What We Learned

I promise this will be the last post about our food challenge.  So what did we learn doing the food challenge?

Its been three weeks and we think two things are sticking.

First we are much more conscious of the cost of food. We are still walking out to the A&P for our weekend shopping.  Meat is cheaper there and the generics available there are cheaper and not significantly different from name brands. We are tying to save by bringing lunch to work a few days a week and drinking coffee at home most mornings. Coming at the same idea from another angle, we had time to reflect how much we spend on food that we'd didn't especially enjoy (lunches and the like) We'll try to make sure from now that if we are spending extra we'll enjoy it more.

Second we appreciate some aspects of living on a budget more.  Its exhausting! Preparing all your food takes a large portion of your time.  Not just that but organizing your time to shop at the cheaper market and not to mention the mind space constantly monitoring your budget and food supplies takes. Finally its isolating in many of our social circles to be unable to eat out.

Lastly we had a lot of fun getting pushed to try new recipes and foods.  Some worked great, some fizzled, but I'd like to think we'll retain that adventurous spirit with our cooking!

Thanks for reading! 

Meals, meals, meals

I'd say we ate better (healthier) during the food challenge than we did normally.  I thought we'd share some of our more memorable meals.  All ratings are for the meal as we had it.

Pulled Pork!
We made good use of our crock pot! For the $2/lb pork shoulder plus 89 cents America's choice root beer plus $1.29 discount barbecue sauce and some bread made us ten delicious servings. Unfortunately a camera mishap cost us us pictures... Rating 5 stars

Cheesy potatoes and Chicken 'Parm'

Chicken in a Pan
This worked great, we added spaghetti sauce and cheddar to make it like chicken parm. Chicken came out as moist and tender as we could want it. Rating 5 stars

Cheesy Potatoes meant as a side we had them for lunch a bunch of times, we under cooked the potatoes (but they were pretty good the on reheating) Rating 3 stars

'Caramel' Pork Chops

Caramel Apple Pork Chops We had a lot of extra apples and some brown sugar. This recipe used them up well. Very tasty, especially the caramelized apples,  served on a bed of instant rice.  Our only complaint not enough sauce. Rating 4.5 stars.

Spaghetti with sausage

Pork breaded with Parmesan

Breaded Parmesan Pork:  A little dry, but that is probably Dave's fault. Rating 2 stars.

Teriyaki Pork

Teriyaki Pork another pulled pork recipe. This one didn't work out as well because it had no step for pouring off the fat, not a great idea when using a fatty pork shoulder! Rating 2.5 stars

Eggs and rice

Eggs and rice (suggested by Omar) very tasty, though Dave over cooked the eggs Rating 3 stars

Homemade iced tea

Tuna noodle

Tuna noodle always a favorite. Not quite as good as usual though because we didn't have room for Parmesan in our budget yet.  Rating 4 stars

Pumpkin soup

Pumpkin Soup Another crock pot recipe.  We made it a little less spicy than usual.  Gets better as it marinates, so leftovers are even better. Rating 4 stars

Breaded Pork chop

Creamy Pasta & Sausage

Creamy Pasta & Sausage Could have been good, but it didn't thicken up enough and Dave found it too spicy. Rating 2 stars

Spaghetti with toast

Omar - Finis

THE REMNANTS

The $2.69 was for TWO loaves of bread, by the way.  And not pictured are a partial can of coffee, a few tea bags and plenty of canola oil, salt and hot sauce.  I also had a couple of bucks left over, but wrote off one towards the Cheerios I bought through my mother since Costco charges a membership fee.  The other dollar goes towards the items I bought at a law firm cafeteria, since the firm probably subsidizes.

Something else not pictured, if you'll pardon the corny segue, is not corn at all, but a little bit of wisdom, and maybe some shame about how I normally live.

First of all, yes, $200 and water are enough to keep me adequately nourished for 31 days.

But more importantly, my family actually went on food stamps when I was 8.  I remember knowing we were poor, and that we therefore couldn't afford a great address or some of the fancier Christmas gifts; but having done the actual budgeting this month, I've only now sipped the brew that my mother had to drink for two years, though knowing it would only last a month and the lack of any children obviously made it very mild.  

In my previous post I mentioned a going-away party to which I'd been invited for this past Friday night.  At the time I had forgotten about a dinner party scheduled for Saturday night.  The former was at a bar/restaurant, where I would've had to order something, while the latter was at a friend's house, where I wasn't willing to go empty-handed.  Usually, attending both would be a non-issue.  But in that final weekend of the challenge, I only really had enough space in my budget for one of them.  So when Friday's blizzard shut the city down, I was like, "Thank you, Nemo!"  

