How do you know that they aren’t distributing it to the needy?
Assuming there is any government cheese left. I thought it was the result of price support programs that forced the government to buy milk to keep prices up. It’s possible that the government doesn’t need to buy excess milk or the program was changed so it doesn’t any more.
Also see this article from the Vice website: WTF Happened to Government Cheese?
If it’s $30 per week per person for a family, then it can be easy.
I actually do this in real life for a family of 4. Every dinner (at least) is made from scratch with fresh ingredients. We use a menu and use a lot of herbs, vegetables, etc. Our diet is also on the paleo side, so I always roll my eyes when people talk about needing to eat a lot of cheap starches to save money.
I really don’t think I use any “tricks” anyone else wouldn’t have access to, unless my grocery stores are unusually abundant and competitive.
If I did this as a single I think it would be harder because food quantities and recipes are usually more efficient for 4 servings or multiples of 2. On the other hand it might be easier because there are certain foods I would only consume because of other family members. On my own I’d probably spend $0 on beverages or desserts, for example.
ETA: I don’t mean to minimize things like access to affordable food, storage and cooking equipment, etc. However, I think these aren’t a probably for many/most people it applies to.
We’ve done it for years. We have five kids, and I remember being frustrated when they were young because if we qualified for food stamps (maybe we did, I never checked. We were poor, but never so poor I felt like I had to rely on someone else feeding my kids. Pride, you know.) Anyways, I remember being pissed because the same kind of debate was going on, on how hard it was to feed a family on X amount, and that amount was MORE than my food budget. The people on food stamps had it easy!
How did we do it? We did have the luxury of a freezer. We bought half a cow once a year, bought pounds and pounds of chicken or pork or other items when it went on deep sale. Had a garden. Canned. Bought in bulk. Aldi’s. Ate in season. Strawberry season? Eat strawberries til we turned red for a month, don’t get them the other eleven months. Rice, tortillas, bread, pasta. Repurpose food. Whole chicken roasted. Then chicken pieces in a casserole. Then chicken soup. You know, like our grandparents did.
I did have several advantages to my food budget. Seven people are easier to cook for than one, and more economical. Freezer. Car. Storage. And even though we had a very restrictive food budget, we had spare cash to buy in bulk when something went deeply on sale. $1 for a pound of bacon? I’d buy 30 pounds. But we’d only buy bacon when it was $1 a pound, the other times we’d go without. Hell, I just bought 40# of skinless, boneless chicken breasts last week or so, it was $1.66. I think it’s close to $1 per pound bone in chicken breast, because of waste.
You have to think about it, and you have to work at it. It’s much better when you do it proactively, as opposed to having it forced on you, or have a bad attitude about it. I can see if you were really poor, and struggling on multiple fronts, it would wear you down. I looked at it as part of my job, and I took it as a challenge.
With five kids, I’m guessing you had a dedicated (or at least partially dedicated) homemaker in charge of most meals. Gardens, preserving, bargain hunting and carefully crafting meals
Is nice, but time is valuable just like money is.
Agreed. It does take time and effort. If you get a lot of the basics down, (say a base price for bacon~ when it goes under, buy it in bulk, no thinking necessary) and have some basic dinners or snacks (peanut butter in a tortilla) that are staples, it becomes easier.
We made a commitment to never put our kids in day care, and figured that we had to be able to save more money than we could have earned by having two full time workers. No day care+ reduced taxable income+ old shitty cars+ garage sales+ less spent on conveniences. My kids only got to go to McDonald’s on their birthday. Seriously.
Now we make a bit more money, and the kids have all been in school for a while, which frees us both up to work more. I still buy 40# of chicken when it goes on sale, still get half a cow, and we went shopping at goodwill on Sunday for summer clothes. I also just got back from a two week vacation with one of my sons in Asia. I’d rather be able to travel when and where I want, than to shop at Trader Joe’s and Macy’s.
Life is a series of choices. I’m been fortunate to have the skills and resources to make informed decisions, and I’ve been lucky to have been born here. But I’ve also worked damn hard, too.
We’ve both been to and lived in shitholes, even sven. Life in America can be difficult, but at least we have a chance. I can talk about food budgets all day long, but I’ve never had to bury a child who died from being poor.
Trader Joe’s as budget food, heh.
Trader Joe’s does sell high quality pet for cheaper than you can get elsewhere. Of course, this only applies if you have pets.
Back when I was dirt poor and didn’t have children (still don’t), I didn’t qualify for financial aid. My food budget was $3 a day and I ate a lot of fast food off the dollar menu. Was it good for me? No, it wasn’t. Did I get enough to eat that I wasn’t hungry all the time? Sometimes.
Once I got a working kitchen I started cooking and dang, those spices and fresh fruits were expensive and it took me a while to get the hang of it. Once I did, while I was spending about $30 a week, I was eating better and I felt better.
I’d buy whatever was on sale and make big batches of it on the weekend so I could put it in my working fridge so I didn’t have to cook during the week. Lots of working poor people don’t have the option of spending a day cooking because they are working.
So, yes, its possible. I did it for years. I was able to do it because I had a kitchen and safe storage for my food. Now that I don’t have to worry about our food budget, I still buy bulk on sale and freeze bones for stock. It helps that we have a chest freezer, which most poor people can’t afford or have room for.
As I’ve said - it’s doable if you know how to do it. That’s the real key. Feeding yourself or a family on a budget of $30/person/week is doable, but it’s not something you’re born knowing how to do.
