Exactly. They aren't expecting her to make $17 last a month, they are saying that based on her income, this is all she qualifies for.

To play your game, if I had to operate on a food budget of $20/week, I'd probably get eggs, lentils, cheese, potatoes, onions, apples, oranges, bread, broccoli, tomatoes. And my bottled distilled water. I'd vary it up a bit. I wouldn't finish a bag of potatoes in a week, for example, so the next week I might get peanut butter or rice, spinach, etc.

I have something like that, it's called DH's mouth!! it always gets the last spoonful of anything!

If you use coupons you can make your food stamps streach, but even with that, $17 does not buy for many groceries. There should be a food pantry or food bank in the area that she can go to. Your church should know where the food pantires are (if they don't have one)

Some of that food is being donated to local food pantries. I know that Jewel, Target and other grocery stores near me donate to the food bank whic in turn donates it to churches, schools and other organizations that have food pantries. My local area has a mobile food truck that does around to churches and schools and gives the food away.

dried pinto beans, potatoes, cornmeal, flour, eggs, oatmeal, and I agree with the whole chicken too.

We've played that game for real. Both my husband and I are very frugal shoppers- Ican turn a double pack of chicken from Sam's club into 4- 6 meals for a family of 5. In the cooler months I make our own bread- A 25 pound bag of flour is around 8.00. Yeast in a bag not by packs is around 3.00.
Frozen or large cans of veg are less then little ones. Raman nooldes are under 2.00 for a 12 pack. Milk and juice are cheaper at Kwick trip by the 1/2 gallon bag. Buy a 50 lb bag of potatoes from a farmer for under 12.00. Rice large bag around 10.00. We have to watch the prices ad make ends meet. It's not a new stroy but one many have not heard or have no idea how to play the game because they didn't grow up with it. Many food pantries only want prepreped items because according to them people don't know what to do with raw ingrediants. I grew up the daughter of a pastor to a small church. His pay was partly what the farmers could not sell because of blemishes but still was good. We learned to eat everything even though we did not appreciate how hard my mother worked to turn squash into a meriod of dishes etc.
I don't buy for food pantries anything we can't afford for ourselves

Can't go dumpster diving around here. They ruin the food before they put it in the dumpster so that it is not usable for anybody. I think that is sinful!

donna1350, etc.,

At our house that was cowboy stew!

Yes it is to 'help', but when you are paying all utilities (water, sewer, garbage, electric,) plus homeowners insurance and the homeowners warranty, and the only thing they deduct from your income is the electric bill, it looks like you have plenty of money. After I pay my bills, I have $52 and my food stamps ($87) to buy groceries for the month. Thank God there is a soup kitchen here in town, or we would live on top ramen all the time.

Our local gleaners charge a fee to belong, and if you are disabled you can't belong because you can't pick produce yourself. :roll:

Funny what you said about womwn and carbs. As I was reading my first thought was macaroni a very high carb. Another thought-high carb again- were dried beans to make soup. I could live on soup.

Don't forget powdered milk....it is nutritious and if mixed properly and served very cold, tastes good too.

Thank goodness the woman isn't a celiac and can eat gluten. A gluten free diet can add $$$$ a month to your grocery bill! You can't buy just any thing because if it has had flour or gluten of any type used in its processing it will make you so sick for days you can hardly get out of bed. So the cheap foods so many of you are mentioning are off limits. On the other hand you can add corn tortillas instead of bread and tacos instead of sandwiches. Try hotdogs between corn tortillas. Yum. NOT! But you usually have to make everything from scratch to be sure it's gluten free and that's cheaper - so chili can be added to the soup list. I guess we can eat a long time on beans and rice and maybe an occasional salad.

With $20, peanut butter would not be on my list, no kidding. DO you know what a jar of peanut butter goes for? I LOVE peanut butter, and since it is such a nice protein, feel free to eat it in place of other things I really don't care for. But it keeps going up, up, up, and now they are saying there was a bad peanut crop, and it will be scarcer and higher.

I would buy rice, because it is filling, and can be used as the base of many things. The tiniest bit of meat, some veggies, and a lot of rice makes a good meal. One you would pay $$$ for at your local Chinese restaurant. And although in some places it is expensive, I just bought a 20 lb bag for $7.99 on sale at the most expensive grocery in town.

People throw away too much food when they cook. The tops of celery, potato peels (where the vitamins are), onions because they dried out a little in the fridge (and yet, we buy dehydrated onions, duh). If nothing else, make soup.

Alright- as I was making dinner I kept thinking about this. A meal for 5 under 7.00 at our house- 1 lb spagehti noodles- .77 from Walmart, Large can of Tomaoto sauce from Sams club 3.50-(only use 1/2 1.75), chunked up chicken cut from a whole chicken at 88 cents a pound- 88 cents, 1 yellow onion and several cloves of garlic for the sauce- 5o cents. 2 pack of bread from Sams at 2.50 only use one loaf 1.25, butter, .25, milk 1.00 GRAND TOTAL 6.40
II'm guessing alot of you have simular meals in a great price range. I am thankful for what we have. At one point my father as a pastor recieved a call from a chicken farmer who said he had more chickens then he needed and if my Dad was willing to come and kil them imself he could have as many as he wanted. Being that my mother was teaching at the time and I was only 3 he took me with. I still remeber watching him chop the heads off and the body run around. Also remeber the smell and mess as my mother plucked singed pin feathers and preped them for freezing.

have you priced powdered milk lately...way too spendy...

