Wow, one week of the SNAP Challenge is over and I can’t believe how many thoughts I’ve had so far. I could write a ten page paper on my feelings, experiences, and observations already… but I’ll try to keep it short (yeah, right). I also want to thank everyone for their insightful comments and support while I take on this challenge. You’ve helped me dive deeper and discover more.
Before I begin the summary, I want to discuss one aspect of the challenge. The SNAP challenge rules state that you shouldn’t use any food purchased prior to starting the challenge. I’m not following that rule because I don’t feel like it’s very realistic or a responsible way to eat on a budget. Sure, some SNAP recipients will start out with no kitchen supplies, but maybe some do. Each person’s SNAP experience will be unique and involve several variables. I can’t replicate anyone else’s experience, so I have to try to mimic what my own would be. I’m approaching this challenge as if I had to suddenly go on SNAP and will definitely utilize some of my pantry staples. Those staples will not be counted as free and as I replenish those pantry staples throughout the month, I will have to do so within my weekly budget of $30. A good portion of what I bought during week one will actually be spread out and used during the following weeks, so it only makes sense that I also would have had some things left over from previous weeks. And hey, this challenge isn’t perfect, but it’s still incredibly insightful. My goal isn’t to get every detail perfect, but to draw attention to and start the conversation about food insecurity, as well as recalibrate my own spending and food consumption habits to be less wasteful.
What Did I Buy?
Here is everything I bought during my shopping trip for week one. Not a whole lot, right? I bought some pantry staples from the bulk bins at Whole Foods (rice, oat bran, chickpeas, almonds), and picked up the rest of my fresh and canned goods at my neighborhood grocery store. I stocked up on some frozen greens because that’s a super easy and inexpensive way to add veggies to your meals. I splurged on feta because it ads a lot of flavor, but only used 1/4 of that block this week. The rest will be used in the following weeks.
Here are my receipts (with a couple notes on volumes that I made for the bulk items. I had to measure them when I got home for correct calculations).
What did I use that was already in my pantry? Admittedly, more than I planned to. I did not plan very well this first week, so I found myself scavenging through my fridge and pantry just looking for something to kill my hunger. I used soy milk, eggs (I’ll have to replenish both next week), a couple tortillas, butter, peanut butter, tea, brown sugar, cinnamon, hot sauce… well, a lot of things. Week one did not go well.
What Did I Make?
My main meal throughout the week was the Soy Dijon Chicken with Sweet Potatoes, plus 1/2 cup of Seasoned Rice, plus 1/2 cup of frozen broccoli florets. I pre-portioned them out so that I could grab them and go without thinking twice, or giving myself an opportunity to think about eating something else. Each one of these bowls cost $1.49.
I cooked one pound of chickpeas from dry in my slow cooker (1 lb. dry, unsoaked chick peas plus 6 cups water, on high for about 5 hours). I only used half of the batch this week and froze the second half for use next week.
My secondary meal throughout the week was Curried Chickpeas with Spinach. I used frozen spinach this time, less olive oil, and the chickpeas that I cooked from dry, so the total batch came to $4.25 and I got about 5 servings, for a cost per serving price of $0.85. Unfortunately, I got so busy and had so many unexpected things pop up this week that I wasn’t able to even cook this recipe until day 4.
Cabbage is super cheap and I wanted some more vegetables in my plan, so I made a half batch of this Vinaigrette Slaw with Feta. I used only red cabbage this time (half head) and halved the other ingredients as well. Luckily, I had the bottom of a bottle of Caesar dressing left over in my fridge that was waiting to be used up. This batch cost me $2.28 and I got 4 servings, for a cost per serving of $0.46.
After I got home from the grocery store I realized that I had NO FRUIT in my plan for the week. I had used up all but a few dollars of my weekly budget, so I turned to this melon that had been sitting in my fridge, uncut, for almost a week. I had let the melon go and it was already starting to have that over ripe sweet smell, like it was on the brink of rotten. I was determined to not let it go to waste, so I cut it up, divided it into 8 portions, and froze almost all of it. I eat the frozen portions while still frozen, like a frozen treat, because once they thaw they are not very good. Ick. But, you have to do what you have to do. The melon cost me $2.99 the week before, or $0.37 per portion.
So, that’s what I made the first week. I realized about mid way through day two that I did not plan well and this week was going to be really awful because of it. Add to that all the drama of the home buying process and trying to show my apartment to prospective new tenants, and I had a complete disaster of a week. I didn’t get a chance to make the curried chickpeas until day 4, so I ended up filling in my meal gaps with pita, peanut butter, and eggs. It was not good. I would consider week one a FAIL.
What Did I Eat?
As I just mentioned, week one was a disaster, but it showed me how much planning and how meticulous you have to be to actually make a budget like this work. Is that level of dedication realistic? Not very much so, especially if you have a family to take care of or are working two jobs (although some people DO make it work, and I applaud you!). Even with my well stocked kitchen and all of my background with cooking and portioning, I still needed to put in more effort to make this work. There were many nights of the week that I just fought off my hunger with a pita and peanut butter instead of a real meal. After only a few days I was so hungry that I was looking for calories everywhere and anywhere. It was bad. So, here is my daily breakdown with relfections:
Day 1
- 1 small flour tortilla $0.16
- 1 large egg $0.21
- dash of hot sauce $0.05
- pinch of salt and pepper $0.05
- 1 tea bag $0.13
- 1/4 cup soy milk $0.09
- 1 Soy Dijon Chicken meal bowl $1.49
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- 2 Tbsp peanut butter $0.23
Daily Total: $2.53
Reflection: Having to keep a tally of the total cost of my groceries as I picked items from the shelves brought me back to the early days of the blog, when I had to eat on a budget like this. I felt more responsible doing so, but wondered if people saw what I was doing and felt bad for me because I had to be so careful about every penny. I still have a positive outlook and am feeling good about the challenge.
Day 2
- 1/4 cup oat bran $0.19 (1/4 cup oat bran + 3/4 water cooks up to be a 1 cup bowl)
- 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar $0.02
- 1/2 Tbsp butter $0.08
- 1 Tbsp sliced almonds $0.18
- 1 cup Cabbage Slaw with Feta $0.46
- 1 portion melon $0.37
- 1 Soy Dijon Chicken meal bowl $1.49
- 1 small flour tortilla $0.16
- 1 large egg $0.21
- dash of hot sauce $0.05
Daily Total: $3.22
Reflection: This is the day that crazy stuff started happening with the home buying process. I was stressed, busy, and didn’t have time to calculate my daily food costs to know where I was coming in, or to make the curried chickpeas. I ate an egg in a tortilla for dinner and was hungry most of the day (except the hour or two after lunch). If I had time to calculate my daily cost, I would have known to eat more, but what? I didn’t have much in my fridge and no time to cook.
Day 3
- 1 Spinach Rice Breakfast Bowl $0.64
- 1 tea bag $0.13
- 1/4 cup soy milk $0.09
- 1 portion melon $0.37
- 1 cup Cabbage Slaw with Feta $0.46
- 1 Soy Dijon Chicken meal bowl $1.49
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- 2 Tbsp peanut butter $0.23
Daily Total: $4.11
Reflection: By today, my brain was screaming “FOOD!” at me all day long and seriously affecting my concentration. No, more accurately, it was screaming, “CHIPS, WENDY’S, PIZZA, CAKE!” My body wanted calories and in any form it could get them… and it’s only been 3 days. Imagine going a whole month, finally getting your SNAP benefits replenished, and finally going to the grocery store. Do you think you’d make healthy decisions? I can honestly say that I wouldn’t. My body was now in control and health was not even on the radar. I just wanted calories. I still didn’t have time to make the chickpeas today.
Day 4
- 2 large eggs $0.42
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- dash of hot sauce $0.05
- 1 portion melon $0.37
- 1 cup Cabbage Slaw with Feta $0.46
- 1 Soy Dijon Chicken meal bowl $1.49
- 1 Tbsp peanut butter $0.13
- 1 portion Curried Chickpeas with Spinach $0.85
Daily Total: $3.94
Reflection: I still hadn’t had time to calculate my daily food costs, so I had no idea where I was coming in. I did, however, finally have time to make the curried chickpeas and I was so happy for a change of flavor, plus they were super filling. Finally a little relief. I had woken up so hungry that I ate two eggs for breakfast. That might have been the first day that I didn’t feel like I was going to die waiting for my lunch break.
Day 5
- 1/4 cup oat bran $0.19
- 1 Tbsp almonds $0.18
- 1/2 Tbsp butter $0.08
- 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar $0.02
- 1/4 cup soy milk $0.09
- 1 portion melon $0.37
- 1 Soy Dijon Chicken meal bowl $1.49
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- 2 Tbsp peanut butter $0.23
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- 1 large egg $0.21
- dash of hot sauce $0.05
Daily Total: $3.25
Reflection: I really can’t believe how delicious every single commercial for food looks. Things I never would have been tempted by before, like Wendy’s or those nasty looking cappuccino flavored potato chips, I could seriously devour and love every second of it. It’s fascinating how hunger can change your tastes and perceptions. My body was still screaming at me for calories and blocking out most every other thought. I’m still relying on eggs/peanut butter in pita because it’s fast and kills my hunger.
