Posted on 10/02/2010 4:21:32 PM PDT by STONEWALLS
HOUSTON—At midnight on the first of the month, a scene unfolds at many Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sites that underscores the deep financial strains that many low-income American consumers still face.
Parking lots come to life after 11 p.m. as customers start to stream into the stores, cramming their shopping carts full of milk, infant formula and other necessities.
Then at midnight, when the government replenishes their electronic-benefit accounts with their monthly allotments of food stamps, nutritional grants for mothers with babies or other aid for needy families, they head for the registers.
"We're not starving or anything, but we come every month at 11:55," said Tyrel Fogle, 26 years old, early Friday morning as he loaded a cart with frozen food at a Wal-Mart here on the northwestern edge of the nation's fourth largest city.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
<But if you are shopping at midnight at Wal-Mart ... it’s because you are a poor manager.
Not necessarily. If you are shopping at midnight, at Wal-Mart, because there’s no food in the house and the food stamp card is about to be re-charged, that’s one thing.
Plenty of people who work later shifts or don’t have to be at work the next day, or just like to shop without the crowds shop at midnight. My son rarely goes in a store before nightfall because he doesn’t like the crowds of elderly and moms with children that inhabit them during the day. I’m a professor and don’t have early hours. I frequently shop anywhere from 11pm - 2am. I don’t have to shop then, but I don’t mind doing it when the spirit hits me. And when I do, there’s still food in the house, so it’s not like it’s urgent.
I love shopping Wall-Mart 11:00 and after. Zero crowds..stock people are generally always handy if you need help. You can actually hear music! No screaming kids gone unattended to....and no rush! I generally have the next day off. Although recently I have noted Wall-Marts prices aren’t eactly less than our Giant Eagle stores here. If they keep going up I’ll go back to Giant Eagle.
And the car is pretty nice too - newer than what I drive!
Can you give specifics of where this free food is available, like bakeries at specific times of day or produce markets after a specific date?
I apply for food stamps every four months as a political act, if they give them to me, grab your guns.
<But if you are shopping at midnight at Wal-Mart ... it’s because you are a poor manager.
Not necessarily. If you are shopping at midnight, at Wal-Mart, because there’s no food in the house and the food stamp card is about to be re-charged, that’s one thing.
OK people. You are missing the point. We are talking about FOOD STAMP SHOPPERS here!!
The story asks us to be sympathetic because they show up at midnight on the day the food stamps RELOAD.
Your Wal Mart shopping habits are your habits.
But don’t ask me to feel sorry for food stampers because they are in Wal Mart at midnight on the first of the month!
They are BAD at budgeting...or they used their stamps for something else...period.
hey, and the one guy is wearing shades while “shopping at night.” see #29.
Like someone else said, and like you, too, probably, we went through a rough patch and ended up on food stamps for awhile.
(It’s hard to make money when all of your customers have lost their jobs!)
At any rate, I would just die if I saw someone in the store that I knew; or if I had to tell the cashier that I was using a food stamp card; or if the kids figured out that “the debit card” was actually food stamps.
Now I have a full-time job with benefits and it is a blast to go to the grocery and buy anything I want with “real” money.
I don’t know how they calculated it, but we were allotted far more than what we used.
Glad those days are done!
No, this story has been around since the beginning of time. There are some people that, no matter how much they earn, they live paycheck to paycheck and it sometimes says NOTHING about how they don’t have enough to scrape by.
Just try shopping at your average military commissary on payday — same phenomenon. Some folks seem to spend a whole bunch of money as soon as they get it, then inch by the end of the month.
No, this story has been around since the beginning of time. There are some people that, no matter how much they earn, they live paycheck to paycheck and it sometimes says NOTHING about how they don’t have enough to scrape by.
Just try shopping at your average military commissary on payday — same phenomenon. Some folks seem to spend a whole bunch of money as soon as they get it, then inch by the end of the month.
this is not true of every ‘food stamp shopper’. i agree that this may be true for the majority but not all of them.
This story...it wants you to feel bad...because these shoppers show up at midnight right when their cards recharge.
It’s proof that “OMG...they are struggling so much that they are RIGHT THERE at midnight to get their stuff....”
I call BS.
“Just try shopping at your average military commissary on payday...”
...good point!...the articles and others like it, seem to make it look like a hardship for the food stamp card to last a month...when I was in the Army everybody had to stretch their pay for a month...that was SOP and nobody cried the blues about it.
you can call bs all you want. i know for a fact that not every food stamp shopper that runs out at the end of the month is spending the stamps on something other than food or bad at budgeting. most, yes, but not all. what i am saying is that there are exceptions to everything.
This story wants me to feel sorry for food stampers. It wants me to believe that they wind up at Wal Mart at midnight because they are desperate.
I call BS.
It is time for Congress to can the welfare system and hand it back to the churches. There are many volunteers that will make up a food basket for the needy. The clergy have many contacts that can help the needy find a job to support their families. The welfare system has taken away the pride in a person. No wonder we have a bunch of losers out there.
Exactly. I also heard that they can claim that daddy ran off south of the border and get “child” support! Food stamps, child support, cheap housing, food banks that provide electricity help, church groups, etc. They live GREAT as parasites and breed more. Should be a limit to length of time they are sucking.
It is time for Congress to can the welfare system and hand it back to the churches.
Right on!
yes I was unemployed and newly divorced and back then you go to the county welfare office and they made you feel ashamed for taking the stamps and the small amount of $$ assistance.
My adventure into the "system" lasted for 5 yrs, with 3 of those yrs in a 6 months on and 6 months off any assistance.
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