Normally, I would've been disappointed.  Normally, I don't have to think twice about buying coffee at a donut cart, and so I don't think at all, wasting seven, eight dollars on meals I don't especially like, rather than bringing rice and beans to my job; something I now hope to do frequently.  

And I plan to thank God more often than I do.

Additionally, if you're wondering why I've finished before Dave and Mary, it's because I remembered that when I was a kid, we weren't able to magically not be on public assistance for weekend getaways; so I did my 31 days consecutively.  In other words, I WIN!!...  But, seriously, thanks to them for inviting me to do this.

Group dinner

Before: not pictured -Garlic bread & dessert

After: not pictured - Dave

One of the things we have enjoyed most from the food stamp challenge has been the opportunity to spend more time with people in the comfort of homes! We've been able to have several people to our apartment, and also enjoyed eating at other people's houses. It's nice to not feel so rushed as you often do in a restaurant and to have the chance to just relax and spend time together. 

One of the most creative dinners we did was with a few of Mary's coworkers. They'd heard about the food stamp challenge and thought it would be fun to try a dinner as a group. There were 6 of us, so we were each allowed to spend $3 each bringing our portions of the dinner. We had spaghetti, garlic bread, green beans, sparkling juice, and dessert for under $18 for all of us! I think we were all surprised by how tasty and delicious the food was on such a limited budget. We were all STUFFED afterwards and really just had a nice time visiting and catching up. All of that for less than what one of us would have paid at a restaurant- wow!

The Rules

So what are the rules for the food stamp challenge? We, Mary and Dave, limit our spending on food to that allowed by the NY Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). http://otda.ny.gov/programs/snap/ In our case that works out to $367 for a couple of two ($83-a-week).

How is this different from Cory Booker's challenge? One, ours is longer, he did it for a week, we are doing it for a month so we can develop a budget. Second, Booker was doing the average SNAP allowance, which is somewhat less than the maximum. However in those cases SNAP is supposed to supplement other spending on food. A friend, with cause to know, assures us that receiving the maximum amount is not not unusual. Our challenge may not be as difficult day-to-day as his, but it is more sustained.

On a day-to-day basis this specifically means we only use food we bought after we started the challenge. If we use some food that we have around we pro-rate. No free food at work, unless its "paid" for, we dock ourselves what we think its worth from our remaining allowance. We do allow ourselves anything that we could get for free; ketchup, mustard, sugar, salt, pepper.

A few exceptions. Dave unexpectedly had to work late, until midnight, and the boss graciously purchased dinner, it was expensed at the $2 a meal limit. We also spent a weekend visiting Dave's brother in Pittsburgh, rather than force Chris and Kristen to eat on our budget we decided to extend our challenge by two days.

Omar is, of course, a lot stricter. Every morsel is accounted for. Looking forward to hearing more about that later...

Eating Out

John's in TimesSquare
(not our picture)

The main difference we've seen so far with the Food Stamp Challenge is that we can't eat out nearly as much as we did before! We did sneak out for a dinner with Dave's brother and his wife earlier this week, though. We went to John's Pizzeria near Times Square, and shared a Hawaiian pizza with Dave's brother. It came to $15 for dinner for the two of us! Normally, that would be a VERY inexpensive sit-down dinner in the city, but that amount was almost the average allotment for 4 meals for each of us! We found we've been under budget on average, so thankfully we had some left-over for the splurge.

As another interesting comparison, we'd actually eaten at the same restaurant the day before starting the food stamp challenge when meeting some international friends. As hospitable Americans, we'd treated them and ordered appetizers and drinks, and the total for the bill came to over $60! This time, we avoided the shared appetizer, salad, and drinks and cut the bill (for 2 people) by 50%! Obviously, we knew that ordering the "extra dishes" cost more, but seeing the impact when we were trying to stick to a budget made it even more real.

Casey's Menu

Been a busy busy week, so just a quick post to share the menu at Casey's the past two weeks.

Looks delicious!

Last week's meals. 

Every day Breakfast--Oatmeal and bagels, juice, coffee

Kids ate lunch at home all week, adults ate mostly leftovers, or caved...

Monday

Fat free refried bean burritos (cheese, sour cream, salsa) w/whole wheat tortillas, rice, salad broccoli on side

Tuesday

"Ants Climbing Trees" recipe from 1970s Chinese cookbook. Bean thread noodles, ground turkey, string beans side (family favorite, kids were asking for more all week)

Wednesday

Pasta with sausage, garlic, broccoli, and parmesan cheese, and pine nuts

Thursday

Chicken cutlets, string beans

Friday

Roast chicken with onions and carrots, potato salad, roasted cauliflower, roasted acorn squash

Saturday

Leftover chicken and sides from Friday night, Pizza at a special kids service at temple with (craft, pizza, and concert--$20 for the family)

Sunday

Breakfast-Challah french toast!