Day 6
- 2 large eggs $0.42
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- pinch of salt & pepper $0.05
- 1 cup Cabbage Slaw with Feta $0.46
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- 1/2 Tbsp butter $0.08
- 1 serving Black Bean Soup $0.79
- 1/4 cup uncooked popcorn kernels $0.09
- 1 Tbsp vegetable oil $0.04
- 1 Tbsp butter $0.15
- Cajun seasoning $0.05
Daily Total: $2.47
Reflection: Today I really started to lose it. I thought about sneaking a bag of chips from the store. No one would know, right? Ack. I can’t do that. I needed calories so bad that I ate butter in pita bread. I started scouring my cupboard and freezer for something different to eat because I was sick of the same ‘ol food. I found one last frozen serving of my Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup and ate that. It was SO. GOOD. That made me feel like I broke the rules, but OMG, I felt full and happy for a minute. I had my favorite snack for dinner: stove top popcorn with Cajun seasoning (and butter because apparently I want that on everything now).
Day 7
- 1 Spinach Rice Breakfast Bowl $0.71
- 1 tea bag $0.13
- 1/4 cup soy milk $0.09
- 1 portion melon $0.37
- 1 serving Curried Chickpeas with Spinach $0.85
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- 1/2 pita $0.17
- 2 Tbsp peanut butter $0.23
- 1 oz feta $0.43
- 1 cup soy milk $0.36
Daily Total: $3.51
Reflection: I broke into my stash of feta today because I NEEDED CHEESE. I realized that dairy goes a really long way towards filling me up and making me feel satisfied because I’ve been craving cheese and yogurt for a couple days now. I’m definitely working that into next week’s menu. I CAN’T WAIT to go grocery shopping and try a new approach next week, because this sucked. Oh, and I finally got a chance to sit down and start calculating my daily costs and saw how low I was coming in. ARG. I could have been eating more all week. *sigh* Failure.
Final Reflection
Total Consumed: $23.30
Grocery Total (incl. tax): $28.13
This did not work at all. I’ll try again next week with a different approach. Even with all the advantages working in my favor (pantry staples, cooking equipment like a slow cooker, cooking skills, food knowledge, easy access to grocery store(S), etc.) this just did not work and was not sustainable. I wanted to eat fast food every day. I wanted to go splurge and spend 2-3 days worth of food budget on a pizza or burger. What would I do if I had children? I am full of a mix of emotions—gratitude, guilt, and sadness.
Read through my experience from beginning to end:
Thanks for doing this challenge–I learned alot reading the whole four weeks. 1 question, though–what is a Spinach rice breakfast bowl. LOL it sounds good and I’d like to try it. Thanks.
I’m all for help for those who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances, and I love that there’s advice here for making it work. The problem I have with the SNAP challenge overall is it doesn’t use real-world situations. Someone living on $4.50/day is not also feeding a family. The amount is based on members in the household, as well as income. If you qualify for SNAP and are pregnant or have children under 5, you also qualify for WIC. Older than 5 and your SNAP will increase.
When I was newly single, with kids 4 and 8, I worked weekends only, as a nurse (I couldn’t have afforded weekday childcare). Because of our situation, I got little or no child support, so every expense was on me, on a fraction of our previous income. I barely qualified for WIC, and that was it. I missed the cutoff for reduced-price lunches by $300. So I cut back on everything I could so I could pay rent etc.
My grocery budget has been $200/month for those 11 years since. I could spend more now, but I’m so used to it, why should I? That’s HALF the maximum benefit amount for a family our size, so the amount argument is lost on me. And unlike SNAP recipients, that includes any paper/cleaning product I buy, unless I find a good deal at Target.
Trust me, when you absolutely do not have more money, use some sense, and actually look for ways to stretch/save (like Budget Bytes recipes!), it CAN be done :) (Sorry for comment length – ugh).
I see that many of your recipes are vegetarian but I wonder what would you recommend to replace chicken that could be fit into the snap budget menu recipes
I think it depends on the recipe. A lot of times I like to replace chicken with white beans, but depending on how the chicken is used in the recipe you could have other options.
How much did sweet potatoes cost you? Sweet potatoes are so expensive in my country, so i was wondering how they compare.
Looking at the receipt it looks like they were $1.29/lb at that time, which is on the higher end of the spectrum. Sometimes they’re as low as $0.49/lb.
SNAP is a supplemental food assistance. You are expected to spend 30% of your monthly gross income on food if you are not receiving the maximum benefit. If you want to do a “SNAP Challenge”, you should be attempting to do it on the same food budget that the “Maximum Benefit” for that household size under SNAP. For a single person, the Maximum benefit is $194/month or $6.37/day. This is easily doable.
Despite the fact that people on SNAP have limited incomes that aren’t often capable of that 30% after bills and rent (when not even receiving the maximum benefit too sometimes), let alone the expense of other household needs (like TP etc). Though, I’ve found ways to survive on $6 (or less) a day thanks to this very blog!
Speak for yourself. I actually eat and no there is no extra 30% bowlshit. It’s $6.38 a day. Welcome to the world of eggs and rice.
Really interesting comments… thoughtful and no dramatics.. have noticed that conversations between women stick to basics and usually considerable civility. To use well what one has is pretty ethical, also.
I am a recent college grad in Ventura County, CA. While I was in school, I lived off a strict food budget of $30 per bi-monthly paycheck, or $15 per week. I shopped only at Trader Joe’s and learned a lot about how to stay full. I come from a family of 7 so my mom also was a role model for eliminating wasteful practices and making cheap and healthy meals. I’m now married and my husband and I budget $45/week (22.50 per person). We only go grocery shopping every other Thursday, when I get paid, so I’ve learned about how to plan meals around what ingredients spoil fastest. It can be a real challenge sometimes, and I learned even more when I started cooking for two. My biggest money saving tip is that when I make dinner, I make four portions, and two of those get packed for the next day’s lunches. You don’t get as much variety, but that way I only need to plan for 14 meals (dinners), plus breakfasts, per paycheck.
I only found your blog recently, but it’s been really helpful. Thank you!
This is really impressive! I live in Santa Barbara and food is just so expensive in this area that eating on a budget can be super challenging.
That’s interesting. My family of five was on EBT (before it was called SNAP) and received $850 a month ($5.67 per person, per day) several years ago. Food is far more expensive now, and the benefits have decreased. We now spend about $6 per person per day, on GFCF restrictions. Even the farmer’s markets have become wise to the organic movement and upped their prices, about quadrupled. We used to use the markets as a way to cut costs, but it’s not really always practical at this point.
Bec, our family of 4 was on EBT a couple of years ago and received $650 a month. My husband lost his job a few weeks ago, and we applied for SNAP. They said if we receive benefits (once our proof of everything has been approved) we will receive about $640. I am not understanding this $30 a week budget I keep hearing about.
I think it varies state to state and depending on your situation (family size, income, etc.). They just use $30 per week, per person as an average of what recipients get. Yours works out to be $40 per person per week, so it’s not far off. :)
I’m new to your blog and just want to say hi to a fellow New Orleanian! Born and raised there, but moved to Baton Rouge post Katrina. I saw that Rouses receipt and cheered!
Ok, carry on. I think your site is awesome :)
i thought the same thing when i saw the rouse’s reciept for new orleans. i am in houma so i am fairly close. finally a blog i can follow! i feel like i just met the cool new neighbor..lol!
It looks to me as though you are cutting things too close even for your target–$4.50 per day is $33.90 a week, and your consumption was about 2/3 of that allowance, your expenditure was about 85%. It seems to me that you had a little room in your budget for some dairy or protein that would have supplied more rib sticking–I can usually find a half pound package of cheese in my grocery store on special for about $2.
Wow, this is by far one of the most honest articles I’ve read in a long, long time. Much kudos to you!
Thank you so much for taking the SNAP challenge and bringing awareness to this important issue. After I graduated college in 2010, I had a very hard time finding a full-time job, and I signed up for SNAP for a little more than a year. For me, the experience was both a life saver (I didn’t have to starve), and a really tough experience socially. Believe it or not, following your blog helped me to make good shopping and eating choices on my tight SNAP budget, and I ultimately became a much better cook, too. Thanks again!
Beth, it’s not dairy you’re craving – it’s protein. Eating protein and carbs together will make you feel full longer.
I think you’re doing amazingly well so far. Looking forward to this week’s adventures :-)
The hungry = unhealthy decisions is so obvious and yet such a revelation to me! Thanks for illustrating it so honestly and thoughtfully. Child poverty is a huge issue here in New Zealand and I feel I have a slightly better understanding of the issues thanks to the SNAP challenge. All the best for the journey.
I follow the whole eating a meal before grocery shopping thing because I’ve seen it mentioned plenty that people make worse shopping habits when hungry. It’s been working better for me thus far!
Like so many of the other comments, I think your week 1 was no where near a fail in terms of bringing attention to SNAP, and experiencing what it it like to have a very tight budget and/or food insecurity. Things come up, planning goes sideways, food becomes limited or even more limited and the safety net is extremely slim or non existent. Watching this series keenly.
