I run into things on TikTok and Facebook that are funny, sad, embarrassing, frustrating, and the whole gamut of other emotions. This one, though, hit home. It talks about something near and dear to my heart: going hungry. You can ask any of my friends, even at my poorest moments in the past 20 years, I have ALWAYS had a full fridge, freezer, and pantry. Always. If that meant I had to visit a food bank, so be it. I’ve been hungry before, and I never intend to be there again.
Take a pause and watch…
Now I have a firm belief that everyone should have to do one of these challenges in their life. If you’re a public servant (Congress critter, Senator, State Representative, Mayor, Sheriff, what-the-fuck-ever), the likelihood that you’ve ever gone hungry is very low. Not impossible, but very low. People who work for the government rarely go hungry, rarely have to budget the way that I (middle class matron that I am) do. And please note… I am middle class. I am not poor. Even those times when bad stuff happens and we’re short, like fixing the car unexpectedly, there’s still food in the house, gas for vehicles, and all the necessities at home. Heck, I have Netflix, Hulu, Starz, and Prime on Demand, and fancy phones that let me watch them anytime I want. I’m rich, even if I don’t have cash in hand.
But I have also lived at the top end of the “very poor” category. I’ve always had a roof over my head (even when couch surfing), and I’ve always had the ability to go out and get a job (and did until I had a couple of amazing men in my life who made sure I could work from home). When I was younger, though, I did not always know where my next meal was coming from. I left an abusive home situation which I couldn’t prove (meaning my parents told social services I could come back anytime I stopped “having a tantrum” and therefore I got no SNAP, no benefits of any kind, and I was a high school drop out without a job for a good 9 or 10 months), and I lived on the charity of friends. I didn’t eat enough, and what I did eat was crap. I will admit (with only a little shame) that I dated some men just so I could get taken out to dinner, so I could get a meal. That’s how hungry I was. I ended up in hospital with malnutrition.
So yes, I know how to make every penny scream thrice. I can make freezer scraping soup taste gourmet. I mastered making sauces out of flour and milk and not much else when I was 19 years old, so I could eat the same chicken and beans every day and still have a different flavor.
The guy in this video is not being an ass. He is truly flabbergasted that anyone could survive on the “small” amount they were granted on SNAP. I was flabbergasted by the HUGE amount they were granted on SNAP. We are not the same. But don’t blame the guy, okay? Because he was working from his own position of privilege. I truly believe he had no idea what he was doing, how to make a budget, or any of that. He seems as if he’s the type to go learn, then teach others. That’s not a bad thing at all
Here’s what I wrote on Facebook:
So I watched this… and while I totally get what he’s saying (and agree with most of it), I found myself saying that he didn’t understand his privilege. I’ve been dirt poor on more than one occasion. I was in that unenviable category of making enough that I didn’t qualify for food stamps, but not enough to actually have good food.
$24 a day for a family of 3, he said. Parent and 2 kids. I found myself wondering, what did he put in his cart? For me, it would be:
- chicken thighs, 4 pack, about 2 lbs, $1.59/lb, so $3.18
- potatoes, 1 bag, a little less than a buck a pound, $4.39 (5 lb bag)
- carrots, 1 bag is 2 lbs, $2.61
- onions, 1 bag for $1.89
- tofu, 1 container for $1.19
- eggs, 12 pack, $2.89
- canned tomato, 3 cans, $2.94
- apples, $1.19/lb, 2 lbs $2.38
- romaine lettuce, 1 bag $2.49
All for a total of $23.96. So I went 96 cents over. (**Note: I realize I got the math wrong here. I was 4 cents under. Go me.) Except no one is going out and spending $24 a day. Those potatoes I bought would do me the whole week, and therefore I wouldn’t need $24 for tomorrow. Same with the eggs. Same with the onions. Same with the carrots.
I might not be able to get bougie salads and yummy dressings, but there’s food enough for me and my kids in that, for not just one day but at least two and maybe more. And it’s HEALTHY food. If my kids need snacks (and I had one kid at the time I was ultra poor, so I get it), I’d make it myself. I dehydrated apple slices when apples were at $0.99 a pound, and used them all year, same with bananas. I grabbed cans of nuts when they were on sale, too.
To give perspective… Right now, I am feeding four grown-ass adults on $250 a week or less, and that’s only because I’m buying stuff like roasts and briskets. When I was poor, I didn’t buy those things. I know 80 ways to make chicken and use ground beef. I get bulk cans of chicken and tuna these days, something I couldn’t do (easily) when I was poor. That helps. But… yeah. For one adult and two littles, $164 a week seems like… a lot to me? A couple of years ago, I was feeding 3 adults and 2 teenagers on a little over $150 a week, and that’s without food bank. And frankly, I was *donating* to the food bank at that time.