Kids, Mac N Cheese, Parents leftovers

This week:

Monday

Chinese Noodles with chicken, shrimp, broccoli and snow peas

Tuesday

Tacos with rice, salad and fixings

Wednesday

Spaghetti with meatballs, salad

Thursday

Veg bean chili over potatoes with cornbread, veggie side

Friday

Roast chicken (unless I can get some pot roast on sale)

Sat & Sun

 TBD

Off The Starting Blocks

Day 1 -Spaghetti

Day 2 - Pumpkin Soup

We are two days in to our challenge and we are noticing that we do a lot more dishes, though we are assured this is normal. Dave is also saying that it takes more time to get out the door, making sandwiches and the like. In other ways we haven't noticed too many other changes. So far we haven't been hungry, though we certainly look forward to dinner.

Above are our first two dinners. Spaghetti and Pumpkin Soup.  The soup was something of an investment.  We made a big batch on Monday evening and cooked it in the crock pot overnight. It gave  the entire apartment a wonderful smell, but it was a bit disconcerting to wake up and, at first, wonder who had snuck into the apartment to cook for us.  We are hoping to get four meals out of this very hearty soup.

http://www.cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com/crockpot-pumpkin-chicken-chili/

Also, Casey has decided to continue the challenge for a second week!  I'll try to post her menu here tomorrow and include her thoughts after completing her first week.

The Challenge Begins

Food: $92.05

Tomorrow we begin our challenge!

 We made a run today to purchase the bulk of our food.  For meat we bought mostly chicken (4.5lb!) some pork and a bit of tuna.  For dairy we got a gallon of milk, American cheese singles and cheddar. A bit of a hat tip to Casey here who put us on to the idea that grocery stores usually have one of their cheese brands on a two-for-one sale.  For grains we got two loaves of bread, cereal (Life was on sale) and oatmeal for the morning.  Finally for Veggies, a head of lettuce, tomatoes, bananas, apples and we got some frozen veggies. The mathematically inclined will notice that $92 is greater than the $83 a week we are allotted, but we are budgeting two weeks at a time, leaving us $74 over the next two weeks.

Some observations about these initial purchase and changes in our mindset while on the challenge.  One, we are much more price conscious than usual, if there was a sale on some brand, we bought that.  Price even determined whether we bought some things at all. Two, we went a lot farther to go to get food at a lower price. The Kings is just around the block, but A&P has generics and better sales.

Update on Casey:
She says she 'has fallen off the wagon'  a couple of times this week. Little bits of bad luck have conspired to push her and her husband over on the challenge.  Some hiccups did not break the budget, a forgotten lunch meant a meager meal of Top Ramen. Some were more serious, like a missed train that lead to a relatively expensive train station sandwich.

These are the kind of problems that you can into on a budget, we'll let you know how it goes for us in the coming weeks!

Casey Savvy Shopper

$74.96

$25.35

Our friend Casey started the Food Stamp challenge Monday.  She has graciously sent us pictures of her grocery purchases for the week. Above you'll see the groceries she bought for her family of four, husband and two small children.  You can see she has enough for a number of healthy meals, some chicken, some carbs, a little ground beef, and lots of fresh fruits and vegetable. She also has a few splurges for the kids,  specifically Yankees Pinstripe ice cream and cheese sticks.

Her week's total is just over $100, well under the $150 the SNAP program could allot her.  She is planning to bank the difference for items that she needs later and to 'pay' for existing  food around the house.  The most difficult part of buying for her was all those vegetables, she had to go a greater distance to get the deals over normal supermarket prices.

Also kudos to Casey for bravely embarking on this adventure with two kids and facing down tears over not getting the store-bought fruit salad! 

Food Stamp Challenge

This holiday season we were blessed to have nice warm homes and plenty of food to eat.  Mary and I spent time over Christmas thinking of ways to develop empathy with those who don't have these things. We were inspired by Newark Mayor Cory Booker to do the food stamp challenge and see what it's like to live on a fixed budget and depend on food stamps.  Hopefully we'll develop greater understanding of the challenges of poverty.

We are planning to start January the 14th. Some of you have expressed interest in following us so we are putting our adventures up on our travel blog.  Our friends Casey and Omar have joined us so hopefully they'll let us share their stories too.  Casey is actually getting a jump on us and starting two weeks of doing the challenge tomorrow, January the 7th!   

New York permits a single person $200 a month ($45 a week) and a couple $360 ($40 a week/person). (http://otda.ny.gov/programs/snap/) Mary and I tracked all the money we spent in a week, it came to several times that. (a shocking amount we don't care to mention here!)  If we make it the month, we'll donate the difference in our spending to the local homeless shelter.

Members   Max Monthly Allowance

     1       -   $200

     2       -   $367

     3       -   $526

     4       -   $668