As someone who actually gets SNAP, thank you for this site. Even before you did the challenge. I have been modifying your recipes for almost a year now. My son is a special needs child who’s an incredibly picky eater, which means his diet is very strict and I cannot change anything or he won’t eat. So I use your recipes to make food for myself. You’ve been a Godsend even before this. So even if the first week of the challenge didn’t go the way you’d hoped, you help those of us who have to eat on a strict budget’s life a lot easier already.
I am not on SNAP benefits but I do try to live by a similar budget simply because my money is stretched that tight a lot of times. I found your site two years ago and have fallen in love with some of your most inexpensive recipes.
By following your blog and living a tight budget I’ve learned a few tricks. When I can I try to make my own bread and tortillas (a diet staple many times for me) as they are at least a bit cheaper than the store bought brands and healthier as well.
The other trick I’ve learned when shopping on a budget is to shop Aldi’s it is off brand food that many times is equal to what you get name brand and sometimes in my opinion better. I can get a box of noodles at least where I am for $1 and that goes a long way. I have also found that the eggs are about 20cents cheaper than the regular grocery store. The meats, fresh fruits and vegetables are reasonably well priced and good as well. The only difference I have have noticed is some of the fruits and vegetables don’t keep ‘as long’ but they do keep well are are not over ripe when I purchase them. All in all it cuts costs and corners. You just have to snag boxes as you shop or bring your own bags to cart things home but the savings are worth it.
Hope this might help you in shopping for the coming weeks!
The same is true of Trader Joe’s, which is owned by Aldi’s. Before I knew this I said that Trader Joe’s reminded me of an upscale.Aldi’s.
One day I shopped at Aldi’s, Wal Mart and Trader Joe’s and of the things available at all three stores, Trader Joe’s was cheapest on all.
I actually returned to Aldi’s over the summer. When I first moved out I had a larger budget and would shop at Giant Eagle, then Walmart. I quickly saw how I was over spending and when my budget became smaller (I had a larger budget because I was filling in for a higher position, and received base pay) I went back to Aldis. I find that the quality and selection can vary from store to store (I’ve been to three before I finally found one that I liked). I went there today to shop on a budget (I am for $60 – no more if possible) and after going there today with recipes in mind, I walked out paying LESS than $60, and even got “extras” in my cart (like tissues, paper towels, etc). I stayed well within budget. My first recipe was the ramen bowl ~ it turned out better than I thought it would. Thank you BuzzFeed for featuring the recipe and giving credit to the creator and her website! <3
Aldi is my favorite! I am adding in some frozen fruit to my diet versus fresh because I don’t drive and can only shop 1x a month (and have read plenty on frozen not being as bad as people think). So, I bought from Walmart and then realized a very similar bag of fruit from Aldi could have saved me $2 or so which is a lot to someone who doesn’t have much.
This has been very very interesting. I was fortunate to have all I needed most of the time. Then my husband had a car accident, lost his ability to work for some time, though thankfully he is not seriously debilitated. He has been in physio therapy for almost 3 years now, for an accident that wasn’t his fault, where no one was charged. We have been self employed all our 34 years of marriage, he is a singer,and I am an artist and I sing with him when possible. We are in our 60’s and have found our finances a serious stress. We live in Canada, and he receives old age pension, and Canada pension, (he is 67) and I will receive old age pension NEXT year when I turn 65. I get a very small pension since I didn’t work outside the home much at all, only before we married. I home schooled my son, a full time job without pay. Paying bills and eating well has been a huge challenge lately. We do hope this will be resolved when we have a legal disclosure meeting soon, but it has been a tough time these 3 years (come January). My husband who has always been slim, has lost 25 lb he cannot afford to lose. Eating on a budget is challenging to say the least. We never ate at restaurants anyway, (except the years we traveled on the road while he was singing, before our 28 yr old son was born) and I enjoy cooking. Our son has moved away so it is just the two of us, but there have been weeks we lived on porridge (oatmeal) and eggs, period. It is true every situation is different, and for example, I see in the SNAP challenge that cheeses are much cheaper where you live. I will try some of these recipes for sure… and have found some great slow cooker recipes from a Canadian Living book I got at the library. We live in the country and have a car, but it means the stores are 10-20 min drive away, and more expensive in price than in the city where there is more competition. Interesting. Thanks for this blog.
How could this possibly be a fail?! You did a bunch of preparing and working around (the frozen melon, brilliant). Cooking & eating is a process that evolves and you have shown us how that goes on a scrimped budget. Always love your line-ups of little freezer boxes, so pretty & inspiring. Anyway, thank you for taking & sharing the challenge so we understand the dire problem of hunger & food insecurity in America. Love your blog and I am making, again, the lemon blueberry cornbread for a family get-together.
So I did the and for my family of six we would get about $810 in SNAP. I don’t know if I could even spend that much money on groceries a month. I think we should do a middle class grocery challenge!!!!!
I know this is an old comment and you may not see this, but I just wanted to say that we are a family of 6 that comes in at the “extreme poverty” level (my husband works a full time job, $10/hr) and we are getting $520 a month.
We have 2 kids with celiac and dairy allergies, as well as 2 teenage boys, and no matter how carefully I shop, I still end up with little left by the end of the 3rd week. That 4th week is a real exercise in creativity to feed this crowd. I end up going to the food pantry most months to make sure we have enough.
If you have time, I would be really interested in the number of calories you are consuming. I wonder if it is enough to maintain your current weight, which seems healthy to me.
I hope this question isn’t too intrusive. This seems like a valid factor in the SNAP challenge.
Week one was definitely not enough calories. I can’t tell ya that without even calculating it. ;) A few people emailed me the calorie breakdown, although I don’t know which calculators they were using, but they all came in very low… like 1/2-2/3 of what I need.
Being that I am a calorie counter and very nutrient curious, I calculated the calories for Beth’s list of consumed foods for Week 1 of her SNAP challenge.
I used the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 27, whenever possible. If the food item was not available in that database, or I knew the brand used (based on Beth’s pictures) I used the manufacturer’s website as a secondary source of information. If I could not find the information on either of those, I turned to a third party nutritional website as a last resource.
My calculations were:
Day 1: 867.54 calories
Day 2: 907.54 calories
Day 3: 1103.21 calories
Day 4: 1291.84 calories
Day 5: 1028.54 calories
Day 6: 1159 calories
Day 7: 1265.97 calories
Not enough calories – no wonder she was hungry! :)
Yep, I’m doing much better in week 2! :)
I could eat your full day allotment of food in one sitting. Not enough calories Beth…
That’s why I considered it a failure. :) Doing MUCH better this week.
Right now I’m a single college student and budget roughly $100 a month on groceries. Some days it’s easier than others, some weeks I eat PBJ sammiches for every single lunch. I don’t always eat super healthy, but I make a point to have pretty well rounded meals. I’ve always budgeted roughly $100 a week per person, at times with my ex husband spending as little as $120-150 for 2 people for an entire month. Perhaps things have just been cheaper in my area, but that’s part of why I have always found these challenges interesting.
Additional comment regarding my previous reply.
My boyfriend and I usually make a bulk dinner that costs about $10.00 to last us for the week. This can be chili, soup, homemade spaghetti sauce, freezer burritos, lentil dish, etc. We don’t eat a lot of meat and that helps reduce our food bill.
During the day we eat fruit/veggies/nuts for snacks and salads for lunch. Breakfast (for my bf) is oatmeal with honey, bananas, and walnuts. We mainly shop at Trader Joe’s but also shop at Market Basket. Very healthy and affordable. We don’t really snack too much.. I make a lot of baked goods which we can freeze and lasts a while. Our total food bill also accounts for any misc things we need including soap, toilet paper, paper towels, etc. 2 people can eat great for a week on $40-$60 total.
Thank you for sharing. As of May, my boyfriend and I started tightening up our budget for groceries. We are foodies and our grocery budget had been high. I find the SNAP challenge interesting because even though I am not on SNAP and my boyfriend and I have full time, stable jobs, I eat on a tight budget, yet I still eat healthy. For groceries for the two of us for a week, we try to spend $40.00 per week (or $20 per person). It has been difficult to budget less than that total though. The highest we get to is $60per week but we never exceed that (before we were budget aware, we would spend upwards to $90.00). I use a lot of the recipes on budget bite and we eat very healthy. So this SNAP challenge I think is doable for everyone. I suspect it may be more difficult if there are children in the picture. I guess I get irritated when people think that there are no healthy food options for the poor, when I live that week to week, on a ‘poor’ persons food budget. Thank you for sharing recipes that are healthy and trying to help people be more budget aware.
