This week brings something a bit different around here…
(source)
For the next 7 days, I’ll be spending no more than $31.50 for all of my food and beverages, which as you can imagine, is a lot less than I normally spend on groceries. And it has absolutely no room for eating out, which makes me incredibly nervous as I LOVE to eat out. Thankfully Richie is taking on the challenge along with me which means we get more money to spend for the week and he won’t be tempting me with expensive foods like cheese!
Why a SNAP Challenge? My new job, (which I still haven’t filled you in on, sorry!) is at a non-profit anti-hunger organization so we are all taking part of this SNAP challenge. Obviously one-week is just a tiny glimpse into actually living on this sort of food budget, but I think it will be eye-opening to say the least. I know I have already learned a lot.
Details:
- $31.50 for all food and drink (the average SNAP benefit) for the week (comes out to $1.50/meal)
- Monday July 9th – Sunday July 15th
- I’ll be eating only foods that I purchased for the challenge, but condiments already in the kitchen are ok to use
- Want to join in? Use the hash tag #SNAP4aWeek and tweet pictures of your meals to @StopHunger – we would love to have you join us! Full guidelines are here.
The next few days I’ll be sharing daily eats on my food stamp budget and I’ll be sure to share all of my thoughts at the end of the challenge.
Faith @ For the Health of It
Im SO excited to see how this goes for you. I’ve got a couple eat-out dates planned so I won’t be able to do it this week after all…but next week, I’m totally down! Good luck “making ends meet”, per say!
Chelsea @ Designs on Dinner
What a great challenge! I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes for you. I know I’ve lived on a budget like that before, but that was before I started eating better. I would love to try this challenge sometime with a ‘healthy’ focus.
sarah @ sarah learns
i’m excited to see what you come up with! i know so many people make the argument that eating health costs so much more than eating unhealthily, but i’m pretty sure you’ll come up with some healthy meals!
then again, we can get into the whole discussion about the fact that maybe preparing healthy foods (even cheap healthy foods) takes longer/requires more education or equipment, etc. so that even if the cost of the food items is the same or less than an unhealthy diet, all of those other things contribute to the overall “cost” making healthy food more expensive.
whew. end ramble.
basically, i’m excited to see how this week goes for you! 🙂
Emily
Yes, I’ve been sort of tracking how much time I spend at the grocery store, researching the best deals, prepping food, etc. I personally think you have to take that into consideration as well as how much the food costs.
Alysha @Shesontherun
What an awesome idea. I can’t wait to hear how it goes! I’d like to think of myself as a pretty thrifty eater, so I think I’d be up to the challenge.
Mercedes@Satisfy My Sweet Tooth
I will be anxiously awaiting your daily eats posts to see what a creative person like you can do with this minimal food budget!
Megan (Braise The Roof)
Wow, good challenge! Can’t wait to see what you come up with! I know I’m pretty careful when it comes to spending, but I’m sure I’d be surprised if I really added it up.
Rachel @ The Avid Appetite
This is amazing! Please keep us posted on how it goes. It’s really an eye-opening glimpse into this epidemic.
erin
Wow, what a challenge! I just added up what I’ve spent on food the past two days, and it’s well over $31.50.
I’m excited to see your clever healthy eating on a budget 🙂
beth
This is amazing, I commend you for doing this – I would seriously have such a tough time, just think if you had a food intolerance and were on this. Good luck without the wine..I made it one day last week 🙂
I'm Loving This
Great challenge! Good luck with it, I think it would be a very hard task to do. Especially if you want to eat healthy as well. I think I could eat for $31.50 for a week if I ate pasta everyday!