Posted on 08/07/2007 11:00:37 AM PDT by NEMDF
Slice: Mother strives for healthful meals on a budget
Sandra Shepard has to make the $500 food stamp allotment she receives reach to the end of the month. She plans carefully so that she will be able to feed her family of five, including, daughter Macole Shepard, 13, and son Dominic Shepard, 10.At half past noon, the No. 30 rolls up. And the family's monthly marketing ritual is on.
Shepard's next three hours will be filled with comparison pricing and child pleas. It will wrap up with 33 plastic grocery bags and a crowded cab ride.
Not a suburban soccer mom's ideal afternoon, but Shepard doesn't mind.
The 44-year-old mother has no job, no car and no husband to share the bills. In her world wracked by financial instability, the monthly shopping trip offers a welcome bit of control.
The tricky part is stretching her food stamp allotment to feed her family of five.
Providing nutritious fare for a little more than $1 per meal per family member is challenging - and it's getting more so every month.
* * *
Grocery prices are soaring at the highest rate in years.
Not since 1980 has the annual growth rate of food bills been as high, said Steve Reed, an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Fresh vegetables and fruit helped drive up grocery costs 4.6 percent in June compared with a year ago. That's faster than the 2.7 percent inflation rate during that period.
Combine the squeeze at the supermarket with increasing demands on time, and
we're all in danger of falling short of hitting the U.S. Department of Agriculture measures for fit and healthy Americans.
Consider: Only one in five people eats the recommended daily amount of fruit; kids eat less than half the fruits and veggies our federal government advises; and obesity in youngsters is on the rise.
Failure to pull it all off could mean low performance at school or work and raise a number of health problems.
Nationwide, roughly 26 million people receive food stamps on debit-type plastic cards. Shepard is among the 120,000 or so in Nebraska. Half the recipients are children.
For them, the challenge is magnified with every trip to the grocery store.
* * *
When the No. 30 reaches the No Frills intersection, several passengers quickly jaywalk toward the store.
Shepard pauses, her bad foot still smarting from a slip on the ice while walking home from a party in December.
The broken bones have temporarily exempted her from food stamp work requirements.
When she gets a job, she wants day hours. Her past night shifts, Shepard says, have left her kids vulnerable to the streets. Her 15-year-old son has been in the youth detention center for truancy.
Thirteen-year-old daughter Macole, however, is on the honor roll, a distinction mom boasts on a bumper sticker plastered on her front door. Son Dominic, 10, also is on track, and Shepard wants to keep it that way.
She instructs Macole to run into the Dollar Tree for deodorant.
"Ain't nothin' but a dollar, and just as good."
Dominic and his mom saunter into the cool market. It's bursting with brilliant colors and orderly shelves, a contrast to their public housing apartment.
Shepard mounts a motorized scooter. Dominic grabs a shopping cart, and the mom-son caravan heads to the produce aisle.
Mom bypasses bananas, examines strawberries and settles on a pineapple. "Dang," she exclaims. "Apples went up."
She bags 10 nectarines and, after a third thought, gives in to the pricey Bing cherries. "It's summer," she reasons.
Shepard draws the line at the Asian cocktail shrimp that caught her daughter's eye. Nix on the beef Twister Dogs her son saw on TV.
She chooses calorie-dense, generic fish sticks over the trans-fat-free kind. Sodium-plenty salami and smoked liver are in; two-for-$1 corn on the cob out.
"That's just ridiculous. I'll buy the frozen corn."
Key to staying within budget, says Shepard, is buying in bulk. Economy-sized ketchup and pickles. Pork chops by the carton.
"I don't really care for pork chops, but they're cheap."
The 10-pound pack of ground beef will make four meals: spaghetti, sloppy Joes, tacos and hamburgers.
Breakfast? Her kids like the taste of plain-label cocoa puffs.
Snacks? She buys four $1 boxes of gummy candies.
Shepard calls the eight frozen pizzas and two dozen $1 TV dinners "fast food" - they're the closest her children get to Pizza Hut or KFC.
More often, she carves her own nuggets out of chicken breasts.
"Anything a restaurant can make, I can make better," says the former waitress.
