How tough is it, really, to eat for $30.00 / week?

In My Humble Opinion
1

(Starting this in IMHO as I expect a mix of hard facts and opinions. Possibly even GD material here?)

(Somebody stop me if there’s already a thread on this.)

So Ms. Paltrow took the One-Week Food Stamp Challenge and finked out on Day 4, accompanied by snark and ridicule in various media. But Kathleen Elkins of Business Insider (April 26, 2015) says:

Gwyneth Paltrow couldn’t live on food stamps for a week. I did. And it practically killed me.

She describes in detail her shopping choices, her diet, and her surrounding life, day by day, for the week. TL;DR: She made it through the week, but with much feeling of fatigue and famishment and interference with her life in general, work, and social activities through the week.

How tough is it really to live on about $30 per week? Compare my own food budget: I track my expenses on a month-by-month basis, and my food expenses (including the occasional restaurant or fast-food-joint meal) comes to about $120 - $140 per month, over a number of recent months.

Is that much different than the $30 per week budget? I don’t feel famished. I don’t feel particularly malnourished. (And, in contrast to Ms. Elkins, w/ due respect, I don’t use or need coffee.) (ETA: And I’m even gradually getting a little fat.)

So what is really a comfortable food budget for a single adult? I seem to be making it without trouble on about the so-called “Food Stamp Budget” or maybe just a little more.

And another question on the side: Is Trader Joe’s actually a low-cost economy store? I always thought it was more of an upscale foodie store, loosely similar to Whole Foods. Have I been wrong about that all these years?

2
3

There are two current threads.

Here’s one: "Food stamp diet challenge"... possible to fashion healthy and sufficient diet? - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board

And here’s the other: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18287830

Both have been busy in the last couple of days.

ETA: Half-ninja’d

4

TJ’s was never a place for poor people to buy beans, rice, and $1/lb frozen bulk chicken chunks.

But it started out as discount fun food for trendy folks. Not so explicitly “healthy / organic” as Whole Foods. More like wine & Brie at surprisingly good price vs. quality points. Contrast that with Whole Foods free-range organic hand-raised kale at a ultra-premium price.

Over time TJ’s target has spread out into more organic, but not nose-in-air organic. And certainly they have some expensive goodies, but still cheap as high end goodies go. And they still have lots of stuff whose key selling point is that it’s cheap for what you get.

If you eat a limited trend-heavy diet you *could *do all your shopping there, but compared to a real grocery store they’re comparatively low on staples and heavy on snacks for foodies & wannabes.

5

Depends on what you buy. A pound of rice has about 1600 calories and costs about $0.35 if you buy it in bulk. A person can easily add butter or oil to the rice to increase calorie content on the cheap. So a person can easily not starve by eating rice, cheap bread, spaghetti, etc. If you are willing to live off rice mixed with oil or margarine you can feed yourself on less than $1/day.

The problem is you can’t eat uber healthy on the cheap. I think that is where Paltrow went wrong. If you need 2000 calories a day it doesn’t matter if you are eating rice and butter or you are eating celery and carrots, your daily caloric needs will not change much. And it is much more expensive to get 2000 calories a day (or 3000, or 4000 or whatever you need) from healthy food than from staples.

Basically, if you are content to eat a diet high in rice, oatmeal, spaghetti, pancakes, soda, bread, then it isn’t too hard.

6

Most stuff at Trader Joe’s is their house-brand equivalent to name brands. So that’s one reason things are cheaper; no national advertising budget. You’d probably save money if you bought the house brand of stuff in the supermarket.

7

Thanks for this. A Trader Joe’s is currently being built here in Tulsa, OK. It’s going up on a block where a dress shop owned by a lady for whom I do handyman work was located. We had a lot of work getting things out in February, in the cold and snow.

8

Omega Glory and LSLGuy: Thanks for the two links. I’ll go read them, perhaps a little later today.

ETA: Maybe I should take a look at Trader Joe’s. They do seem to have some kind of advertising budget: They print up these booklets with their specials and whatnot, including lots of silly cartoonish pictures that somebody has to draw, and bulk-mail these to some large mailing list. They must buy that list from somewhere, as I never actually signed up for any kind of advertising from them.

9

We shop at Trader Joe’s almost exclusively because it has significantly higher-quality food than the Jewels, (former) Dominick’s, and even Mariano’s around here, while prices are comparable or only slightly higher. There’s even some stuff that’s less expensive. In exchange, we get produce that doesn’t wilt and go brown within two days and actually has some flavor, as well as things like canned kidney or garbanzo beans without added sugar. Even their packaged prepared foods are generally preservative-free, have a pronounceable ingredient list, and are without random extra sugar just because. (Fun story, we recently tried to find plain, ordinary canned kidney beans at Jewel. Out of half a dozen or more different brands, only one – the “fancy natural” more expensive brand – didn’t also contain some form of sugar. This is not an issue with Trader Joe’s.)