I’m really glad you’re able to make it work, Barbara. But I would maybe ask you to reevaluate your “irritation” at people who struggle to make it work. Just because you’re able to do it doesn’t mean it’s that easy for everyone (and I don’t mean that it’s necessarily “easy” for you, but maybe that it’s not quite as hard). What if a person doesn’t have any transportation and is working 3 part time jobs to make ends meet for them and their kids? Think how difficult it would be to find the means and the time to get to the grocery store and carry everything home and then cook it (if you’ve got access to a fully implemented kitchen to do so). Now imagine you live in a food desert where there are no real grocery stores, where you have to buy food from a corner store or convenience store or gas station, unless you can make your way to a different neighborhood that actually has a grocery store (and again…imagine you don’t have a car, and, if you’re lucky enough to have access to public transport, it takes you 45 minutes each way on the bus to get to the store). Now imagine you have a medical condition or disability. Now imagine you have no computer or access to the internet (to more easily find sales and coupons, look up recipes like the ones on this blog, apply for better jobs, etc.) except at the public library, which is 3 miles away from you and only open when you’re working. Eating on a budget by choice is not the same as having no other option and having huge amounts of obstacles in front of you. That doesn’t mean the SNAP Challenge isn’t a useful exercise. I really, really think it IS useful, not only practically, but also in terms of creating empathy. I’m really glad you’re thinking about this and that you’re committed to being healthy on a budget, but maybe think a bit wider before you get “irritated” at people who struggle. Yes, some people make bad decisions, and yes, some people just need some help to learn different skills necessary to do this. But overall there are a lot of people doing their absolute best, who are exhausted and frustrated and just trying to survive with what they have at their disposal.
Good points all. It seems that in these sort of discussions someone always needs to be reminded that their circumstances can’t be extrapolated to everyone else in existence for all the reasons above. Also the cost of groceries varies hugely across the country and I think often people forget that their $100 food budget in their home town would actually cost three times that somewhere else.
AMEN MS, thank you! Things are often much more complicated than we want to think about.
Thank you for your points MS. I wasn’t trying to ‘bash’ people who find it difficult. You are right that every body has a different situation.
Very well said. :)
Well said!
I am glad for this comment. Not everyone is capable of the same things just because we ourselves are or have the same things available to them. I am lucky to have a grocery store in walking distance but due to personal issues, hardly ever go there, plus it’s no good for my budget to shop there.
Great job keeping your food budget so in check!
Believe it or not, grocery prices vary a lot depending on where you live. Unfortunately, in lower income areas, groceries tend to be much more expensive. I just moved from the burbs to an inner-city area, and was shocked at how much more groceries cost here. In other words, your $40 a month may look a lot different where you live than it does in other parts of the country!
I never realized you were in New Orleans before! That means your stores/prices are my stores/prices. I’ve cooked a lot from your website, but I’m going to start to pay even closer attention to it. Thanks for doing this.
I see you’re also experiencing another difficulty of being on SNAP: having other people judge/chastise you for your food choices, despite the fact that they don’t know what your locally accessible stores are like, don’t know the other mitigating factors in your life, etc. Plus they want to lecture you on nutrition (either telling you you’re doing it wrong or telling you your healthy choices are too expensive and that you’re somehow not entitled to them). Thankfully it seems like most people have been supportive and congratulatory here, but there have of course been some Judgey McJudgertons. Having strangers on your back about your food choices, telling you what you should be “allowed” to eat like you’re not even an adult, insisting that their knowledge and experience is superior to your own with regard to your own life…that’s one of the struggles of being on SNAP. And it’s often tied up in classism, racism, sexism, etc.
Hahaha, yes, there are always some judgey mcjudgetons, but that’s the name of the game when you’re a blogger. ;) People can judge all they want, but I know that what I do makes sense for me, so it doesn’t bother me much. And yes, the outpouring of support and genuine interest FAR out weighs the negative Nancys.
Wow! I don’t know how you did it. Congratulations on getting this far.
Thank you so much for writing this. We’re on food stamps, and my husband is both shopper and cook (I am so terrible at both) and apologizes so many times a week that we’re eating the same things. He’s a good enough cook that I can and do eat his chili for days, enjoying every bite. But you hit the nail on the head by pointing out that prepackaged foods start to look heavenly, really quickly! Thanks for writing with a clear head and a kind heart.
I’m reading this blog from the UK, but we’re on a very tight budget here. Our food bill is £30 a week for two, which I work out to be about $48.73. The cravings you talked about for burgers and pizza are all too real. Knowing dinner is unlikely to fill me up makes me crave fast food which at least will stuff me full. We try to eat healthily and budget, but it’s hard!
Wow, I’m impressed that you didn’t eat when you were hungry and couldn’t concentrate. When I’m sitting in the office hungry I have no willpower to not snack.
It’s a lot easier when you know you have an audience that’s one million strong watching. :P
In response to Anya’s question, I’ve had to cook for a group of 7, 3, and just myself, at various times in my life, all of them on a strict budget. I found it harder to stick to a similar amount of money for a larger group of people (I found $30/1 easier than $210/7), but I think there are a lot of different factors that went into each scenario.
Also, I think there is probably a substantial change in how difficult food budgets are depending on where you live in the country, and how convenient cheaper-end grocery stores are (like grocery outlet… definitely saved my life a couple times). Growing up I was able to feed a family of 3 for $40 a month for a couple months, but I was lucky to have a large amount of wild edibles around (blackberries, apples, etc.) and really cheap access to large quantities of staples ($0.15/lb of flour), but I definitely couldn’t do that here in Chicago, or even elsewhere in the same state.
Thank you for doing this experiment and sharing your experience. It’s really enlightening.
I can’t imagine how people do this for any length of time, especially with children.
I agree that rule of the challenge is unrealistic. When we had to start SNAP because of my illness, we still had spices and such we could use and, like many others, we occasionally visit a food pantry so it’s not like all of our food is from SNAP benefits. But I can see why they would include the rule, because it does really force you to think about the realities of feeding yourself on an extremely limited budget. And you have much of the mindset already, it’s why I frequently visit your site! Thanks for all your wonderful and cheap recipes :)
When we were on SNAP, I would spend about half of it right away buying bulk meat and pantry staples, then spent the rest on fruits and vegetables weekly. That might be an easier approach for you, and it made it super easy for me to make meals that didn’t suck.
I feel your pain! I, myself, am on food stamps, but I get quite a bit more due to the fact that I’m pregnant, currently unemployed(doing the best I can with freelancing illustration/animation jobs), and have a 10 month old baby. Once I get my own place and get bills, my food stamps will go up some, too, to help with that. Right now, my budget is about $60-70/week for me and my son together. Seeing your posts about it really makes me happy. Maybe someone even more influential will see it and start a movement to lower the salaries of people in politics and raise the food stamps a bit so people can actually live off of it without having starve days, because most people don’t start off with pantry staples. I, myself, had absolutely nothing except for a small can of beans and some flour. Literally. :/
Thank you for sharing— I love your blog and recipes and use them often to feed my family of eight. I am not in an income bracket that forces me to stick to SNAP guidelines, but out of curiosity I calculated and realized this would be about 1000$ a month for my family if we were to do this challenge. This is my regular budget for groceries. (not including wine, because, hello, six kids!). I was thinking maybe it is a lot easier for larger families to eat on this budget? I make nearly all of our food, but so do you. But I never feel like, oh wow, this is tight. I can imagine it would be harder for one person to stick to 30$ vs. 8 people sticking to 240$. My kids aren’t all babies either, we have a 16, 13,10,8,7, and 5 year old. Thoughts?
Also, do you have a day old bread store nearby? I can get organic bread there for 5 loaves/7$. It might be good for your pb sammy’s:)
I feel like it might be easier for one person, because I can control my own eating and hunger, but you can’t always do that for other people. But it does seem easier to buy one set of pantry staples to feed 8 people instead of just one. :) I fully blame my hunger in week one on poor planning. I just have to get back in the groove of it. I’m already doing better this week!
I’m sorry that this week did not go so well for you :( Hopefully next week is better. I really appreciate how honest and open you are in your experiences. I know what you mean about cravings they can be so hard to ignore!
Just wanted to thank you for doing this challenge and for being honest about the struggle. I have been following your blog for years, and I now have one more reason to love, appreciate and admire you! Go, Beth!
Beth I think you did great! You don’t really have to reinvent the wheel, though – you already have fantastic, cheap recipes such as the baked oatmeal that you can piece together to fit into this weekly plan.
Also, I think the SNAP challenge would work well with one of those dishes that transforms throughout the weekly, like roast chicken with veggies, then chicken pot pie, then chicken soup – something like that. Or… maybe animal proteins don’t fit into the SNAP budget after all. Also, I heard that sticking to one type of cuisine keeps costs down because you are using mostly the same ingredients with different combinations.
Good luck and thanks for doing this!
While I’ve never been on SNAP, there have been quite a few extremely tight pay periods for my family since we switched to one income when I had my first baby a couple years ago. I know that relentless hunger all too well!! Idk what it is…part of me thinks it’s psychological…not being able to snack and knowing your next meal isn’t going to be too exciting. It’s hard not to crave fast food and pizza when your dinner (which is four hours away) is going to be french onion soup, ya know?
