{"id":2039,"date":"2012-02-27T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/?p=2039"},"modified":"2014-09-29T12:32:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T16:32:06","slug":"36524c-so-you-wont-have-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/36524c-so-you-wont-have-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Stamps: So You Won\u2019t Have To"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

applesauce, corn bread, soup<\/p><\/div>\n

Our first week on the Food Stamp budget is almost up. So far, so good. The hardest part so far has been all the calculating to figure out how much to spend and how to count the food we already had in the house. We tried to be pretty strict with our food purchases this week, just to see how it would go. Actually I was surprised that we ate pretty comfortably. I had cravings at times, but they weren\u2019t really \u201chunger pains\u201d but rather a desire to have a dessert, a pop, a glass of wine, or a snack. Since we weren\u2019t sure how long our food would last, we cut out all drinks but water and a glass of OJ in the morning. We also didn\u2019t buy snacks or desserts.<\/p>\n

Although some of you have joined us in the Food Stamp Challenge, many have said, \u201cIt\u2019s a good idea but for various practical reasons, we\u2019re not doing it. We’ll be satisfied to learn from you vicariously.”<\/p>\n

So, here are some things we learned so you won\u2019t have to <\/strong>go to the trouble:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It helps to have a pretty well-stocked kitchen to begin with. Jim made chicken stir-fry tonight. I wouldn\u2019t call it a gourmet meal but it certainly wasn\u2019t mac & cheese either. He was able to do this because we already had soy sauce, Korean pepper paste, ginger, and salad dressing supplies (vinegar, oil, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, onions, cilantro). We didn\u2019t count these staples and spices in last week\u2019s shopping trip.<\/li>\n
  2. It helps to have cooking vessels like a wok, a Foley food mill (to make applesauce), large pots and a blender.<\/li>\n
  3. It helps to have knowledge about nutrition and a computer to look up recipes for the ingredients you already have. We also get a paper with coupons in it. Many families on food stamps don’t have these resources.<\/li>\n
  4. \u00a0Since we didn\u2019t want to waste food, we allowed ourselves to use up the cherry tomatoes, cilantro, and other perishables that were in the refrigerator already. Jim tried to convince me that the one pop he sneaked came under the category of \u201cUse it or lose it.\u201d I let it pass this\u00a0 time and he eventually admitted that unopened pop bottles won\u2019t spoil. Now he\u2019s trying to tell me that it\u2019s OK to have a beer because you can\u2019t buy alcohol with food stamps anyway. Tonight he\u2019s having a snack of popcorn because \u201cCorn is like a staple and it was in the house anyway.\u201d Aren\u2019t you glad you don\u2019t have to negotiate all these little decisions? At least it\u2019s voluntary and temporary sacrifices for us. We know there\u2019s an end in sight.<\/li>\n
  5. This week I almost cried over spilled OJ. It\u2019s a pain to clean up, but since I had only allotted myself 2\/3 cup a day, it made a difference.<\/li>\n
  6. It\u2019s easier not having kids to feed. Kids can be picky eaters and whiners. Even though we had nutrition rules when our kids were young, still they could be picky and it would be hard to enforce no cookies or snacks.<\/li>\n
  7. So far we have been pleasantly surprised that we\u2019ve eaten quite sufficiently on our $63 this week and even have food left over, The mac & cheese made two meals and so has the soup. The chicken stir-fry might make another meal \u2013 or at least a couple lunches.\n

  8. Having a car and time to drive to different stores is a help both for bargains and specialty items. Today we were at a natural food store and I thought Jim was only going to get soup stock. Well, he saw these roasted edamame nuts and checked about getting them. I said it looked like a snack food. He said, \u201cHey, we\u2019re doing better than we thought since two of our dinners are going to stretch into next week. Why don\u2019t I take it out of next week\u2019s $63.\u201d He got them. Then we discovered they\u2019re wasabi drenched edamame. We like spicy, but wow! Won\u2019t be eating a lot of those.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Our first week on the Food Stamp budget is almost up. So far, so good. The hardest part so far has been all the calculating to figure out how much to spend and how to count the food we already had in the house. We tried to be pretty strict with our food purchases this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-2039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-stamp-challenge","tag-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3367,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions\/3367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanvogt.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}