Shrimp IS food and at Aldes I could buy a 1 lb bag ror about $4.99 which also happens to be what hamburger costs where I live. AND, I could get at least 2 meals from it which made it extremely economical.
I never got any cash award along with foodstamps. EVER. Any cash award I may have received was in the form of child support when the kids were little. And, I never had to pay back any unused foodstamps, because there weren’t any. I ALWAYS had to add cash to the grocery purchase because there weren’t enough foodstamps to cover a month’s groceries. At one time I actually had to purchase my food stamps. It was pretty darmed hard too. When your childsupport is $270 per month, and your rent is $250, and $117 worth of foodstamps costs $47.00 plus you need diapers, pay the electric bill, laundry soap, laundry machines, and other misc. items one needs with children, well, the numbers don’t add up. So, you buy the smaller allotment of FS which at the time cost $17.00 for $65.00 worth of FS...
I don’t know where folks get off lying about how ‘good’ life is on fs. It’s not unless folks are doing other illegal activities to make extra cash. But when you fly right and legal, it’s damned difficult and not easy at all.
What some folks DO do is sell some fs for 50 cents on the dollar for some cash. A person has to buy diapers and soap somehow, as well as gasoline in order to participate in the ‘volunteer service’ one has to perform in order to receive them if one isn’t disabled, but is out of work.
As for that recipt..it means nothing. How do we know the person who purchased those goods wassn’t re-imbursed for them while the person who did the reimbursement was spared having to pay the food tax that does exist in some places?
What really burns is out and out fraud. You were using the program as officially intended. That shows you had conscience. So many people living at the bowery level DON’T have much conscience.
That is what the EBT cards were supposed to curtail or stop. It has to a big extent, but druggies will find ways around as the previously mentioned woman tried. Back in the late 70's early 80's, I remember there were lots of places in Jacksonville, FL where you could get 50 cents on the dollar (and higher) on your food stamps if you knew the right people......................
I once worked in the same office as the food stamp office. The secretary had been there for year and years. One day she picked up her purse and walked out. She never came back and I don’t blame her. She’d had it handing over more in benefit checks than what she was making in her paycheck.