I am extremely ashamed to admit this, but when I was 19 years old I used to steal toilet paper. I worked two separate jobs, seven days a week, and took 20 units in college. It was the year of El Niño and I didn’t have a car. I either had to grocery shop by bus, which was expensive, or bike to my apartment with grocery bags hanging off my handlebars, assaulted by rain.
I still remember totaling up my food costs at the end of winter quarter and realizing I spent $326 on 10 weeks of food, which included eating out with friends — a rare treat. I was frustrated because I knew that total could have been lower if transportation wasn’t an issue. The neighborhood grocery store was pricey.
When it came to purchasing toilet paper, the situation was especially onerous because toilet paper was expensive and difficult to carry home. So my roommate and I would steal toilet paper from the university library — one roll at a time — in our backpacks. It wasn’t my finest moment.
Every time the Internet explodes with the headline, “Celebrity X tackles Food Stamps Challenge: Can they live on $29 a week?” I think about being 19, when I worried not only about the cost of groceries, but how I would carry them home.
I also wonder whether or not these so-called “SNAP challenges” (SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) are good or bad.
On the one hand they bring attention to the very real need for food assistance, on the other hand they trivialize what it’s actually like to live with scarcity. Is it really a hardship for a movie star to grocery shop in her Lexus?
I am grateful that food assistance programs like SNAP, WIC and free- and reduced-school meals exist. However, there are lots of reasons why families who don’t qualify for these programs might need to keep their grocery budget as low as possible.
Two years ago, Rose McAvoy, the Herald’s Light for Life blogger, and I embarked on what we called The MyPlate on My Budget challenge. We wanted to know if it was possible to follow the government’s MyPlate recommendations while also adhering to the USDA’s Cost of Food at Home Thrifty Plan. This meant spending $5 a day per person and eating fish twice a week.
What we discovered was that it was doable, but involved eating a voluminous amounts of potatoes, corn and unsustainably caught fish. Our experiment raised big questions about the politics behind food.
No way do I want to subject my family to that experience again, but I am curious about how low I could possibly take our food budget now that I have cooking experience and a car. The USDA Cost of Food at Home Thrifty Plan says my family of four can live on $142.50 a week. Can I beat that?
Could you?
Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two. Find her on Twitter @jennbardsley and at www.heraldnet.com/ibrakeformoms and teachingmybabytoread.com.
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