I, too, am a grateful follower of your blog. Like you, our grocery area was really the only area we could trim. So we followed after you and have been cooking from your blog for the past two years. When the hard weeks hit, I can turn to things like your Southwest Breakfast Scramble, Black Bean Soup, Sweet Potato Enchiladas, Onion and Mushroom Pizza, Taco Pizza and the list goes on. And that is a huge help…particularly for morale. Thanks Beth :)
This is incredible, and I’m so glad you’re writing about this, especially your reactions each day. Even though I know how little money people are offered to survive, I always thought in the back of my mind that I could do it – mostly because I have done it in the past. But reading this made me relive some of those hungry days, and they’re so truly awful. (Though I was buying tons of almost-rotten vegetables for cheap and roasting them – not really a meal, but it did help stave off some of the cravings for junk food.) I can’t wait to see what you do with it next week!
Don’t be so hard on yourself! It is incredibly brave to document your cravings and hunger. It is simply NOT EASY to do this. I’m sure there are people out there, living on the SNAP budget, who are nodding their heads in understanding as they read this post. This is validating, and bringing so much awareness to the very real problem of food insecurity in this country. And there is no failure in that. (PS, made the soy dijon chicken tonight, and it was delicious!)
Beth, I don’t usually post on blogs because bloggers are busy and have enough to do :)
but I want to say that you’re doing a GREAT job. I know that you think you failed but you made a lot of progress in a direction that is not only challenging, but demanding. Good job. Brava. Look forward to your next few weeks.
Wow! I’m impressed…I could NEVER have held out feeling hungry. This sure puts things into perspective…we have it good…I am struggling to cut down my $1200 grocery budget…which includes a farmshare (CSA)… We’d spend way too much…but eat lots of fruits and veggies. I want to learn more from you and all your readers who spend WAY LESS! Spread your knowledge…please!
I think the big thing that kept me going through the hunger is knowing that 1 million + people were watching. ;)
I love your blog and you definately did not fail. My family of three spends $100 a week which is far more than used to be in our budget. You mentioned craving cheese and we too are cheese lovers. Feta is great because a little goes a long way, as does Parmesan. Sprinkling a little on your veggies is a great way to satisfy cheese cravings on a budget. ^_^ Hang in there you are doing great!
Wow! What an eye-opening experience. You said that at times, you were hungry. Can you imagine feeling that way on a regular basis? I understand your emotions of gratitude, guilt, and sadness because I often feel the same way when I think about those who live this way on a regular basis. Can you imagine what it is like for those with growing children? It makes me thank God for what He has given me and pray for those who suffer. May we all, like Mother Teresa said, “live with less so that others may simply live.” Thanks for the update.
I visit this blog every week while meal planning, but I’ve never commented before. This was a fascinating post. I love that you were willing to label that week a failure and post about that experience and your real time reflections, instead of try to spin it in a positive light for the sake of the blog. This was an unexpectedly great read. Thanks for everything you do!
Thank you. I was so excited to see you taking this on. We were receiving $500 a month for a family of five and it definitely took the joy out of cooking.
A couple of people have asked about cooking the beans when you don’t have a slow cooker. You can put the ingredients in a Dutch oven or covered casserole and bake at 300F for the same amount of time. No presoaking required.
A general rule of thumb is that the oven at 200F equals the low temperature for a slow cooker and 300F equals the high temperature.
Thanks for sharing that!
It was not a great week but you did not fail – failing would have been going to that fast food restaurant or buying those chips. I remember when I was between grad school and my first job, with zero income and very little savings. I managed to live off of my pantry (depleting it right before I moved), freezer, and garden for several months, but it was not pretty. And that was when I had plenty of time to cook, plan, shop around, tend my garden, etc. I cannot imagine now trying to do that and work. Kudos to you for trying – and for posting such great recipes!
I heart you and everything you stand for! This is my favorite website b/c it hits everything I strive for: inexpensive yet delicious, healthy and usually relatively easy. Keep at it!!
Interesting! Part of what I do is develop meal plans for SNAP participants. I will just quickly point out that their money is distributed monthly, not weekly or even biweekly, so it makes it difficult to truly budget out only $30/week. People tend to spend it all in the first 2 weeks. For this reason, we try really hard to encourage people to make meals that you can freeze, and then pull out of the freezer on the last week, when money is likely tight. It also allows you to spend more the first few weeks to make a different meal every day, but still come within budget at the end of the month.
You’re probably not getting enough fat in your diet, if you’re hungry all the time, plus craving fast food. Fat keeps you satiated, so increasing the amount of fat you eat (like, adding a pat of butter to your rice or veggies, olive oil on salads) should help with that. Avocados are a really good source of healthy fats, but probably out of the budget at this point (though sometimes they go on sale for super cheap at my local grocery store, so who knows).
If this week helps you plan the next one better, then it could never have been a failure. Love your blog and don’t know what I’d do without it. It’s basically my weekly meal planner. Reading about this challenge has been one of your best posts yet, I think. Next week will be different; I can’t wait to read about it.
In a future week can you talk about time? One of the things about the budgets set by the USDA in determining SNAP benefits it that it assumes every meal is prepared from scratch at home.
How much time are you investing in the prep and cooking?
First, I love your website (especially the tasty recipes). Second, just wanted to let you know I’m super impressed you’re tackling this challenge. As an athlete, there’s no way I would survive on this amount of food but I definitely appreciate your approach. I could definitely be more budget-minded… Keep up the good work and best of luck next week!
When you first posted about doing this, I thought, “Huh, interesting.” Then I got the notice that I’m going to be laid off later this month. I will certainly be looking to SNAP (though thankfully I have a stocked pantry to “start” from). Thanks for keeping this conversation going.
Beth, thanks for doing this challenge. It’s pretty eye opening to see how hard it is to make it work. I budget for $200 for groceries which is 50 a week for one person. You would think it would go far but it’s hard sometimes, especially since I have to stay gluten free.
I too have been curious how you’re first week would go. I like Deb, stick to a $50/week grocery budget. I looked into the SNAP challenge when you first posted you be participating…my family of 4 would actually get a larger grocery budget. But, even though my budget is lower, we rarely feel deprived. I’ve been at it for over a year now, so I have my methods. You’ll get the hang of it!
Looking forward to following along.
I’ve been reading your blog for a while and was very interested in seeing how week 1 went for you, as I try to stick to a $50/week for 3 people for 8 months of the year and 75/week for 4 for the remaining months when the college kid is home…self explanatory why I’m reducing food costs, college isn’t cheap.
You’ll get the hang of this challenge and determining full flavor recipes to make in bulk. I enjoy lentil soup with sausages and it freezes well, your black bean soup was a hit with the vegetarian in the house, too! Beth – thanks for doing this and letting us follow along.
I guess my comment would be more of a question. why did you decide on 30.00 a week? According to the website a single person should receive 189-200 a month. I feed my family of 5 on about 800.00 a month. We do raw milk, organic ground beef,natural chicken, organic apples and grapes. According to the website my family would receive 750-793. So I basically feed my family at the poverty level. I think the biggest issue is that people need education on how to shop and prepare healthy meals. Obviously you didn’t :) In general there should be no reason why a family can’t provide healthy foods for their family on that budget.
The challenge set by Feeding America is for $4.50 per day, which would be $31.50/week. I guess in my head I rounded it to $30, but yes, it’s kind of an arbitrary number since SNAP benefits vary from person to person. :)
Very very few people receive the full benefit. Most families get only a small portion of that. When we made 23k a year for 4 people we received only 235 a month.
I would definitely exchange the peanut butter for something more filling. For 200 calories, you could eat a half a cup of rice or beans or potatoes.
That’s what I found most interesting about this. I found the peanut butter to be way more filling than the rice, veggies, sweet potatoes, and chicken that I was eating for lunch. It’s just a different sensation on the stomach.
Probably from the fattyness of it :)
I’m curious: what’s prompting you to choose Whole Foods? I’m surprised at the price of some things you got, but not so much considering that you were shopping there. For example: I can get a 5lb. bag of white rice for around $2.50 at my standard cheap grocery store, so I’m surprised to see 3C for almost $2, even if it’s brown rice. Is Whole Foods by preference, location, or something else?
They have a really wide selection of bulk goods and the prices are better than the bulk goods at my neighborhood store. I definitely could have gotten a huge bag of rice for less at the neighborhood store, but I wanted the brown jasmine rice in particular. It wasn’t exactly the best choice. :)
Thank you for sharing your experience. I think you did amazing for the first week! I love reading your blog and I’ve made many of the recipes you’ve posted. Keep up the great work!
No wonder you were hungry. Not knowing portion size, I couldn’t calculate but it looks to me like you were really skimping on protein. I’m hungry just reading this.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and all the details.
It at the very least points to how difficult and time consuming it would be to plan a ‘good’ week – for people who often don’t have the luxury of time any more than they have the luxury of plentiful food
that chickpea spinach curry from your blog is delicious! i have tried doing a similar grocery store challenge with $50 – but i was more focused on eating healthy/organic food. i hear you about planning and having to eat food repeatedly. thank you for sharing your experience…here is mine if you are interested http://www.foodpleasureandhealth.com/2014/07/50-grocery-budget-what-did-i-get.html
Please don’t feel like you failed!! You just need to plan better for next week (don’t we all). I used to be on food stamps as well. I think somewhere between 1 and 2 years. During that time I was unemployed, then part time employed, and the working two jobs. The food stamp would change every few months but it was the ONLY money we had for food. So whether I had 500 or 200 for the month, I had to make it work!! Don’t feel like you failed, because you certainly didn’t. Living on a food stamp budget is very difficult and you are doing just fine!!
