You will always find people in any money class that doesn’t shop as well as they could. I’m sure for you to eat organic food while using food stamps means you are jumping through some kind of hoops as many of us can’t afford the cost of organic. I think that is what is so hard when we see people on food stamps getting full carts of stuff and spending more than we could ever begin to afford on groceries. Since maxim’s remark was not aimed at YOU I don’t think you should have taken such exception to it. It is hard not to notice what the person ahead of you is buying while waiting in line and the food stamp card is as obvious as a credit card or the old paper food stamps. I myself was stunned one day to see my husband’ cousins wife buy a huge stack of the finest steaks while on foodstamps. And she told me that ‘my husband likes steak’. Well mine did to but we could only afford a chuck steak now and then, not whole stacks of sirloin. I think those are the types of situations that are hard to deal with.

No it isn’t easy being poor, especially when you are on the edge of what is considered poor. You don’t get help with anything including food or meds and so by the time everything is figured at the end of the year, we have had to do way more than many officially ‘poor’ with less. The lower middle class at this point is probably in a worse struggle than some poor people. At least you know you will get your food stamps each month. Some of us wonder where the grocery money itself will come from. This blog however is very helpful in showing a new and better way to those willing to do the work, maybe not to eat on a $1 a day, but perhaps drop your grocery bills by even 25%-50% would be a huge help.

As to microwave popcorn. I have a Power Pop (I think the name brand) microwave bowl that I use to pop my corn. You can use the cheapest bagged pop corn and add your own amount of salt, butter, seasonings, etc. My hardest thing was finding the inserts which I ended up ordering on line at Walmart and then picking up next time I was at the store so no shipping charge. So that is yet another way to save on that snack and one no one has mentioned it. I have a glasstop stove and the last thing I would do to it is push a pan back and forth on it like I use to on my gas stove so I had to find a new way.

sorry for the rant, but it really chafes my hide that some people think that those of us with less money somehow have it easy because we get food stamps. it isn’t easy. being poor & being unable to work sucks.

with all respect to pepsi, I would stay far away from microwave popcorn. http://www.mychildcareguide.com/blog/?p=190

please don’t sacrifice your health even moreso for the sake of saving a dollar. sometimes it is just not worth it. (also, microwave popcorn is pretty icky in my opinion. it’s a lot easier & more fun to make it the old-fashioned way.)

Also, on the chocolate front, a box of instant or cook and serve store brand chocolate pudding mix is 50cents even without coupons. You get 4 servings out of it if you play by there rules, 2 servings if you are realistic about the need to pigout on some chocolate. I’ve found this is a cheap fix for when my little boy and I want some luxury. Don’t forget to factor in, though, that it takes some milk to mix it up.

As for the meat, that really hasn’t been much of a problem for me. I didn’t really eat much before I started this. I did eat a lot more fish and some chicken, but even then they were rarely a big portion of my diet. The same can’t be said with chocolate. That has been a tough one and very similar to how I felt when I weened myself off of soda a few years a go.

It appears that my weight has stabilized and I am actually gaining back a bit that I had lost those first two weeks. We’ll see if that trend continues.

Anyway, thanks for helping me make my budget go further!

I’m wondering if your bindging could be related to the lack of red meat that you are eating? In the past couple of weeks you have only eaten a very little ground beef.

@Gail — I think that the real problem with the poor is a lack of access to supermarkets. In many areas, they just don’t have large supermarkets where they could get these deals. That being said, I think a lot of people dismiss coupons (I know I used to) as not being as good a deal as store brand / generic foods. I have learned that is not the case for many items. What I have really learned thus far is that I did not know how to coupon and I did not know how to shop before starting this. If you are willing to cook with what you have and only shop the deals available, you can do really well. Even without the $1 a day challenge, this is a smart shopping strategy.

I think that you should also be proud of the fact that while doing this you have accumulated enough food to actually be able to binge some and still have enough left to eat your regular meals. Think about how many people who couldn’t have gone this many days on less than $16 worth of food.

I have been thinking of this challenge much in the last few days and realizing that many of us could be doing much the same as you if needed/wanted to, but how many of the genuinely poor are willing to put in the effort to do all this to feed themselves? It is a huge effort that very few would be willing to take up.

I also wonder if you kept this up for several more months, when you would find yourself with actually a full pantry and no need to go shopping daily any more. Just your donations to the food bank prove that some items you would have a years supply in your pantry and so instead of having to buy more cereal for instance you could pick up more meat, etc.