30 Days of SNAP

There has been a lot of discussion in the news media in our area and on the web lately about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps.  Various public figures, such as politicians, CEO's and and others, have tried to live on a stated SNAP amount of $4.50 per day per person for a week.  The general conclusion by these people is that the experience was awful and that they found themselves constantly thinking about food and worrying that they would run out of money and go hungry. They call for more assistance for individuals and families receiving government aid.  It is often stated that families on SNAP either run out of food before the end of the month or that one or more people in the family must go hungry to make the funds stretch out so that children don't go hungry.  Additionally, it is sometimes stated that the diet one is forced to be on as a SNAP family is not one that provides for proper nutrition and is adding to the obesity epidemic in our country.

Each time we have read one of these articles we look at ourselves and our shopping habits and think it can be done--that with very careful spending and meal planning it would be possible to get through the month without going hungry while, at the same time, enjoying some variety of food items and have a reasonably healthy diet.  A time or two we've put the pencil to our grocery receipts and confirmed our suspicion that we typically spend about the SNAP average.  Even with that knowledge we still wanted to actually keep track of our spending and eating to see if it truly was possible to eat well on SNAP values.

We have decided to being a month-long SNAP Challenge.  For this period of time we've laid out the following ground rules:
*We will purchase only those consumables covered by SNAP for 30 days beginning October 24 going through November 22.
*We will account financially for every thing we eat.  The food purchased at the store is easy to quantify.  We also will 'purchase' from our on pantry.  Since this is an experiment in frugality and we do not want to be wasteful, we have "bought" the food we already had on hand at the current grocery store price, or with the receipt if it was still on hand.
*We will continue to shop at our current grocery store, the one closest to our home, rather than shop from store-to-store to find the best bargains across a group of stores.
*We will continue to use coupons and take advantage of store savings as we typically do.
*We will keep a spreadsheet detailing weekly purchases.
*We will keep a spreadsheet detailing daily menus for each of us along with the estimated cost of each meal.
*We will weigh at the beginning and the end of the 30 days to see if our weight was impacted by the diet. As is true of many Americans, we typically take in more calories than we need each day and, thus, some weight loss is very possible (we won't be upset if we lose weight!).
*When circumstances due to work or other commitments require us to actually eat in a restaurant or some other setting away from home, we will plug in meals and amounts comparable to those meals and costs that we will be eating at home during the challenge.
*When opportunities arise for free food, such as lunch meetings at work or church picnics, we will take advantage of that and the cost recorded will be zero.

The hardest part has been determining what amount of "SNAP" money to use for the 30 days.  If we go with the figure continually floated by the news media, we will have $270 to spend.  Using the government website and entering information to indicate two people with minimum wage earnings and average rent and utilities produces a figure between $319 and $329 for one month.  Another source cited a figure of $347 per month. We decided that the ultimate challenge would be to live only on the $270 a couple would have if they received $4.50 per person per day.  A food budget of $270, we believe, is based on no money from household income being added to the expenditures for food for a month.  In actuality, the SNAP program assumes that 30% of household income will be added to the SNAP funds a family receives.

Our first visit to the grocery store and pantry items on hand that we "bought" from ourselves to obtain the items we expect to use some or all of during the 1st week of the challenge required a total expenditure of $37.84.  It is certainly possible that we'll discover we need to make some additional purchases and increase the total of the 1st week.

It is anticipated that we will eat home-prepared, made-from-scratch meals, such as the chili and cornbread that will be our first evening meal rather than heat and serve meals from the frozen foods section of the grocery store.  Fresh vegetables and fruit will be included at meal times to provide variety and to help balance the nutritional elements of meals.  Milk, eggs, baked items (such as muffins), and cereal will be major parts of the breakfast menu.  Food extenders, such as bran and items such as Hamburger Helper, will be used to maximize the quantity of food available for meals made from major food stocks.

Now it's time to see if we can make this work.  Feel free to join us in this SNAP Challenge!  Together we'll learn something we all need to know and maybe have a better appreciation for what the SNAP program does for the less fortunate who strive to maximize the utility of the funds they receive.