I love your website and really admire you commitment to this challenge. I generally live on this amount and don’t find myself hungry all the time so I hope you figure that part out! One thing I noticed was that you bough organic bulk items. That probably isn’t realistic for a SNAP participant – I pay $2/lb for garbanzo beans at Kroger (only $1/lb if I can get to a Amish/Mennonite bulk food store), not the $8.99/lb that you paid. I do buy Ezekiel tortillas & bread and more expensive eggs so I think it is all about balance.
Thank you for making me be more aware of my choices!
The $8.99/lb was for the almonds. :) I didn’t notice that two of the bulk items I bought were organic… oops! Not all items at Whole Foods are organic. I decided to go there for my bulk goods because their prices are actually less than my neighborhood grocery store. Now, if I were REALLY in a pinch, I’d just go to Walmart and be done with it.
Thanks for being so diligent! I’m always interested in challenges like this and its so easy to get distracted. Great job!
I’m inspired to do better with my shopping for sure.
Hang in there. Starting out this challenge on a week that’s hectic and exasperating and didn’t pull any punches only made your experience that much more realistic and poignant. I’m taking a moment to feel thankful today for things that– on other days– might not feel like enough.
Hi Beth! I’m a (sorta) long-time reader, and thank you so much for doing this challenge! It’s been such an eye-opener for me. I love your blog, and it’s definitely helped me cut down on grocery expenses too!
Wow. really interesting week. thanks for sharing (honestly) how things are going for you. We are not necessarily on a budget, but we spend about $150/week for 6 adults. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I’m not surprised at how hungry you were– that’s so little food for a whole week! Bananas are my favorite snack at $.20 a pop :D
I’m impressed with the honest and detailed report. I’m sure you’ll do better next week. Looking forward to reading about it.
I am so grateful to you for doing this challenge! I wanted to point out that one benefit you have which many people who are on SNAP do not is that you have easy access to transportation so you were able to go to multiple stores and comparison shop. For someone who relies on public transit, this may not be a realistic option and their food choices may be even more limited.
Another thought along the lines of “what would you do if you had children”–what would you do if you didn’t have a slow cooker? Cooking with dried beans becomes so much less feasible when you have to babysit them on the stovetop for a few hours before you can even begin to prepare your meal. Add that to working two jobs and having a fussy six-year-old who’ll absolutely refuse to eat soy dijon chicken for the third day in a row and wants dinner RIGHT NOW and you have a recipe for frozen nuggets and fries three nights a week.
You’re someone with tons of cooking knowledge and interest in nutrition, no kids, access to a functional kitchen with great tools, a pantry already stocked with herbs and spices, and good grocery stores, and you’re still struggling! And yet people look down on SNAP recipients who have a fraction of the advantages you do, as if poverty is so conducive to healthy meal planning. What a broken system.
A really worthy experiment. Whoever, I seriously doubt that a person living on such a budget would buy organic food and would shop at Whole Foods.
I’m sure that living on $30 is hard enough. No need to make it harder.
I didn’t even realize that two of the bulk items I bought were organic. The prices for bulk goods at Whole Foods are actually better than the bulk section at my neighborhood grocery store, so I took advantage. I do agree that I could have found even better deals, though, if I had been more diligent.
I’m so enjoying your insightful comments. I’m sorry you are hungry at times. Being retired, I’ve gotten a little lackadaisical about budgeting my food dollars. This process you are going through reminds me that I need to do a reality check once in a while and ask myself “What am I spending on food?” As a mother and wife I was always a proponent of 1)making a menu 2)Making a grocery list and 3)often being known to say “it doesn’t hurt to be on a budget once in a while”. Even a food budget when we didn’t need to be. Thank you for sharing with us.
Keep it up! We were never on SNAP, but we were visiting food pantries for a year and a half until my husband got a job last month. Now we are on a weekly budget of $60 to feed the two of us plus our toddler. Lots of beans, rice, and always in-season fruits and veggies. If you have an Aldi nearby that is helpful too. Instead of meatless Mondays, we have meat Mondays…one day a week with a meat meal. Surprisingly, we are almost accidentally vegan as it is the best balance of healthy and cheap. I get a lot of my cooking ideas from vegan cookbooks.
Dont be hard on yourself, i myself live on snap as well feeding 5 ppl and my husband is a very large man and can eat enough for 3 ppl just on his own before he feels not hungry. I do meal plans as well for the entire month for myself and my kids for thier lunches, even though they could get free lunches at school that stuff is just gross.
My only suggestino would be instead of eating the same main meal every day for a week, becuase i honestly think thats part of the burn out feeling overly hungry part, just part, but a big part, is making different types of meals with the same meat, Example, one could be teriyaki chicken, another you could do cajun style chicken. I do agree on splurging a tiny bit and getting your basic, flour sugar, eggs ect. You can make a ton of bread pita and pasta with a bag of flour and if you have a discount grocery store, the bag of flour would run around $2 give or take. I can take a bag of flour and make a good 4 loaves of bread, pizza dough and about 5 or so large bathes of fresh pasta. If you need help or any other suggestions please feel free to email me and that goes for anyone on this page following. My family lives off $.24 per person per day and we have learned to eat very well. It took me about 2 years of figuring out how to budget and meal plan but its entirely possible. And to all others on snap bens, screw what ppl think or say, all you have to say back to them should they make a remark is god forbid you ever have to ask for help. Usually works for me and they shut up.
I just got off SNAP benefits awhile ago. I only used it as a supplement (got about 140 dollars for a family of 3) and I taught me a lot about my spending habits. Before I had to get on it I admit I was terrible, even while being a loyal Budget Bytes reader lol. If I was out an ingredient, I’d just go to the store and buy it instead of making due without it. Then buy a few extra things I didn’t need. If I wanted something different for dinner than what I had out, I’d go and buy it… that adds up.
I don’t follow the rules totally now that my money situation is improved, but I do try to be a lot better about my how much money I spend on food now and I plan a lot more. Really excited for your week two!
Loved your blog before, and even more so now that you’re doing this challenge. You’re inspiring me to be less wasteful and to better manage my budget.
This is terrific – I love the way you chronicled how the entire first week went for you. I used to live on about $25 a week for groceries when in grad school and now feel like I live pretty posh at about $35. Cooking one thing for dinners each week (as you did with your chicken dish) and consuming throughout really helps to stretch things. Pasta is also a life-saver, as is microwave popcorn (place the dry cheapo kernels in a paper bag folded over and microwave). Anyway, thanks for the post and I look forward to seeing how you do!
I personally am not on snaps but my budget for food is only 200 every 2 weeks that’s for 4 adults and a 20 month old. Great things for when you want something whole wheat candied bread. I like no knead homemade it’s easy and tasty. For savory I bought for 12 dollars a microwave potato chip maker I use sweet potatoes, carrots, zucchini or butter nut squash it’s cheap and a healthy snack. Your crockpot chicken recipe with cubed sweet potatoes over fresh spinach is also a dollar stretcher. And cheese and dairy in general is a biggy for us I use kraft extra sharp cheddar with a roux with chicken stock instead of milk (I make chicken stock with the bones from the chicken) and 2 oz of block cream cheese it’s rich and fairly inexpensive and I serve it with broccoli stuffed chicken thighs. I butterfly chicken thighs and stuff with a frozen broccoli bratwurst mixture 2 bratwurst finely crumbled and cooked with a cup of onions and 24 oz of frozen broccoli adds a lot of flavor and depth to 8 thighs 1 is enough and I freeze the left overs or slice them thinly and layer on for sandwiches.
Beth, have you ever read the first month of the blog “One Dollar Diet Project”?
http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/2008/09/
A couple ate for one month in 2008 on a dollar a day each. It’s really interesting to hear them talk about just what you talk about here, being constantly hungry, unable to focus, feeling sick, how terribly difficult it would be to have to live that way long-term. Highly recommended read.
Fascinating! I can’t wait to check it out. Thanks for sharing!
I live in Canada, so we don’t have SNAP but every province and territory has something similar. I live in the subarctic and have been getting some form of assistance for 6.5 years. The nearest large grocery store is an 8 hour round-trip drive in the summer and up to 12 hours in the winter so I have to get a hotel room for myself and the kids (I am a single parent) when I do a big grocery shop. I have gone through the check-out 3 times some trips. I have some serious health problems that cause vertigo and almost daily nausea and that makes it difficult although the nearest fast food outside of the local hotel diner is as far away as the large grocery stores. I have to cook almost everything from scratch. Your blog has helped me with it’s recipes and a few of my facebook friends have been following you and trying to come up with ways to reduce our food costs using your recipes (although I substitute moose and caribou because I can get that for free). For me, I have to use the money I save on food for heat in a place that can get down to -50. The kids love your vegetable pot pie recipe which I was able to make with ingredients I bought at the tiny local general store last week (with just a few minor substitutions like canned mushrooms). I am so happy to find so many recipes using beans and legumes which store so well to make meals for my almost vegetarian daughter up here in the sticks. Thank you for all that you do and you are not a failure.