She learned the craft from her ex, who was a better cook than a husband.
Just when it seems nothing more will fit in the two carts, Dominic stuffs in 30 Kool-Aid packets. They have sugar at home.
Finally, mom lets the kids splurge on the spicy deli wings they've been eyeing. They're cold and must be microwaved at home. Warm munchies, just like paper products and alcohol, aren't allowed under food stamp rules.
On to the register, where a cashier honors the outside ads tucked under Shepard's arm.
* * *
Total price tag: $346.
Shepard calls a cab, then pores over the draping receipt.
Her food stamp allotment for the month is $500. She has yet to buy food items she saw for less at Walgreens. That will barely leave the $100 food stamp reserve she tries to save for midmonth incidentals.
"Those Bing cherries did me in," she concludes.
The family's separate $500 state welfare check pays for rent, clothes, toiletries and other nonfood supplies.
Fifteen minutes later, Happy Cab arrives and Shepard packs the trunk with bags. Jumbo egg and Ramen noodle cartons ride on kids' laps.
Shepard calls ahead on her cell phone to round up carriers.
Keith, her 18-year-old, meets the cab at the 29th and Parker Streets housing project. A recent South High graduate, he baby-sits his girlfriend's child while she attends school.
Monte, the 15-year-old, is a no-show. The two oldest live in Missouri.
Once inside, Macole and Dominic snap into action.
They remove all frozen items from boxes so more fits in the refrigerator-freezer.
They store meat and cheese in the deep freezer, which Shepard bought for $80 with her Earned Income Tax Credit. She calls it her salvation because it lets her stock up on sale items.
"We always had a deep freeze growing up."
Shepard fondly recalls her "spoiled" childhood on a Missouri farm with fruit trees.
She became pregnant with her first child at age 20, had another child but never married their father.
She wound up in an Omaha shelter seven years ago after escaping the abusive man she did wed. Here, she received higher public assistance benefits and was absorbed into public housing.
Despite being in a high-crime pocket, she is pleased with her four-bedroom apartment. It's on the outer ring of the housing development, and she says violence is worse near the core.
Nonetheless, summer requires extra vigilance. The same watchful eye goes for the family budget, since the kids during this break don't get free school breakfasts and lunches.
* * *
For now, anyway, the refrigerator is full. Everyone's happy.
Shepard is frustrated by her limited mobility, but there's a bright side: She'd be throwing together a lot more "fast food" dinners if she were working.
Indeed, preparing healthful meals on a food stamp budget requires time and planning.
Dominic lobbies for his favorite: weenie and bean casserole topped with cornbread. Low in nutrients, but tasty and cheap.
Mom's doughnuts - hot biscuits topped with powdered sugar glaze - will be dessert.
"We manage," said Shepard. "You just deal with it the best you can."
Me, too!
We're a family of four and I spend less than that...with a teenage son! With grocery prices going up I've been avoiding the canned goods and buying rice and beans in bulk. Steel cut oatmeal is $.89 a pound at Whole Foods and I can't think of a more substantial breakfast.
I did my monthly shopping at Sam's this morning. I could've spent $500 easily -- not including laundry soaps and toiletries -- and we would've eaten like kings.
The party was in december. It’s now august, are the bones still broken?
I go to work every damn day with my ankle in a brace from an accident years ago. I’ve never missed a day of work because of it.
Paging Jesse Jackson!
There was an interesting story in the Lansing (MI) State Journal a few weeks ago about this -- a group of poor neighbors banded together and started small gardens. They grew enough tomatoes, beans, peas and other veggies not only to feed themselves, but to give to the homeless that were STEALING from their gardens!
In a clever twist, they made a deal with the kids snurching the tomatoes using them as paint balls -- if they spent a few hours in the garden each week, they got a big bag of them. Pretty soon they had all the gardening help they needed -- and a security team to boot!
Yep, she’s quite the hefty hiker.
Smart move. Now the kids will learn the benefits of gardening, too.
I was just going to post the link to Hillbilly Housewife until I read your post. You are right, it’s a great site.It’s all common sense, I honestly think that it’s lacking in a lot of people these days.
