Posted on 06/01/2007 5:27:07 PM PDT by Huntress
You’re right, this is ridiculous. That’s $465 a month for three people. I can do that easily and we eat pretty good. Maybe it just tastes better when you provide it for yourself!
When we’ve come up short I can remember many times of beans, rice, bologna & ramen. We didn’t use food stamps to do it. We didn’t like it but we didn’t starve either.
That’s about $ 170 a month for food for one person. Not impossible if you shop smart.
When we gave up fast food, processed food, and started making our meals from scratch, our grocery spending doubled. We're a lot healthier, and we eat much tastier meals, but we're certainly not getting by any more cheaply.
Yeah, but you spend like that by choice, because you can afford to. Your family could do this if they had to. I mean a shrimp dinner is entertainment, not a necessity!
raman noodles and tuna fish,
spag & veggie basil tomato sauce
lentils, rice, zucchini, bread pudding, rice pudding, Indian pudding, grits, biscuits, homemade pizza crust, homemade bread,
there are lots and lots of good inexpensive eats to cut budgets.
Even chili and beans, broiled chicken, pot roast is a great way to handle an inexpensive cut (and makes seconds or lunch).
The author is an elitist snob who does not know how to get by. I've never been on stamps (been "poor" or low income tho) but I know plenty who have and one common complaint was how to use up all the stamps before the month was up- if you had stamps left in the book, you may get your benefit cut. People got huge bags of rice and giant blocks of "cheese" and pasta as part of the USDA programs.
Look, it's all in how you plan your eating habits. Get a package of two pounds of chicken breasts at $1 per pound. Grab two cans of canned vegetables at 50¢ each. Two cups of raw rice for about 25¢ (that cooks up to four or six servings). Add a can of chicken broth to the rice for some flavor at another 50¢. Each person gets two slices of bread that cost about 5¢ each for a total of 40¢.
OK, that's a total cost of $4.15 for the family's meal. Not per serving. For the entire meal.
There's no extravagant planning involved. Just watch the sale ads and stock up when something is on sale.
That's the catch.
I’m very creative with inexpensive meals but would also like to know how others do things. I’m sure there are plenty of online boards on cooking budget meals. Is there a ping list at FR for good old-fashioned “home economics”? I would be willing to learn how to run a ping list if there were interest. I have hundreds of great recipes and would love to share!
As most of you have documented, making tasty meals for less is not nuclear science. I plan meals around what is on sale...from several stores. Roasts in the crock pot can provide more than one meal, and knowing how to cut up your own chicken saves scads of money. Having a freezor to store your "bargain" meats helps too. Home made bread...or day old bread...is a plus as are home grown vegetables. One pound of ground beef can make a variety of dishes/casseroles/whatever. (Target is not an economical place to shop for food, however.)
Are you cooking for an army, and throwing away the left overs? Filet mignon and shrimp scampi are good sometimes, but so are bean soup and tuna casserole. If you never eat the cheap stuff, you’re missing some of life’s biggest pleasures.
I gave up there. What a nasty, totally above it all, irritating piece of Zsa Zsa meets Latisha or Alice in Wonderbread goes budget. The experts she has to consult just to come to the point of getting an idea of how to create a menu is beyond reality.
In California sales tax does not apply to most food you get at a store. I don’t remember the exceptions but they are trivial.
LOL! That brings back memories. I used to bake the family's bread when we lived in Valdez. Hand kneaded. "Basic White Bread" from the "Joy of Cooking" book. Four loaves, twice a week. A lot of work, but worth every drop of sweat.
It goes moldy because that artisan bread isn't for eating -- it's for display. To show off her taste in the proper yuppie bread to her yuppie friends when they come over. God forbid she be caught with a loaf of white Wonder Bread.
If you do start such a ping list, put me on it please.
I guess the moral of the story is that a family of four can survive on Food Stamps.
I’ve never lived in a state that charges sales tax on regular food items. It’s my understanding that food stamps can only be used on non-taxable food items. They can’t be used on prepared foods like you get at the deli counter, non-food items like paper towels, etc, because those are taxable.
Articles like this are SUCH BS. And none of my kids are fat, or have their hair or teeth falling out from “poor nutrition.”
Bingo! Anybody can fill up a grocery cart with potatoes, cheap meat cuts, frozen fruits and vegetables, flour and yeast for a hundred dollars or so. That's a month's worth of food for a family of four. Sam's club doesn't have lower prices, necessarily, but it does have bulk packaging, which is good for families with several kids.
In the "olden days," we took "Home Economics" in junior and senior high. I hated it, but I did learn how to shop, cook, and store foods, as well as sew, clean, and budget. I think these classes have been replaced with Multiculti stuff, now. Homemaking is sooo sexist, you know...
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