I can’t believe it’s September already! I’ve been planning to take the SNAP Challenge for months now, and today, September 1st, is day one.
What is the SNAP Challenge? The SNAP Challenge is a yearly event hosted by Feeding America to raise awareness about hunger and food insecurity in America. Participants are challenged to eat on no more than $4.50 per day, per person (the average allowance for food assistance programs), log their experiences, and reflect on the challenges and difficulties.
Why am I Taking the SNAP Challenge?
I’m taking this challenge to raise awareness about food insecurity (a topic close to my heart) and to hopefully destroy some of the stigmas surrounding people who need public assistance. Hunger spans across all races, ages, genders, locations, and education levels. Life can be unexpected and unpredictable and programs like SNAP are created to help people through the tough times and get back on their feet. While these programs aren’t the ultimate answer, they do provide temporary relief for millions of people. For more information about hunger in America and who it affects, FeedingAmerica.org has some great information and statistics. I really hope you check it out.
My other motivation is to just simply get back to my roots. When I started this blog I was in a really tough place—working a low paying job and drowning in student loan debt. At that point, I had no choice but to eat on less than $4.50 per day. Since that time I’ve gone back to school, gotten a much better job, and developed flourishing side career as a freelancer. As you can imagine, my spending (especially on food) has gotten really relaxed as my income has grown. I like the idea on eating on less than $4.50 per day, even when you don’t have to, because I think it’s important not to over consume (in all areas of life, not just food). I think this will help me refocus for the blog and, most importantly, be more thankful for what I have.
My Goals:
I plan to record everything I eat and drink throughout the day and calculate the total cost. I will be taking the challenge for the entire month of September.
I will be posting some new recipes, some old recipes modified to fit the challenge, and using some previous blog recipes just as they are. At the end of each week I’ll write a summary report for what I ate, how much it cost, and my reflections on the experience.
Because health is important to me, I’m going to attempt to incorporate as many fruits and vegetables in this plan as possible. Yes, that will be a challenge!!
My Expectations:
Planning is going to be the number one key. There is no way to casually eat on less than $4.50/day… unless I casually just eat half as many meals. Even with all of my years of blogging about the subject, I fully expect this to be a challenge. When I started the blog, $4.50/day was easy, but grocery prices have sky rocketed over the past 5 years, so it will be considerably more difficult.
I won’t be able to indulge in some of the luxuries I’ve gotten used to in the past couple of years, like my fancy coffee (beans, not pre-made drinks). Ooo, it’s going to be tough! My morning cup of joe is one of my favorite parts of the day, but when faced with money troubles, you have to make sacrifices. I’m doing this for real. No pretending.
Snacking will pretty much be off the table. $4.50/day is only $1.50 per meal, if you eat three meals… with nothing left over for snacks. Food for entertainment is not an option at that level. I will need to make the meals that I do have as filling as satisfying as possible to curb my cravings for snacks.
If food for entertainment is not an option, I will have to find new activities to entertain myself and new ways to enjoy spending time with friends. I remember that being one of the biggest challenges five years ago when I was very broke… what did I do to entertain myself instead snacking, going out to eat, or ordering a pizza? I learned about blogging and started a blog! I’d say that turned out well. :)
Stress. Stress is going to make this hard. When I get stressed, I want cheese… or pizza. In the month of September I’ll be closing on my first house and moving. The stress of this transition is going to make this TOUGH. I’m going to want to stuff my face. I know it. But, once again, when you’re faced with money troubles you are stressed. So, this is a very real challenge that people face every day.
So, that’s it for now! I’m excited to get started. I’ll be cooking my first batch of meals today, so look for a recipe tomorrow and a summary at the end of the week. Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. I want this to be a learning experience for everyone!
Read through my experience from beginning to end:
i can’t wait to follow along with this! so inspiring.
This is awesome!
I lived the SNAP challenge for 5 years while I was going through college with my son. During that time, I found this awesome website and used the heck out of it.
But I also found that it is much cheaper to buy in bulk at the first of the month and freeze items. By shopping at Costco, I can get nearly a months worth of cereal for $4.00-ish if I buy what they have on sale. I can get six pounds of chemical-free chicken for just over $20. And the bulk food section of Sprouts is a great stop off, too. There you can buy more expensive items in just the right quantity that you need, so you’re not paying more money for an excess of food you don’t need. I can get an entire reusable shopping bag stuffed with fresh, organic produce from our local farmers market for $20. And our bakery outlet, which I believe is owned by Sarah Lee, has organic bread for $1.89/loaf. It’s close to expiration, so it has to be frozen until you’re ready to eat, but considering it’s nearly $5 a loaf at Krogers, it’s one heck of a savings.