Jacquie, it's still a lot cheaper than it's going to be in the future.....near future at that. And I call it Food Insurance.

Hi Everyone!
My son and I live on £4 a day for all our shopping, not just food. We go to the supermarket at 3pm (Asda) or 5pm(Tesco) as that's when they mark down the prices more heavily - unless you leave it until just before closing or Midnight! It makes me think I've got one over on them when I buy food cheaply! It used to get me down, living like this, but there are so many ways around to live more cheaply. We have chickens too, 3 or them which cost less than £1 a week and we get around 15 eggs a week. They are delicious! Sometimes I will swap some eggs for treats with friends. They are so like pets as well, come to you when you call their names, follow you everywhere in the garden and sit next to you if you are sitting outside.
Also, do all your supermarket shopping from the lowest shelf. All the own brands and cheaper versions of whatever you're looking at are there. I can't but in bulk as we don't have a car any more. I am worried what I might do if any appliances break, but I suppose then I will save on electricity! It wouldn't be the first time I've washed clothes by walking up and down on them in the bath!!
I think there is always another way of doing everything, you just have to have the energy to think of it!
Best wishes to everyone
Penny

Just one final note - my son says when he is rich and famous (!) he will never eat soup again!
Penny

Oh gee, and I have a recipe for Tortilla Soup that men just love.

I have no idea on the bags for the Food Saver as far as cost. Our kids gave us quite an assortment along with the Food Saver so we have not had to buy any yet. I don't know about boiling in the bag either. I am just using this to store food in. I think it does keep food longer in the freezer. Sorry that I cannot answer your questions.

In some states your food stamps allotment is sent to bi-monthly. So her $17.00 could actually be 34.00. Still, it is pretty difficult to feed a family on these monies.

There are some for sale on AMazon - they do say safe for boiling. They seem to be about 25- 50 cents each.

Did anybody mention cabbage yet? It's one of the least-expensive green veggies, in season. Healthy too. Boil it, or eat it raw as a salad. You don't need to put mayo with it!

And for those in rural areas, how about harvesting from nature? There are naturalist groups that do "wild edibles" hikes and will tell you what to collect, and how to safely do it.

Do NOT eat the mushrooms, though, unless you really know what you are doing!

I just now thought of this - if you have an Indo-Pak shop, they tend to have lentils at pretty good prices.

I also get some of my flour, corn meal, etc. at Sprouts where I can get it by the pound (and cheaper).

Amen to cabbage!! We get a big head and it lasts us for weeks. DH likes some in a sandwich instead of lettuce.

And double ditto to "don't eat wild mushrooms"!! Did you know most mushroom experts, the people who write the books and teach courses on the subject, eventually die from mushroom poisoning?

My foolproof method to tell if a mushroom is safe to eat --



look for the word "mushrooms" on the packaging.

LOVE IT!!!

So unhappily true, lol. I love morelle (no doubt spelled wrong) mushrooms. The look alike is sooooo deadly, lol. Not going hunting for any outside the produce department.

You know those side tables for the living room that are about 25 inches high? I have one of those filled with bags of rice. It sits in our dining room. I buy the rice in 15-25 lb bags and repackage in gallon sized baggies. We do get the more expensive jasmine or basmati instead of the cheaper white or brown rice, but it comes out to be pennies per pound difference.
When cans of spaghetti sauce was $.44/can, we bought a hundred cans. We still have plenty of them, but I always check to see if they go on sale again! I wish we'd gotten 200 cans! I buy the restaurant sized cans of mushrooms and freeze any extra after the can is opened.
I buy most of my fresh produce at the flea market or farmer's market. Last time we got tomatoes 25 pounds for $10 about an hour before closing time. My husband did not want me to dehydrate them at first, so some of the ones on the bottom of the box got molded. Next time, I'll dehydrate half of them and let him enjoy the rest of the bounty! I love "sun dried" tomatoes on pasta!
We eat a lot of pinto beans. I buy taco mix ($.25 ea) by the box at the grocery store to flavor it. I soak the beans on the weekends. It's not unusual for me to have 5 jugs filled with beans and water on the counter! I put a few cups in the slow-cooker with garlic and a pack of taco mix and water and cook on slow for 8-10 hours. I freeze the rest of the soaked beans. I have a box in the freezer that is filled with bags of beans that are already soaked. In the morning, I can throw one of these bags in the crock pot and have dinner ready when I get home!
I dabbled in making my own tortillas, but I don't have the time to mess with it. I buy them at the Dollar Tree for 10/$1. We usually make tacos or burritos or "whatever we have on top of a tortilla" for dinner or cut them with the pizza cutter and fry them for nachos. I buy bags of frozen vegetable mixes for $1 at Kroger. We have a rice cooker and we rinse rice and put it in the cooker with water and some oil and put the veggies on the steamer lid that came with it. It takes about 20 minutes. I add some soy sauce and an egg, if we have it (most of the time, we don't!) and it's a delicious dinner for pennies!
Another cheap meal that uses the frozen vegetables, if I can buy hot dog buns cheap, is grill peppers and onions and sprinkle mozzarella cheese on that and pile it all on a bun. Less than $3 for 12 sandwiches.

I have lots more ideas, but I have to go get ready for work!!!

I have seen quite a variety of canned goods, staples and even brand name frozen goods at our dollar store, and have seen people loading up on them.

The dollar store takes them here so you could get a couple weeks worth of food if you watched what you did.

Ditto various beans.