Could you get by spending just $21 a week on food?

keeping in mind, that the $21 is meant to augment money that people would normally use for food, an individual can really get far on say 50 bucks a week. I did it for years... limiting to just 21 dollars isn't an exact, actual representation of what one WOULD spend on food -- one may have more money that works with the stamps.

i'm interested in the blog and am going to check it out.

I tend to spend between 40 and 50 on food a week for myself, but its hard to really quantify because that includes staples like flour, oil, butter, sugar that I buy on occasion, but it all seems to average out.

That being said I already shop at local discount stores and the cheaper grocery stores for most of my base products, and just go to places like Whole Foods when theres stuff I just cant buy anywhere else (although you can find Kashi stuff anywhere now, and I love those.)

I could cut back a little I guess, Id have to look at my receipts.

That will buy about 63 bags of ramen.

What Amusings said. Food stamps are meant to supplement, not be the only means of food budget.

Also, many are able get items from WIC. And how much food you consume vs. how much money you have to spend depends on the adult-to-child ratio in the home. $21/per person supplementing whatever you'd be spending normally is going to go further for, say, a single mom with 2 small children than it is for two parents plus a teenager.

You can eat fairly healthy on a small food budget if you are a) willing to cook from scratch, b) willing to go vegetarian for many meals. Split pea soup from scratch (without the ham) is wicked cheap, as are dishes like rice and beans, dal, etc. And when you do eat meat, use it in things like stew, where it's stretched by liquid and veggies, and it goes farther.

Not to sound like an unsympathetic hard ass, but food stamps were created to act as a shopping supplement. They were not designed to cover your entire weekly food tab. While $21 is pretty paltry given today's rising food costs, most people who qualify for food stamps can use WIC, Meals on Wheels, or town food pantries in addition to stamps to help minimize out of pocket food expenses. While I applaud the United Way for the excellent work they do, by disregarding programs that people use in conjunction with food stamps their blog is not entirely truthful.

I noticed one challenge all three of those people faced: need for coffee in their daily routine (read: caffeine addiction). Just another reason I'm glad I don't drink the stuff. We would all do well to work on breaking the addictions in our lives.

Thanks everyone for taking such an interest. I'm one of the U-dubbers (slang for United Way staff) participating in the challenge. It's only Day 2 of the challenge, and today I stole three brownies from a meeting I wasn't even invited to (does not bode well for my chances).

I've been reading through some of the comments about Food Stamps as a supplement, and it's a good point to raise. One of the reasons that we took on this challenge at this point though is because of the extraordinary economic changes that are going on right now. Where as $21 might have been a solid addition to your standard food budget in the past, Mass residents are dealing with startling overall cost of living increases, heavily tapping the money that they could previously put towards food budgets and making that $21 ever more important and ever more meager.

Milk prices have increased 21% over the past year and egg prices are up 35%. Overall, the cost of food has seen its highest increase in 17 years. Fuel has also risen sharply. Mass residents who heat their homes with natural gas or oil could end up paying nearly $1 billion more this year, a 30% increase.

So the reality is, people are going to have to make sacrifices somewhere, and cutting into standard food budgets is one way many families do it. I think the discourse is great though, so if you have any other ideas or questions feel free to comment on www.speakunited.org. Thanks to Adam for getting this out there.

One more thing: If you need help this winter, you can call 2-1-1 from any phone (much like 4-1-1) to get connected with services. If you CAN help, please take a minute to read more about our Community Support Fund for emergency financial assistance.

I was kinda responding to the U-Dubber mentioning the increasing costs of food, which is probably a generalization from the recent fuel and commodities price spike.

People have some sort of thinking that the "basics" of a good diet are meat, eggs and milk. It just doesn't fly with me and I speak up about it.

A pound of Nasoya tofu is <$2. How much is a pound of Stop & Shop ground beef? I'd wager it's more. But I don't buy corpses anymore so I may be incorrect.

And I'm not aware of anyone with protein deficiencies (absent generally being unable to afford food), but it's probably true that tofu and tempeh are less concentrated protein sources than meat. Most studies argue that people who are on meat and dairy diets are eating more protein than they actually need, so reducing those levels is not harmful. This is in line with the current overeating / obesity epidemic. Simply put, most people don't need to eat as much food as they do (that's why they're fat).

Pantrys are sometimes the roughest places for quality, healthy food. I've worked at a few. It's usually big-corporation-genetically-modified junk food. For someone with my modest knowledge of buying locally, buying organic, and the factory farm industry, etc... it's almost painful to watch as a helpful observer, let alone be in that situation :(

Anyway... cheers :)

Edit: Ugh, this is a reply to SwirlyGrrl above.