Which is why people who haven’t done it before tend to screw it up the first time they attempt it.
There is another side to this. Here someone makes ends meet by waiting for great sales then stocking up. Such sales are commonly lose leaders, the supermarket is selling them below costs in hopes that you buy something else to make up for it. Also many people would like to pick up a deeply discounted item every so often. But with this type of stragedy expressed by fisha, it is slightly in the category of benefiting at the expense of others. What I would call (with no insult intended) a societal parasite (many people who I consider societal parasites also could have well paying and respected jobs - all it means is they benefit from the detriment of others). The supermarket, and thus the potential for the employees and also the community, would benefit more if such sales are shared among many who would also buy other things then from a few who stock up.
By giving a reasonably comfortable amount to spend via food stamps it is unneeded to stock up, and stocking up may not be possible for someone on food stamps who does not own a freezer. Being able to pay for food at market prices helps the supermarket with their bottom line, and that could lead to betterment of employment and other good stuff. And no I do not consider people on food stamps to be societal parasites because this is a investment in them of good will for their well being
I’m not saying fisha did anything wrong - because that’s what he had to do to survive, but I do believe food stamps would be sociably better.
But even cheap pets are expensive per calorie 
Buying what is available for sale at the price offered in the marketplace is in no way being a “societal parasite”.
I’ll tell you why I came up with that. One day my local supermarket has a great sale on chicken thighs, I forgot the price but it was one of those rock bottom pricing that was below normal good sales. I stocked up my cart adn cleaned them out, maybe 10-12 of them. I little further down the meat isle I saw this woman looking for the chicken thighs near the sign and not finding any. She looked for a while to see if there was any in places where she might not have noticed. She did seem sad when she could not find any.
Then she walked over to the butcher only to be told, I presume that all they has was already put out. I thought about going over to her and offering her a few packages, but I did not, something I regret, but something I was a bit ashamed of, a cart full of chicken thighs. I believe I felt her sadness and that made me sad, my actions spread sadness, which instead I could have enjoyed the sale on a few of them which would make me happy, and she could have as well been happy, a win-win.
And I didn’t need those 10 or so packages, society has gifted me enough that I don’t need to hoard them in this way, and I can also enjoy the weekly sales, buying what I need for just the short term and trusting that other good stuff will come on sale.
In the instance with the poster, it appeared from his post, he likewise didn’t need to hoard them, as food stamps were available and would provide more money for food then he was spending. The poster actually was making his life harder this way, needing the freezer (and extra energy consumption), having to wait and make sales, when all that was so unneeded, and unhelpful when there is already a way provided.
Chances are she could get a rain check.
This does not change anything, she was still sad, the store may recover some goodwill by issuing a rain check (which I do not think they do at this store), however the store most likely made a special deal for that low price so now if they do give her one, they need to even eat more of the cost, which they will have to make up though higher prices (so the store has to pay). And why such a method I consider being a societal parasite.
I am getting food below cost, but that involves everyone having to pay more to make up for this, and this also makes sales less effective and thus less sales for everyone.
Hording these chicken thighs was unneeded selfishness with only detriment to society, and the benefit to me was happiness (as I didn’t need those prices), However that happiness would have been equally served by getting 2 or 3 packs instead of all of them.
I’m going to respectfully, yet vehemently, disagree when shopping sales is considered more parasitic than food stamps.
Seriously.
Criticize me for too many kids, for being poorish when we were starting out, but I’m in the wrong for not using food stamps, and paying full price with them?
Additionally, I’m not sure we would’ve qualified for food stamps. Then what?
Then you got to do what you got to do. It is then a matter of survival, not a matter of choice.
No, see that’s situational ethics.
I will agree with you when we talk about being good stewards, living wages,appropriate profit margins and thrift.
Thrift allows one to use resources wisely and efficiently. That money I saved allowed us to not go into debt, which in turn allowed us to have the capital to start our own business, which now employs many people for decent wages.
Good stewards can mean anything from only eating produce in season, to buying in bulk to reduce packaging, to buying our cow directly from some in laws to support their family farm. Could mean becoming vegetarian instead, too.
Living wages are important, as is a strong middle class. It does not mean, however, guaranteeing government jobs, especially if unnecessary. Don’t create problems that aren’t there. My lack of food stamps wasn’t a problem that needed fixing.
Appropriate levels of profit margin is set by the vendor. The reason why they have loss leaders is because they work on the vast majority of shoppers. If they were not getting their target ROI, they would stop, or go out of business from mismanagement. They also set quantity limits if they’re concerned.
Now, I am willing to pay a premium on certain things, but food isn’t one of them. I try to keep my money in my small town, and now that we are better off, I am willing to spend more to directly support businesses I think are worthwhile.
Thrift is an admirable trait and a skill that should be learned. When and how to apply it is up to you.
But that’s not situational ethics.
I gotta agree with kanicbird here. I think it is deplorable that fisha put the well being of her family, especially her children, above the well being and billions of profit of a giant faceless corporation.
Won’t someone think of the giant faceless corporations?
She did no such thing, or else she would have accepted food stamps, that would have been for the greater well being of her family. She made things more difficult for her family. She even admits it was pride that stopped her.
And she was hurting all of us who would like to shop there, basically we were paying higher prices so she could enjoy lower ones from her actions and inability to accept help.