Are people actually getting $24 a day??
One of the things I didn’t note over on Facebook was that, out of that $250 a week, I am not just buying groceries. Last week we got two shower curtains because they were on sale for a quarter of their usual price, and I didn’t want to be stuck buying a high priced one later. We got shaving cream, shampoo, conditioner, and three different brands of toothpaste. That’s my privilege right there. I have enough money on hand (or can ask hubby for more if I have reason to go over budget) to pick up things on sale, and I have space to store them until I need them. When I was truly poor, I did not have either of those things. I had to buy the technically more cheap sneakers which were cheaper “at time of purchase” but which would need replaced 8 times more than the more expensive versions. I had to buy a four pack of toilet paper instead of a 40 pack at Costco for a buck more.
This week? We had car repairs that ate a huge chunk of my grocery money. Could I ask hubby for the extra money? Yep, and he’d probably produce it with little more than a slight grimace. Instead, I picked a menu that uses things I have in the freezer and pantry, and that make more than one meal per “thing used.” I’m making spiral cut ham on Monday evening, and Wednesday evening I’ll be making a 15 bean soup, which uses the ham leftovers and the water from boiling it as broth. That ham will make it into breakfast and lunch all week. If I still have a bone after the soup is done, I’ll stick it in another pot and make yet more broth, to be used later. More than that, I’d do that even if we weren’t skint this week. This week is also chicken from Aldi, because we can get a huge family size bag of it froze for $8.99, and it makes 4 meals if all of us are eating, and 5 if it’s just the three adults. We’ll eat squash, because that’s what’s on sale right now because of the time of year. We’ll eat zucchini, onions, carrots, because ditto. Frozen peas and corn are a buck a bag. So this week it’s cheap stuff, but still healthy and good for us.
Know what isn’t on that list of stuff I’m buying this week (or most weeks, to be honest)? A bag of chips. When I was poor, that bag of chips was the same price as a bag of vegetables in price (yeah, years ago, my age is showing). I got the veg. My kids learned to like veg. They learned that cake and pie were things you got at holidays and birthdays, and the rest of the time you could deal. Once in a long while I’d get fig newtons, but that was about it. And it was a TREAT. When I didn’t have money for a bag of chips, there was no fucking bag of chips on my menu. There was soup and stew, a lot of it, because it’s healthy, it stretches your proteins, and it fills hungry bellies and warms you. Isn’t that what matters? Why all this fuss over a fucking bag of chips?
The actual SNAP challenge is $6 a day per person, so for my current household of 4, I’m living within a SNAP budget. There’s a big fuss over how it takes 30% more time to cook from scratch at home, and poor people can’t afford that. Pardon me? When I was on benefits and poor, because I had a little one under 3 and couldn’t get a job to pay me enough to cover child care expenses (my wusband cheated on me, fucked another woman in the same room as my infant child, and was abusive as well, so excuse me for being a single mom), I had plenty of time to cook. I didn’t have a job to go to. My job was to take care of my child, and therefore, that’s what I did. That included making meals from scratch.
Now that all the children are adults and most are living on their own (and the ones that are still at home are contributing to the household budget), I still cook from scratch. When I’m not going to be home, I use my CrockPot, or if I know I’m going to be really busy for a whole week, I will cook up a storm on the weekend (or whatever my days off are) and freeze or otherwise preserve the results, so I have quick prep meals the rest of the week. Or I pick recipes that come together in 30 minutes or less (which happens more often, honestly).
Why is all this under prepping this week? Well, costs for a bunch of things are about to go up. Health insurance is about to skyrocket (which means the cost of health care in general will go up, because insurance and care are so knotted together in America) thanks to the Dems. With SNAP benefits going away for a lot of people, economists are saying the cost of food will go up (which makes no sense to me, but the Right is saying it as often as the Left, so I’m guessing it might be true). We’re about to have a lot of civil servants looking for jobs in the private sector, which is probably going to make jobs scarce, which is its own problem for We the People. The correct response to this kind of thing is to prepare in advance.
“Prepping” isn’t just about getting ready for a zombie apocalypse. It means getting ready for ANYTHING. Am I ready for groceries to go up? Not really, but I will bet your Aunt Sarah that I’m more ready than most. And I’m going to continue working to be “more ready” as time goes on. There ain’t no such thing as “too much food on hand.”
I had a discussion once with a internet friend/foil/debater. Their stance was buying a Subway sandwich was cheaper than making it yourself. And, they provided “receipts.” But, similar to your example, their single sandwich necessitated the purchase of a weeks worth of bread, a month’s worth of mayo/mustard, a weeks worth of sliced cheese, etc… etc… etc… When I mentioned that, suddenly it was not about being cheaper to buy Subway, but more convenient, because his time was valuable.
