A Mixture of Success and Failure

Three days into the SNAP Hunger Challenge my attempt to eat on five dollars a day crashed and burned.  A simple invitation to taco night at the local bar (with good friends that we don't hardly ever get to see so I wasn't going to turn it down!) ate through almost two days worth of my food budget.  Prior to that dinner I had been managing, but just.  

So if making it through the entire week determines the success or failure, failure it was.  However, if the point is to gain a better understanding of the challenges of eating on a very tight budget, it was a huge success. 

I approached the week thinking that being careful and making good choices would be all that was needed.  But it was much harder than that.  I was mildly hungry a good part of the first day but the newness of the challenge carried me through.  I ate dinner v e r y  s l o w l y so I'd feel full at the end of it. Even with a half cup of ice cream the day ended with a surplus of fifty cents and I thought "winning!" 

The second day breakfast and a mid-morning snack cost more than the same for the previous day.  I finished my lunch of salad and a scrambled egg and it should have been enough, but a leftover from before the challenge of half a bacon cheesburger practically screamed my name.  Rationalizing that it wouldn't be right to throw it in the garbage, and really how much could it have cost?  I ate it.  And two cookies (it was only two little sandwich cookies, and generic ones at that!)  Then I figured the cost.  $0.99  Geez.  That meant only tea ($0.04) for an afternoon snack.  I finished the day with a penny left over.  And hungry.

The third day went okay until dinner.  Done.

This lunch of one piece of whole wheat bread with PB&J, half an apple, plus two little cookies cost $1.02 and is sure to leave a person looking for a snack sometime in the mid to late afternoon. 

The knowledge that healthy food is more expensive than nutrionally deficient food became reality.  A piece of whole wheat bread cost $0.30. I could have eaten bargain white bread and had two slices for less than that.  Eating enough fruits and vegetables seems nearly impossible.  At $0.80 an apple, just half had to suffice.  Bananas proved to be a better choice at $0.25.  But I want both!  At who wouldn't want and need both?

I learned:
Creating an inexpensive, diverse, healthy menu is hard.
Beans would need to appear often on the menu. 
Cooking from scratch is a necessity, not an option.
One serving is all you get. Seconds? What's that?
Prepared foods are a costly treat.
DQ? Forget it.

Writing that check to the local food bank got a whole lot easier.  And the check got bigger.

SNAP Hunger Challenge

While researching local food banks trying to find the best place to donate money for hungry people, I discovered Feeding Illinois.  It just so happens that September is Hunger Action Month and part of that is the SNAP Hunger Challenge.  In Illinois, if you qualify for monetary assistance to feed your family, you are provided with $5 a day per person.  As an exercise in awareness and empathy, the challenge is to eat for one week on just $35.  I'm accepting the challenge!

Today is the first day.

So far I've had:
a bowl of cereal with milk for breakfast 
5 generic Ritz crackers with the slighest smear of butter for a late morning snack, 
coffee.

I still have to figure out the cost of coffee with milk and sugar, but I think I'm up to about $0.85

It's now lunchtime and I'm hungry!