I have two frustrations with TJs. One is the wasteful packaging – sometimes I just want two stalks of celery, or two jalapenos, or a small handful or fresh herbs for a recipe, but I can only buy two entire celery hearts in a bag, or six peppers or three fistfuls of herbs in a plastic clamshell. Which means I’m buying extra that will likely go to waste before I can use it, and I don’t need a bag or a clamshell. The other is that they while they have a lot of really good exclusive products, they also have some bizarre gaps in their stock. Need a bottle of plain lemon juice? Or a bag of whole wheat flour? They don’t carry it. They even once told me that baking soda was a “seasonal” item, although they’ve seemed to have since wised up. They have other staples though – brown or white rice, all-purpose flour, a variety of plain canned beans – so it’s not like they’re a ‘staple-free’ store, they’re just missing some odd things.

10

There are things that make it easier, and things that make it harder.

Easier: Large freezer, storage space to stock up on bulk/coupon items, an able-bodied full time homemaker, a dishwasher, good storage containers, a sit-down climate-controlled job, a car, good knives, a spouse (less pressure to spend money dating), appropriate kitchen gadgets, existing stock of spices and condiments, and something to look forward to in the day besides dinner.

Harder: Bugs, a crappy and poorly stocked kitchen, limited storage, distant markets, working multiple jobs, no dishwasher, no tupperware, limited pantry supplies, house issues (garbage problems, bad plumbing, whatever), household members on off schedules, dinner as the highlight of the day, etc.

11

Chop up the celery,put into ice cube trays,cover the celery with water - freeze. Place the celery cubes in a freezer bag… they’ll keep for a couple of months… Same with lemons-freeze the juice (minus the water) the lemon zest freezes also.

12

I think it would most difficult for a single person to eat on $30/week. Maybe doable, but not much fun. If it is a family of 4, then we have 4 x $30 ($120/week) and there are more possibilities.

I am a single person. I eat the main meal out, everyday. I spend about $4/day (including a beer) for $28/week. But, I live in Mexico. And, I know where to eat out.

I realize that this thread is about food stamps (USA) and $30/ week. Just sayin, that it would seem to be a challenge in the US of A.

13

Ref $30 Food stamps … There’s 320 posts in those two threads; plus 10 or so in this one on topic; it’ll take you awhile.

Ref TJs:

TJs definitely attracts an upscale but not uber-rich clientele. You’ll see lots of skinny chicks with yoga bumper stickers. They seem to buy mailing lists by zip code. And they definitely flood neighborhoods within about 20 miles of a new store and 5 miles of an existing store.

**Kaio **is right that they seem to be good at making packaged food with less gratuitous sugar and, to a lesser degree, salt. They do seem to have some health-conscious folks in charge of merchandising. One can certainly argue about which food fad they choose to support, but overall they seem to agree with my prejudices, which proves they’re right. :slight_smile:

14

Trader Joes works as a primary market for people who don’t cook every day. When I was single, it was great. I could load up on frozen food, nifty snacks, and cheap wine and live for weeks. I could even grab some fruit or veggies if I wanted to throw them in a quick salad or something. Prices for these things are good for the quality that you get.

But TJs is not a supermarket, and it’s not really a good fit for daily shopping for a family. It doesn’t stock a lot of pantry basics, and prices are higher than going for the cheapest stuff at the supermarket.

But it’s perfect if you need to quickly put together snacks for a cocktail party or fill up a gift basket. It can be fun to go there on a weekend and pick out a few fun items for dinner. If I’m having a busy week, I might load up on frozen goodies. But it’s not likely to replace a supermarket for someone cooking ordinary family dinners on a daily basis.

15

For me, with my severely limited diet, $30/week would be very difficult. I can have a little rice, no beans, no dairy, only organic meats, limit eggs… I easily spend $20/week just for protein (a half pound of deli meat, a couple of chicken breasts and maybe a pound of burger). I do eat a fair amount of fruits and veggies, but even they can be pricey out of season here in the upper Midwest.

16

A pot of soup can be made for a few bucks. It will sustain you for a week.

Dried beans is another staple. A pot of beans is nutritious and filling. Add in a pan of cornbread. One bag of cornmeal and a bag of flour can make at least ten pans.

People these days just don’t know how to cook. $30 a week can go a long way.

A dozen eggs is about $2.50. That’s six meals right there.

17

Two eggs is a meal? As in 150 calories?

18

Egg sandwich. A couple slices bread, mustard and perhaps some cheese. Cheese can get expensive but its is a good protein.

19

Reading that article, I strongly suspect that the biggest part of what “practically killed” that writer was the caffeine withdrawal. I’d like to see her try the experiment again, but caffeine not counted against her food budget.
When I was younger and poorer, I ate a lot of ramen noodles and boxed macaroni and cheese, a lot of frozen and canned meals that cost under $1 each, a lot of PBJ and baloney sandwiches, a lot of whatever was on sale that week. I don’t know how much I spent, but I wouldn’t have trouble believing that it was well under $30 a week (though prices are higher now).

20

That’s a lot different than saying $2.50 carton of eggs makes six meals.