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The SNAP benefits are not set arbitrarily. (I am assuming). There is some research behind it, the government does not set any “standard” without looking into it. (whether their standard is realistic is debatable, but…) If $6 a person per day is the amount, you can bet they have some data indicating $180 a month for food per person is doable.
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And, sorry folks. You are not going to be eating USDA Prime beef, or those “organic” frozen burritos that you like, but are five times the cost of making them yourself. Thinking that is realistic is why we end up with runaway government spending on stuff that does not benefit the nation as a whole.
I am beginning to think the SNAP benefits *are* arbitrary. They certainly don’t seem to be changed depending on where you live, which is ridiculous. $160/wk in New Hampshire is enough for me to buy prime beef for the 4 adults in the family. In California or NYC, it would barely be enough to get ramen. And therein lies the problem with this kind of thing being Federally maintained. This is VERY much a states issue. We need to stop giving the Feds our money, and start using it on our own folks.
“We need to stop giving the Feds our money, and start using it on our own folks.”
Welcome to the conservative side of the political aisle. (I did not say Republican for a reason.)
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And, you hit on another factor…
“They certainly don’t seem to be changed depending on where you live, which is ridiculous.”
One size fits everyone, everywhere. Why? Because of NH got less, and NYC got more, everyone would ask their representatives why. And, the only answer the NH folks would accept would be upping their SNAP to match NYC’s. So, the feds set the level at Ramen in NYC/CA, and if the folks in NH get significantly better food, so be it.
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As you say. Move it back to the States. Same with education, roads, utilities, etc… We are the United STATES of America. DC works for us, not the other way around.
I have a couple thoughts. (And I’m not going to delve into the political angles; I have my opinions there, too, but they’re not important for this discussion.)
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First, the video: Going to the grocery store with $24 to buy food for the day is, as you allude to, an extremely inefficient way to shop for meals. Most families are more likely to go once per week or twice per month and buy several days’ worth, which takes better advantage of bulk pricing (looking at chicken thighs, for example — in my AO they’re about $3/lb in a 4-pack, but closer to $2.50/lb in a 12-pack, so buying a week’s worth at a time is close to getting one day for free). Almost everything in the store is cheaper in larger packages, so the dollar stretches significantly further if you plan ahead. Even more so if you shop sales and preserve the extra (I’ll buy a couple 8-lb pork shoulders when they’re on sale or clearance, cut them up into smaller roasts and steaks, cook what I need for the day, and freeze the rest for the whole month — I do the same with large packages of ground beef). That said, I understand and approve of the challenge, as it can be eye-opening to someone who’s never had to strictly budget and make hard choices.
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Second, there are a lot of people hitting social media and saying they could lose their SNAP benefits — to the tune of $3k-4k per month for them and six or seven kids. Now, maybe my math isn’t math-ing, but that’s quite a bit more than $6 per day per person; at the low end of $3k/month and the high end of “single parent with 7 kids,” that’s about $100/day for 8 people, or $12.50 per day per person — more than double the challenge. (I fully admit the possibility these are satire videos, but at the same time I do know there are people who receive public assistance at levels most of us would consider excessive. If it’s real, the only explanation I can offer is the possibility that the program DOES adjust for local costs, and these people live in or near LA or NYC or some other region where food is expensive. I just know that where I live, with those numbers, my family would be eating NY strip at least two nights a week and organic veggies every day.)
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Third — and here’s where someone might call me heartless — SNAP stands for “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” The key words are “supplemental” and “assistance.” It was never intended to provide for ALL of a family’s food; it was intended to help (“assist”) to cover the costs and provide a bit extra (“supplement”) to make ends meet. If a person is working, they’re expected to chip in some of their own money, too. It’s not supposed to be a lifestyle.
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(And before anyone reminds me to “check my privilege,” know that I say these things as a father whose family has been on SNAP [and WIC] benefits. I’ve been there, had to make those hard choices, had to see my kids’ faces when I told them “No” to something they wanted that simply wasn’t in the budget, and seen the looks on others’ faces when I pull out WIC vouchers and an EBT card instead of cash or a debit card.)
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When you boil it down, “prepping” is planning. It’s not about acquiring a bunch of stuff; it’s about acquiring the right stuff for your needs. Your needs probably aren’t the same as my needs, so your plan probably wouldn’t work as well for me, nor mine for you. Planning for meals and budgets is part of the process, as is getting a little extra here and there so you have a supply if and when something happens and your “source” dries up. But to do that, you need to look beyond today’s needs and see the week — or the month, season, or year — and plan for that. As eye-opening and thought-provoking as the “SNAP challenge” may be, that’s where I believe it falls short.