I am all at once impressed with your ability to stick with this and saddened that for so many people, this isn’t a choice, this is simply their reality. I applaud you for sticking out the week even though it was so miserable and hope you’re able to adjust your menu next week so you’re not so hungry. Love the detailed update!
I was in your hood just a few weeks ago and was shocked at how expensive your Rouse was! The cheapest healthy groceries we found were at Target!
I agree! Target has great prices for dry and canned goods. I try to stock up whenever I’m out that direction. :) Rouse’s used to be okay with prices, but they’ve definitely sky rocketed lately. :(
Great post. I like that you were honest about how the week went. This is such a difficult challenge. It really helps to put things in perspective. Thank you for your insight!
Sarah
thesloppyperfectionist.blogspot.com
I absolutely enjoyed your update this week. I made the soy Dijon chicken thighs for dinner tonight with your seasoned rice recipe -really good. We are working with a really tight food budget – $100 per month for 2 people but we have already paid for our csa and a quarter of beef so I get a big head start each month :) your blog is inspiring and I admire your willingness to stick with your experiment, especially for a whole month.
When they took home-ec class out of high school, young adults lost a tool to learn how to cook from scratch and have knowledge about nutrition. We have an overweight population who are still hungry due to lack of “nutrition” in what they eat from the center of the store which is heat and eat or worse. We can’t condemn if we don’t teach. Parents both work out of necessity, no one home to teach cooking and budgeting skills. Your site is passed on to others on college campuses. The learning never stops there.
I was approached by a homeless (smelly) 19 yr old at a grocery store. I asked questions for half an hour so I could make smart food purchases for him. I went back in and found canned items with meat/protein, tortillas etc. He was allowed to heat up food at a 7-11 if he made any purchase. He lived out of his backpack so I included toiletries. Once a week a church has a mobile shower. There is more to his story, but one thing he did not want was any canned fish. Can’t eat it no matter how hungry he was, it just made him feel like vomiting. He kept apologizing. So I agree with donating spices and hot sauces to help food high in nutrition be more palatable. Many eating from food banks have no refrigerators, or storage, so I add freezer bags to my donations as well. Some food items are used as barter to share a hotel cheap hotel room for a nights sleep indoors on the floor and a shower. Thanks Beth for your efforts to gain a better perspective.
Just love your views on this subject! How to budget and eat quality foods without waste is a lost art. Thanks for bringing it back into focus
Having lived on $25/week in college for food, I do know how hard it is to get filling nutritious food, although I never was on SNAP. I found that the best thing to do is to splurge the first time on all of the basics. At the beginning of the school year, I spent around $75 on rice, beans, flour, sugar, oil, condiments, frozen veggies, etc. and much of that lasted me through the year in addition to buying other groceries each week. Most of these I bought in the large bulk sizes. In college I worked at a small grocery store, so that helped me to keep track of the best sales as well as discounted near-expiration foods. If a food was a rock bottom price, I bought enough for 2-3 months, which is usually when the next sale will happen. Alternating which things I stocked up on each week allowed me to never have to purchase too many different items each week. Also another thing to consider is free food events. If food was brought in a work for a special event, I would save my lunch for the next day. Also eating very vegetarian also helps when eating on so much less. I lived on eggs, cottage cheese, and beans to get my protein in college. Sometimes I would get chicken or fish if it was on sale.
I made a rough estimate on calories (hard to get exact without knowing exact amounts, but it’s a decent estimate nonetheless), and you were taking in roughly 1000-1500 calories a day. All I can say is, no wonder you were so hungry and craving calorie dense foods! Assuming we’re going with the high end estimate, that’s still 1000 calories less than what you need to function (assuming you’re over 25), which is a very significant amount! While I admire the challenge/experiment, your health is not worth risking.
I know you’re trying to focus on “healthy choices” meaning fruit/veg, but it’s really not a healthy choice if it’s leading to undereating. I think if you want to try to incorporate fruit/veg, look for calorie dense options, like avocado or coconut, or plain russet potatoes instead of sweet potatoes. Peanut butter is definitely sounding like your friend, too. Maybe look into a trail mix or trail mix bar to make, as dried fruits and nuts are a good calorie dense option, and you may be able to find cheaper options in bulk sections. Another option would be whole milk over soy milk, or coconut cream if you need to stick to a dairy free option (not sure on the price of that, though). Canned tuna in oil may be another main-meal option, too.
I’m sorry the first week didn’t go as planned. You are helping so many people just by blogging about your experience. Your honesty and authenticity shines through in your blog. I hope week 2 goes better! I know you can do it!
i think part of the reason you went insane is you had close to the same thing over every day. Even buying the same things you bought you can make at least 3 different meals. But all in all great job. Meal planning is essential to budgeting, i do monthly meal plans for me and my kids lunches on snap bens for 5 ppl we get exactly $4.24 per person per day.
Hi, I was wondering what the difference is between soaking and not soaking the chickpeas before cooking in the slow cooker. I’ve always soaked them prior to cooking, but I see you don’t.
Soaking helps them cook faster. Luckily, with a slow cooker you don’t have to plan ahead to do that step, you can just dump it all in there and press go. :)
I find your week to be incredibly fascinating, and I’m looking forward to reading more. One of the reasons I love your blog is because you post so many healthy and tasty recipes.
I’m actually in school now for nursing, and one of the things that comes up is how junk food costs less than healthy alternatives. I think your post shows that it is possible to eat well on a limited budget. I feel like the biggest difficulty is the planning and preparation, especially if you were working multiple jobs and juggling children. (Something you showed with juggling your housing).
I’d be interested to know how much time you take to plan/prepare your meals.
I can’t wait to see the weeks to come.
Hello! I just found your blog and I am SO excited to start following your progress. I am moving out to Washington state in about two weeks to take an Americorp position and will be living on SNAP benefits for the next 10 months. I do believe your blog is going to be incredibly helpful in making the transition to extremely budget conscious food-ing. Keep up the great work!
Well, I think the good news is that your body is in fasting mode and should adjust soon to the new calories. But… it’s gotta suck until then :-( I’m not sure I could do this and make good choices. I’ve never made good choices about food anyway. I’d probably be that person on beans and rice, rice and beans–like Dave Ramsey always touts–just so I could feel fuller.
On a totally different (and grosser) note… are you noticing any gastrointestinal differences?
Hahaha, no, no GI differences ;) I eat a good amount of fiber on a regular basis anyway, so this wasn’t really a shock to my system. My stomach is flatter, but I think that’s because it’s empty. :P
If it makes you feel better – those cappuccino potato chips are absolutely as disgusting as they sound!
Hahaha, THANK YOU. :) For some reason, I still want them…
I am incredibly grateful for this series of posts that you’re doing. You write about the topic in an insightful and respectful way, and you were so realistic about the challenges that you faced. I’m so impressed with how thorough this post in particular is. I find it very helpful and interesting and I’m sure that others agree.
As many people have said: don’t be hard on yourself. It’s very difficult to do.
I was on SNAP last year as an Americorps volunteer, and one of my major hurdles wasn’t budgeting, actually. (Michigan allowed $180/month, so it was more like $6/day than 4.50, which allows for a lot of wiggle room.) It was the psychological aspect of feeling like I was being judged for using SNAP. I felt even more self-conscious if I was buying quality food, for some reason. I think you touched on that a little when you were wondering about how people perceived you when you first started this blog. It’s interesting how much shame can be involved in food.
Isn’t it interesting? Over the years I’ve come to believe that you should never comment on anything anyone else is eating (or buying, for that matter), unless it’s to say that it looks delicious. What other people are eating is nobody’s business but their own. Food choices are so much more complex than they seem.
Looks like your calorie range was about 800-1100 this week, no wonder you were starving! But even when you get up to $4.50 per day, calories might still be a bit lean. Most women need about 2400 (higher than the recommended 2000- read Calories Count by Marion Nestle for the background on that). An overlooked cheap and nutritious fruit staple is raisins. And from concentrate o.j. has gotten a lot tastier with technology improvements the past ten years. It is also a pretty cheap staple and I was surprised to find it tastier than the more expensive ‘not from concentrate’ versions. Thanks for doing this and sharing!
Many of my family members are on SNAP benefits and I know that they don’t eat healthily. It is just so much cheaper to buy crap than good for you food. Good job on your first week of this challenge, and I’m sure you will have a better plan for next week. Your thoughts on each day are very insightful. And finally, thank you for taking this challenge and sharing it with your audience. So many people are so quick to judge those on SNAP benefits, but as a society, we need to learn to understand before judging.
I too have done the super broke budget for food. For about a year I could only afford about $40 a week for food, and last month we moved across the country, which has reduced the 2-people budget to about $80 a week. Our diet is pretty much bread, peanut butter, apples, and beans with veggies right now, although it’ll get better soon. Just knowing you can make it, if you have to, on so little takes a lot of pressure off.
I highly recommend making quiches. They’re a little expensive initially, but you can take a small slice and get protein, fiber, and vegetables that you need to stay healthy, and they last easily a week. They’re also fine on-the-go!
Someone above mentioned hummus- it’s a life saver, and celery/carrots are really inexpensive. I had this as lunch for months on end.