I have never made sloppy joes for 7 people with more than a lb. of hamburger. I add corn. For tacos, I add cubed potatoes.
Spaghetti certainly doesn’t need more than a pound. Goodness.
Read the entire article. She gets $500.00 for food and an additional $500.00 for housing. That works out to an hourly rate of about $9.40 (pre tax). Then she gets additional “free” money from the Earned Income Tax Credit!
No wonder her foot still hurts! I expect that it will never heal.
Not any more. Not they have EBT cards. Stands for Electronic Benefits Transfer. You see, having actual food stamps was stigmatizing and damaging to their self esteem. So now they have a card just like a debit card that has their "stamps" on them.
Or as Neal Boortz calls it, Push Button Plunder.
If I understood the article in our local newspaper from right after schools let out for the summer, the schools here serve breakfast and lunch to all children, ages 1-18, whether they attend the school or not...they just need to show up. But I don’t know if it is free or not. I didn’t get the impression that it is. Maybe I skipped that part...lol
This is just ridiculous...if see can walk through a supermarket see can do many jobs or at least look for work on the internet...these people do not want a job they have the best one already..it a government job you know.
makes me sick that I get bled dry by taxes and fee to support people like this.
I'm with you on that.
I fed them last month for $200 and change. Granted, there are only 3 of us, but still...
Same here.
Every few months I will do a $200-$300 major freezer/pantry stock-up shopping and then I'm pretty much able to keep the monthly in the $150-$200 range including all the stuff like paper products, laundry detergent, toothpaste, aspirin, etc.
If what I see at my local grocery store in Houston is any indication a good portion of them are probably here illegally. What amazes me is that it seems a good portion of them have cell phones. And I don't think they are the pay as you go type plans judging by the fact that it seems they are always talking on them. In Spanish.
I didn’t even notice the motorcart.
Well, let’s just kill her now. She’s fat. Proof enough that she doesn’t deserve to live.
Well, let’s just kill her now. She’s fat. Proof enough that she doesn’t deserve to live.
Glad I’m not the only one who thinks $500 a month on groceries for 5 is very little. (I include cleaning supplies and health and beauty aids along with food.)We are probably running at twice that amount. Also, houses with kids are always feeding whoever happens to be there at meal time. Plus I try to bring lunch and that comes out of grocery money too. In addition, with kids you always have to send or contribute something (drinks or snacks) to school or scouts or church, or soccer, etc.
I also buy certain things in bulk at Costco, that I repackage and freeze. It is not exclusively food, probably only about 50 percent. So that shopping trip is on top of the weekly supermarket run. The monthly Costco shopping trip usually runs over $400. You can get GREAT bargains on cleaning supplies, groceries, clothes and office/school supplies, but there is a temptation to buy things you don’t really need. If you stick to basics and avoid prepared foods (though they are MUCH cheaper there) you can do very well. However, most folks on a very limited budget just can’t come up with the money to buy in bulk. That is a catch-22. I admit I would shop differently if I was on a tighter budget, like cheaper cuts of meat and more starchy, filling foods.
I don’t like the whole idea of glorifying the welfare lifestyle. That said, the woman in the article is trying to make do in a better way than I see many other food stamps folks do. Many don’t get the idea of buying large sizes, passing on prepared foods and going for generic brands.
I don’t quite see the point of the article, and I agree with those who question where is the support of the father(s) and older children. But I do feel empathy for those who have to shop by cab, whether they are paying with food stamps or cash. We sometimes take little things like throwing our groceries in the back of our own cars for granted. And many of us, feeling slightly smug, may ourselves be only an accident, illness, layoff or even a bad investment or decision away from ultimately needing some assistance.
Yeah, I see that now...I got curious and looked it up. They can buy whatever they wish, as long as it is not pet food, non-food items or hot pre-cooked food. WIC is apparently the thing I was thinking about, where there were restrictions to what could be bought.
I must wonder...why the difference? Does it suddenly not matter what the kids eat after they hit age 5???
It sounds pretty good ... I should try that, though with better quality sausage than weenies. Andouille, maybe.
Yeah, like that’s exactly what i said!
Dope!
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