The final day of The Challenge.

Today is the last day of The Challenge and here is my menu:

Breakfast:

-toast

Lunch

-Granola Bar and cheese crackers

Dinner:

-Two cheese sandwiches

SO today was the last day of The Challenge and I feel that I have been eating the same food, with a few minor changes throughout the week. Today was difficult for me because Sunday is usually reserved for eating out with friends or family, and today I was unable to eat with anyone other than eat at home. I have really tried to keep myself busy throughout the week and not focus on the foods that I was not eating, but the weekend was extremely difficult. I had to plan activities around being able to eat food at home. I feel that this is a challenge in its own and a challenge that food stamp recipients face on a normal basis. So how did this challenge effect me? Not too much, I was still able to eat and did not starve throughout the week. Did I eat what I want? No, but I still survived. I think that is the lesson for this challenge. Is it difficult for food stamp recipients to stick to such a budget? Yes it probably is,but the reality is that without this program many people would be starving and not just being spoiled and not getting to eat what they want. Was It easy to stick to the budget no, but it was something that I was able to do and still have .45 cents left. This was a really great challenge and definitely made me really think and focus on the food stamp program.

Day 6 of The Challenge

Today was Saturday and Day 6 of The Challenge. Here is what I ate today:

Breakfast:

Granola Bar

Lunch:

Ramon Noodles

Dinner:

Leftover Hot Dogs

So now we are getting towards the end of the week.This weekend was different for me. I had to make sure that there were not really any activities planned where I would have to purchase food. One thing difficult about this week is having to tell people that I can't go out to eat with them. I tend to eat socially often, and that has definitely been eliminated this week. I have began noticing how unhealthy it is to eat on this budget. The items that I have consumed have been very high in carbohydrates. I left out a lot of meat while I was shopping due to the price. I had a thought today that $21.00 for one person is a  small amount, but I wonder if it would have been easier to shop for two people on a $42.00 budget? One benefit of shopping and eating for one has been the leftovers that I have been able to utilize from the previous days. Today when I was eating the left over hot dogs, I really wanted to eat some chili with this, but that was not purchased and included in my budget. Little things, like chili, have been left out all week so that I could make this $21.00 stretch. I have also consumed a large amount of water during this week and had very little soda. This is naturally healthy and I have really felt a little better not having so much carbonation. But what I have lacked in soda, I have made up in carbohydrates.Have I had the items I usually eat throughout the week? No, but I also have not been starving and have saved a lot of money!

It's Finally Friday

Today is Friday and I am ready for the weekend! Here is what I ate today:

Breakfast

-Granola Bar (2)

Lunch

-I skipped lunch today, but I did have a diet coke

Dinner

-Macaroni and Cheese and Hot Dogs

Today I woke up a little later for work so I was in a hurry to get out the door. I was not able to decide what I was going to take for lunch so I had to skip lunch on this date. I did purchase a .55 cent diet coke out of the machine at work around lunchtime. I had really missed diet coke, which I consider one of my food staples. This week, diet coke was not really in my budget, but I did have some money left to purchase a few and this made me extremely happy. Around lunchtime I really started to contemplate going and getting some fast food, although I had no money in the budget for this. I really had to sit and remind myself that many people have to live off food stamps and have no choice whether or not they go and purchase fast food. Ultimately I decided not to do this, although the temptation was strong. What I did decide to do was to have an early dinner. So as soon as I was home, I made some hot dogs and macaroni. I felt like a little kid eating this meal, but this was affordable when I was shopping. What have I learned today? I learned that I have to plan ahead or I will be hungry for a few hours. I imagine many mothers have to meal plan to make sure that they have enough food for the month, but sometimes there just isn't enough time in the day to plan ahead. Another thing is, I have noticed how I have eliminated snacking throughout my days on the challenge. There really isn't any money to hit the snack machines, or purchase things to snack on throughout the day. The little luxuries that I take for granted have been eliminated through this challenge.

Day #4

Here is my menu for day number 4:

Breakfast

-cheese toast

Lunch

-Spaghettios

Dinner

-Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup



Today I started to notice how little food I had left for the challenge. I notice now how $21 is not really enough to live on. I was also faced with this reality at work today. I had a few clients call me and talk about how they needed food assistance from local food pantries due to "running out of food stamps." I could sympathize with this, because I am really starting to see how easy it is to run out of money using this food stamp budget. I was reminded of my early college years while I was making minimum wage. I was back to eating spaghettios and soup a lot. This is okay with me, but could I do this on a weekly basis?

Day #3 Hump Day

So today is number three of the food stamp challenge and here is my menu:

Breakfast

-Toast

Lunch

-Sandwich and Crackers

Dinner

-Soup and Sandwich

Here is one thing I am noticing about living on this low budget. I notice that I am planning out what I am eating more and it is not as exciting. I may be craving steak, but this is what I am getting because this is what I have budgeted for. That is just the reality and I am working on accepting this. Today I ate a lot of carbohydrates, which is more carbs than I usually intake. The foods that are high in carbs have been low in price so that is what I purchased. Also today, I was a little disappointed. A group of my friends were going out to lunch and I had to decline this offer, because my budget does not cover this. This was not fun to do, but I continue to remind myself that this is the challenge.

Day #2...I Think I Can Handle This!

So today is day number 2 of the food stamp challenge and here is my menu:

Breakfast

-Granola Bar

Lunch

-Peanut Butter Crackers

(and yes quite a few of them)

Dinner

-Leftover spaghetti

I thought that today would be a tough day for me with all the repetition of the same foods, but it really wasn't too bad. I had an incredibly busy day at work and somehow my thoughts of what I was eating throughout the day disappeared. I imagined many people on food stamps feel this way. They have too much on their mind to continually worry about what food they don't have, and instead tend to focus on what they do have. I usually don't eat leftovers, unless I bring them home from a restaurant, but there was so much spaghetti left over from last night that I though I would make that $2 meal stretch to another night. I was glad that I did this, so I can save some of my other items until later in the week. What I don't like so far about the challenge, all the carbohydrates that I am consuming. The spaghetti noodles and the crackers alone were above my normal intake of carbohydrates. This is something that I need to think more about when planning more meals. They really need to be more balanced. Is there a way to have a more balanced diet while still maintaining the $21 a day budget? Today my thought is that I can easily handle this for a week, but could I handle this if it was my reality?

Day #1....Getting back to basics!

I woke up today and was pretty optimistic about how the day was going to turn out. The first thing I did was get my things ready for the day. I knew that the items I had planned to eat for this day were pretty simple and this is why I titled the blog: Getting back to basics! Here is my daily menu:

Breakfast

-Granola Bar

Lunch

-Ham Sandwich

Dinner

-Spaghetti

When I thought about this menu, the options did not seem so bad to me. I typically eat fruit or a granola bar for breakfast, and the bar was the cheaper option of the two. I also broke out my lunch box to take my lunch today. I typically eat out for lunch with colleagues or I grab something on the go, so this was different for me. So I made myself a ham sandwich and took this for lunch today. I didn't purchase any chips for this challenge so I ate the sandwich alone. I also had to change how I would make a sandwich. I purchased the store brand bread, instead of the brand name to save money and I purchased the meat in a pack and not from the deli. These seem like simple money saving changes, but I could really tell the difference in what I was eating today. Spaghetti was my meal of choice for dinner. It was actually really cheap to make when I only used the sauce and the noodles. Eating no meat is not a problem for me, so I was okay with leaving this out. Now that my three meals are eaten for the day, I feel like I stayed close to a pretty average meal for a typical day for me. I feel that this will get harder as the day goes on as I may feel like my meals are getting pretty repetitive.