Good luck with the challenge, I look forward to your next post!
I actually made hummus as part of this week’s menu! :D And good idea with the quiche. I love quiche.
I have the same issue with dairy. I’ve just accepted that I need to have it every day, at least once. Greek yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, something! I’ve started making my own Greek yogurt in my crockpot. It makes at least (!) a week’s worth for the cost of one plain yogurt and a gallon of milk. It might help you stretch your $4.50.
I am so glad that you’re doing this and sharing your experience with us. I have to be honest, I had no idea it was so hard to eat on the SNAP plan. And if you – a BUDGET FOOD BLOGGER – basically a professional at eating thrifty – are having a hard time doing this, I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to eat like this without much cooking experience.
Don’t be hard on yourself. There’s something that a lot of people aren’t aware of, and to paraphrase George Orwell’s book “Down and Out in Paris and London”, poverty really is a full time job. Many years ago, we went through extremely hard times, and my husband and I would scour the markdowns in the supermarket daily to feed our four children. That was before the downturn in the economy, however, and people were more likely to bypass the bargains. Something that really bothers me about today’s meat counter: very few soup bones or other economy pieces to help people feed their families. No wonder people turn to packaged foods! Thank you for taking up this challenge, and for this wonderful website. We’re all okay now, our kids are grown, and actually all are very good cooks.
I have to say that I think it may have been easier for me, with a larger family. A can of food may cost a dollar, but if you get 4 servings out of it and you only need one, you still have to spend the $1. For me, we got 4 times the benefits and can get 4 servings out of that can for the same dollar. Did that make sense?
I think that makes a LOT of sense, Amy, particularly in the early stages of an extreme change in food budget. That $1 can of food might be used over 2 weeks – or even 3 or 4 if contents are freezeable/storable.
Beth, I have to agree strongly that the “rule” of not using pantry stores is a bit unreasonable. I guess I would understand if there was some start up limit – for example, I live rurally and could probably live off my pantry for a month or more because of the way I shop and the room I have for storage. So, it wouldn’t be fair if I used my entire pantry, but if the limit was something like $20-40 or I don’t know, but I’m thinking some use of current inventory is more reasonable. There is no question in my mind that the start up would be extraordinarily stressful for anyone for all of the reasons you and others have stated.
I understand that you probably feel you didn’t do your best with what you know, but as an observer and a reader whose awareness has been raised – I think it was definitely not a fail for this week. One of your goals was raising awareness and getting a discussion going and I that has happened. For me, and I’m guessing others as well, it has made me look at every meal differently AND I’ve also talked to friends and co-workers about SNAP and food insecurity.
At any rate, I hope this week goes smoother in all ways and I think you know you have a pretty large cheering “squad” on the sidelines!
Beth,
Take heart – you learned a lot last week, and your readers learned from your experiences as well. The important thing is that you are recalculating and trying again. :)
I’m a full time grad student who teaches part time and sews part time, so I get the no time thing. One thing I’ve found that helps the hangries: homemade refried beans in 1-cup portions that I make in enormous batches in my crockpot. Dry pinto beans, onion, water, cumin, chili powder (all SUPER CHEAP). Toss it all in in the morning and go to work. Stick blend the whoosies out of it eight hours later, divvy up into 1-cup portions. Freeze most but keep a couple in the fridge at all times. When I just can’t concentrate because I’m starving I pull one out, nuke it, eat it with taco sauce and a spoon. Cheese if I’m feeling money-ful.
Trust me, this budget requires planning. I take an hour a month to inventory my pantry, freezer, and fridge. You can only eat this cheap if everything you buy is at its cheapest price and you buy enough for three months (until the next super-sale). Using that and the store ads, I can plan my weekly menus in about 20 minutes.
Make two 4-serving dinners on the weekends, freeze half. Rotate two different dinners during the week and have the other half two or three weeks later. That way I eat the same thing twice a week and have frozen meals twice a week. The rest of the week I have one-serving meals like a baked potato or a personal pizza (make crusts once every couple months). I don’t get bored, and it doesn’t take much time.
That’s what’s so scary for the food insecure. Your priorities shift greatly when you have a body screaming for calories and there’s just a *little* extra. Lack of food/calories affects so much in the body and brain – is it any wonder that our students who are the more likely to be food insecure act the way they do in our classrooms? Thank you for this. I watch with great interest.
Seriously impressed with this! I’ve been saying we need to try the SNAP challenge in my house to truly understand. I’ve worked with a few families that rely completely on SNAP and I’ve always walked the fine line of wondering if I should share food, or if they might find that offensive.
I realize you were ‘below’ budget, but I realize now that perhaps sharing an extra container of my homemade, shockingly minimalistic soup with these people would probably just be welcome.
That and I vow to donate hot sauce, dried beans, boullion and lots of seasonings from now on!
This is great that you’re doing this. Thank you for detailing it as well as you are!
Please don’t be too hard on yourself. Having lived on a SNAP budget before it is very HARD to change habits over night. Thanks to your recipes I have been able to stay under our budget weekly for a family of 3.
You mention hunger between meals, I have found that hummus is a great protein filler, plus it makes a great spread for all types of sandwiches.
Thanks again for doing this challenge!! Best of luck next week.
Hummus is on my menu for this week! ;D I had that second half of the chickpeas that I cooked in the slow cooker and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with them. :)
How long does it take to soften the beans to use in hummus? I haven’t thought of buying bulk before.
If you don’t use a slow cooker or pressure cooker (I don’t have either) – you soak the beans 6-8 hours (overnight) and then they take 1-2 hours to cook stovetop in water. I cook them until they squish fairly easily if I’m making hummus…not quite so soft if I’m doing something else with them.
The freeze very well. I sometimes freeze the soaked, uncooked beans in case I want to make falafel (you use soaked but uncooked for falafel) – or I’ll freeze them cooked.
I cooked them in my slow cooker for 5 hours on high. That’s all it took. :)
This is so interesting. I really enjoy reading through your thoughts and how you are managing. I would love to know calories for one day just to see how you are faring. I have been struggling with my diet for about a year now, and dealing with new food intolerances. Some days I am just dying to cheat.
I thought about doing that just to see how deficient I was. I might wait until I’m hitting the $4.50/day goal, then see how I measure up nutritionally. :)
My goodness! I am so impressed by all that you did. The very last word that I would use for this week is “failure.” I know about 50 other comments are about to flood in heralding your success as well, but please know that as someone who regularly follows your blog, I am following along & praying for an ounce of your determination to rub off on me. May your tummy be ever-satisfied!
I think this is a really honest reflection. Don’t be too hard on yourself. :)
Love the blog, cook from it regularly.
I just want to thank you so much for doing this challenge. I see far too many people judging people who receive SNAP benefits, and judge every little thing they put in their shopping cart, when in fact they have no idea how difficult it is to subsist on so little.
I have been on SNAP benefits for some time now, and this blog has helped me so much. Before, I couldn’t cook and had such a busy schedule with all my jobs that I couldn’t reasonably cook complicated meals. I was down to soups, pb&j sandwiches, and ramen. As you can imagine, I looked and felt horrible from lack of nutrition. Since I’ve found this blog, I actually spend LESS on groceries every week, and look and feel much better because I’m eating healthful foods that I prepared myself. Plus, it turns out I don’t hate cooking as much as I thought I did – everything is cheap, but also fast and easy for beginners.
So thank you for this challenge and this blog.
You just made my day, thank you. :)
I applaud you for challenging yourself. Nat Geo is doing an 8 month series about food and our relationship with it. I suggest you check it out. Best of luck with the rest of the challenge and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
That sounds very interesting! I hope I can watch it.
Wow. It’s so cool that you’re doing this. The way you chronicle daily is really eye opening.
I applaud your snap challenge efforts! I once had a $20/week food budget and I’m glad that I’m at a point financially that I don’t have to scrimp and save as much as possible just to put something green in my diet. It’s hard to work on such a tight budget and still eat a balanced diet while getting enough calories. I failed then and I’m sure I couldn’t do it now either.
Funnily enough, this past week I’ve made your curried chickpeas, black bean soup and a few of your other recipes. I saved so much money this week that I was actually able to set aside more into my savings than I had planned (we’re hoping to buy a house in the next year). It’s nice to find some new recipes that don’t call for rare and expensive spices and don’t break the bank to get a great meal. I’ve learned a lot from you so far and I’m looking forward to new cooking and buget meal-planning tips!
I’m so glad you are doing this challenge, and I’ve been looking forward to this week 1 summary. Your day 3 epiphany on making healthy decisions is so spot on, and I feel like a lot of people forget this major point. Can’t wait for week 2.
Wow, this is a lot of really eye-opening info. I was looking at my own food expenses today, about $450 a month for just me, and thinking I eat like a queen. I am very fortunate, I know, and feel even more so after reading this. Meal planning and budgeting together takes enormous resolve and dedication, as you’ve proved. I wish I were up for this challenge, but I know I’d fold at the first tiny rumble from my stomach. :-P
I do look forward to hearing more about your experience with this because I think if anyone can make this challenge work with little or no pain, you can. :-)