I found that by doing it this way, I could keep us fed every meal of every day, snacks included, on the SNAP benefits. It takes me five different trips to five different stores (Costco, Sprouts, Kroger, the Farmer’s Market, and the Bakery Outlet), and an entire weekend of meal prepping, but it’s worth it.
And for snacks, since I saw a few comments on that, popcorn is an awesome treat. If you buy it in bulk and cook it on your stove, it’s practically free. And this is a great recipe for bars that will keep you full in between meals: http://www.oprah.com/food/Sesame-Fruit-and-Nut-Bars The nuts are can be changed to whatever is on sale, and I used craisins (Sprouts bulk) instead of cherries because they’re much cheaper. The coconut butter can be expensive, but I used it so much for household products and other recipes that it was worth the purchase in bulk from Costco for me.
Anyway, good luck on your challenge. I hope this brings a lot of awareness to a major issue.
Awesome tips, thanks!!
Looking forward to your recipes. When I think of or try things like this all I can figure out is made from scratch bean soup, rice and hamburger helper without the hamburger…I have been very fortunate to not need to live this way, but I’d like to know I could if I had to. You are doing a very awesome thing and I am going to try to follow along.
I did the snap challenge about a year ago. It was difficult, especially psychologically. Hope it goes better for you!
I think this is an excellent challenge. As a student myself I try to keep my food budget as low as possible by planning my meals, buying reduced food and following your recipes of course! I find snacking a problem too so I’m looking forward to seeing how you deal with it.
Another vote to check out the SNAP double buying power at Farmers Markets. I live in Missouri, and all the FMs here participate. Searched for markets in NOLA, and found the home page for Crescent City. If you look in their Projects section, it’s called Market Match. You can purchase up to $20 with a SNAP card, and receive up to $40 in market tokens. They scan the card at the same place folks use their debit cards to get tokens, since the majority of vendors aren’t set up to take debit cards.
Since you won’t have a SNAP card, you’ll have to fudge a bit by purchasing, then halving the sum for your calculations. But the farmers market could be a big help in keeping you in fruits and veggies.
Also, our markets participate year round. With hoop houses, farmers keep greens and such going practically year found. In NOLA, certainly more would still be available in the winter months. What’s available during September will be fantastic. :-)
I will be following your posts for added ideas BUT I am a single person household and spend below $4.50/day on food stuff – like $20-25/week on all food, household AND cat stuff. Nearly half of what I spend is on FRESH produce (I have tracked it) so I am eating health w/5-10 servings of fruit & veg/day. I do eat a lot of chicken but veggie 2xweek and fish 2x/week (rotating weeks of inexpensive tuna and various fillets).
Awesome job!!
I’m looking forward to see what your creative mind thinks up. I looked at the budget and figured I would just eat rice and beans the entire month.
-if you have an air popper you might be able to get away with having some popcorn as snacks if you need it since plain corn kernels are very inexpensive yet are a good source of fiber & protein. I don’t want you to literally starve this September; also, bulk bins are always great and brown rice is inexpensive and filling with beans too…
Good luck!!~
Have you seen or heard of this cookbook by Leanne Brown? It is super neat and due to a kickstarter campaign totally free! It is geared towards those that are on benefits, but anyone looking to eat on a budget can definitely learn from it. :) http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/08/01/337141837/cheap-eats-cookbook-shows-how-to-eat-well-on-a-food-stamp-budget
Once when I was learning to cook, I set out to make a nice meal for the family (there would have been leftovers too.) Well, being a novice cook I ruined it. Completely inedible, throw it out ruined it. I can’t imagine if that had been my entire food budget. I was pretty upset as it was.
Tl;Dr sometimes prepared food is cheaper if you ruin the from scratch food and don’t have the money in your budget to practice cooking.
I think the premise of this challenge is fundamentally flawed. People who get the *average* amount of SNAP benefits are those the program judges to have some other income that could be allotted for food. The *average* SNAP benefit is not *intended* to be enough to buy all one’s food! If the program determines you really don’t have any other money to buy food, you receive the *maximum* amount of SNAP benefits, not the average amount.
