakery section of Walmart before I found the cheap bread hidden away in the back. As I wandered around looking at loaves that cost $4 each, I started to feel genuinely worried. I don't often buy bread--had I misjudged the price? My lunch plans for the whole week revolved around peanut butter sandwiches, and now I literally might not be able to afford the bread at all.

I did eventually find the cheap bread, and bought a loaf for $2. (I could have gone cheaper if I'd gone for the high-fructose corn syrup variety.) That left just about 50 cents for the week, and I'm taking that to justify the use of some existing brown sugar in my pantry on my morning oatmeal.

So there you have it--I'm out. I have all the food I get to eat for the week. I'm pretty sure it will be enough, but I'm also pretty sure it's going to get old. And that it's going to require a few lifestyle adjustments. For example, I bought the kind of beans you have to soak. I'm pretty sure I haven't soaked beans since I lived in Lesotho. And the carrots, which I'll cut up into sticks tonight--another thing I haven't made the effort to do in a while. And the lack of cheese on the menu is going to be a definite challenge. Maybe at the end of this week I'll have some food left over and be able to invest in some cheese or yogurt for next.

So we'll see how it goes. Right now I'm looking forward to starting on this. It's going to require some heightened intentionality, but after all, that's the point. In the end, I know I'm lucky: this is something I get to choose to do, rather than something I have to. Hopefully it will help me be mindful of those who don't have that choice.