I just think this challenge does SNAP a disservice by misrepresenting it. No one, especially the administrators of SNAP, expects someone to be able to live on nothing but the average amount of SNAP benefits, so it really shouldn’t be surprising that people have so much trouble when they try. It would be much more accurate to write about living on nothing but the maximum amount of SNAP benefits.
I agree! I’m a single senior and live in a senior housing community. At least a dozen of my neighbors receive SNAP benefits and none rely on it alone for their food purchases. The aveirage benefit is about $20 weekly and most spend at least $40-$50 weekly for food (including the SNAP benefit) and some spend more.
I think those who use SNAP benefits only for their food purchases are the exception and not the rule.
Although the only legal use is for food purchase!
I think Sally is referring to people that only use SNAP benefits to buy food without any additional money being spent on food. For example, there is $20 on the ebt card so I can only get $20 in food. Not $20 on the ebt card plus $5 from my own pocket. Also, if there are none food items on the ringout, the amount of the food is the only thing the computer sends to the ebt account. It is not possible to buy anything other than food. The registers at most commercial grocery stores divide up the items into categories for food and non food items. The cashier usually has to authorize a food stamp total. Many times this is just a button that says EBT, food stamps, whatever. If there is say, paper plates on the ring up list, the food balance would be sent through and the cashier will see a notice of a remaining balance owed.
I don’t think the premise is flawed at all. I agree, the SNAP program is designed to be supplemental, but the reality is that for a lot of Americans, it is the only source of income for food. While they could spend additional money on food, they do not or cannot. Plus, SNAP benefit calculations assume that if an individual pays less than 50% of his/her income on rent, he/she is not eligible for a deduction that would increase his/her SNAP benefit levels. Many, many Americans, especially those in large cities and living in poverty, are “rent burdened” and paying between 35% and 49% of their very limited income on rent, leaving not much left over for other necessities.
I work with a lot of individuals who receive the maximum SNAP benefits for a single person, which is $189 a month in New York City, or $6.30 per day. They have no other source of income due to a variety of circumstances, and many live in a homeless shelter, single room occupancy housing, or doubled-up with family or friends. And this is where it gets particularly precarious: for a lot of people, particularly single individuals living in cities (where the largest number of those in poverty are concentrated), there is little to no access to a kitchen or to cookware. This means no stove, no refrigerator, and no storage. As a result, individuals have to purchase prepackaged foods that can be heated in a microwave, or food that can be eaten raw or uncooked. Food is purchased on a day to day basis due to lack of storage, so there is no discount for bulk purchasing.
Given this, $4.50 a day for an individual who has access to multiple grocery stores, storage, a fridge and freezer, and all the tools to make a lot at a time seems like a more than reasonable estimate. I think it’s an absolutely terrific endeavor, and I look forward to watching the progress!
Thankfully, New York also has the farmer’s market matching funds, which is a terrific program!
I’m very much looking forward to following this…due to some issues my family is currently in the ironic position of having very little funding (thank goodness for previous savings) but being “too highly paid” to get any sort of assistance. Hopefully you can help me cut food costs and we can still have a decent Christmas this year.
What a great idea for a challenge! I calculated the monthly cost for my family of 6 to live on 4.50 per day, and with 30 days, that’s $810/month, but we spend only about half that. I always record the total amount spent on groceries each month (including toiletries, laundry and dish detergent, and other consumables), and our average cost is $450 per month, so I think I’ll change my family’s challenge to under $400 and record it differently–instead of adding up grocery bills, I’ll add up each meal’s ingredients since I rely a lot on long term food storage that is bought in bulk and rotated (my average monthly grocery cost includes purchase of that long-term storage). We eat really well even on that budget, in large part due to some great recipes on your website! Some main differences between how we eat and most people are some of the following (aside from cooking most things from scratch, as you teach): we don’t purchase beverages except milk (no coffee, soda, juice, anything), we don’t waste hardly any food but plan carefully to use up leftovers, and we don’t buy many snack foods or desserts (we make homemade desserts some times). Our snacks are usually homemade things like popcorn popped from plain bulk kernels, banana bread or zucchini bread, cheese sticks cut ourselves from the block, smoothies made with frozen bananas and other fruit, random leftovers, or raw fruit or veggies. I’m always looking for tips to further reduce our cost and improve our efficiency, so I look forward to your findings.