Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition: Day

I'm finally finished! (And I beat Gwyneth!)

Weight: 145 (down 3 pounds)

Meals:
Breakfast: Piece of frozen pizza, 2 pieces of toast (with butter and peanut butter) and a banana
Lunch: 3 little cracker samples (free), granola bar
Snack: Cookie
Dinner: Vegetable soup, toast with peanut butter

I had quite the day.  I was asked to stay and work 3.5 hours of overtime at work when I was originally going to work a 5 hour shift; 8.5 hours altogether.  However, I only packed a granola bar and a cookie in my lunch which would then have to last me 8.5 hours.  I really wanted more hours, so I took it, but I was unsure of how well I would do on that amount of food, deciding that I would have one snack on my first break and the other snack on my next break.  I ended up sort of cheating and going to the free sample stand which amounted to 3 little crackers but I'll take what I can get.  I don't know if it's cheating since it's free and it wasn't very much food.

Later, the store got extremely busy, the supervisor got sick and couldn't continue her shift and it was a stressful shift with the store sorely understaffed.  With all the chaos and the need to focus on being as efficient as possible, I must have had an adrenaline rush because I did not feel hungry at all throughout my shift but I ate because I felt that I needed to.  All in all, it was a weird day and I relaxed with dinner and reading in the bath.

And now for the moment of truth.  What is left over?  Well, obviously you already know because you probably skimmed the text to look at the picture.

My leftovers:

For $35 in one week, I'd say that I did pretty well.  But now, let's think: could this feed another person?  My brothers or my dad, all around 6 feet tall and 2 of them overweight?  My guess is that this food would provide 11 very modest meals and a lot of milk and cookie snacks.  That would last a person 4 days at the most.  So, no, I do not think SNAP is feasible for more than one person and even then it is definitely a tight budget.  Maybe I didn't budget correctly and maybe with some adjustments I could have fed two, but I find it unlikely that it would feed 3 or more people.  I won't rule it out; there are very cheap cuts of meat and packages of produce out there, but, to me, it doesn't seem possible.  I believe that it's possible that I could still survive on this budget for one person if I were also buying toiletries and toilet paper but it wouldn't be easy.

What did I learn from this? 

- Living on a food budget requires very careful planning; no impulse buying or giving in to cravings. 

- I have a better understanding of food budgeting.

- If I want to do overtime at work while under a tight budget like this, I need to pack extra food just in case.  

- From an overweight person's perspective, I am eating too much.  You don't need that much food to feel full.  

- PC Spinach pizza is awful and I will not buy it again.

- It is possible for one person to live on $35/week, $140 a month of food but it requires discipline and planning.  It is extremely difficult for 2 or more people to live on $35/week, $140/month.

- Coffee is addictive and the withdrawal is not fun but it's over in a couple days.

- And, most importantly, SNAP (Food Stamps) desperately needs more funding...

Now that the challenge is over, since it's past midnight and I've had all my meals, I feel like I'm stepping into a fantasy world with so many flavours that includes coffee, beer, wine, Parmesan, sour cream... (and I wonder why I'm still fat)

But I'm being melodramatic.  Thousands, maybe millions of Americans (and Canadians and other nationalities that do not have the SNAP program) do this for a good portion of their lives.  I will be donating to a local food bank in my community now that the challenge is done.  Since I'm on the internet, I'm not sure whether I should say that I donated or not since I am tooting my own horn if I tell people, but I'm just doing this for attention if I did the challenge without people knowing that I donated.  Maybe I'll leave it at this: Don't worry.  I'm terrible.  I realize that donating to a food bank or a charitable organization benefiting the homeless or the poor does not make me any more special or moral than anyone else. 

And with that, I will say thank you for reading (if anyone bothered to)!

Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition: Day 6

Good evening and welcome to the penultimate day of this interesting experiment.

Weight: 146 (down 2 pounds)

Meals:
Breakfast: Banana, 3 scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of toast with butter
Work Snack: Cookie, granola bar
Lunch: None
Dinner: 1/2 can vegetable soup

Today I did not have a big appetite.  The breakfast was extremely filling and when I came home from work I wasn't hungry for a meal like I usually am.  It could have something to do with today being a shorter day because I slept in or maybe my appetite is getting smaller from the challenge.  I must add that, unlike the pizza, the vegetable soup I had today was delicious.

I think I finally got used to the lack of coffee!  I had a good amount of energy and even had an hour-long bike ride and I felt more focused at work.  It's incredible how much of an effect a lack of coffee can have on you when you are used to having coffee every day; it really is a drug.  I miss coffee much more than alcohol.  

I ran out of eggs today but I still have a lot of food left over for my final day.  I still have pasta, cookies, bread, 1 bowl of soup, several pizza slices, some milk, lots of peanut butter, 1 granola bar and 1 hypothetical egg (since I accidentally bought a pack with one broken egg).  I am 100% certain I will not run out of food.  I think it's fair to say, at this point, that the food stamps budget is not horrible for one person, but it does not seem feasible for 2 or more people.  Tomorrow, I'll see if my leftovers post-challenge could feed a second person for a week.

Goodnight and see you tomorrow.

Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition: Day 4

Good evening!  It is Day 4.  This is one of the few occasions on the internet where taking a picture of your meal is appropriate and not annoying.

Weight: 147 (down 1 pound)

Meals:
Breakfast: 2 scrambled Eggs, piece of toast with butter, banana
Snack: Small bowl of Mini Wheats
Lunch: 1/2 box of mac and cheese, 1/2 can of tomato soup
Dinner: None (not hungry)

Lots of cravings today but I didn't give in to them.  Even when mac and cheese, one of my biggest temptations and my favourite foods, is available to me, I still crave other foods.  I guess I crave variety, lots of choice.  I found myself getting jealous of my brother, who could dress up his pasta with fresh garlic, vegetarian sausage, red pepper, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and other appealing condiments, while I could only have pasta with tomato sauce.

I did feel relatively energetic this morning without coffee, which was good.  Maybe the coffee withdrawal is over.  I'm starting to run out of things; 3 eggs left (one was cracked and I didn't notice until I'd used up a few eggs already), bread is halfway done, cereal is halfway done, 2 bananas and 2 apples left, 1 serving of mac and cheese left, etc.  However, I still have plenty of pasta, plenty of soup and an entire frozen pizza left over, which I'm going to have tomorrow for the Pizza and Movie Night my brother and I do every Friday. 

Still doing fine.  I'm just hoping for more energy before the week is over and really looking forward to coffee (and alcohol) again.

Food Stamps Challenge, Canadian Edition!

Hello again!  It's been about a year since I've posted on this blog but I've found something inspiring to write about here.  Like my last series on reviewing food while stoned, it does involve food, but less... and not as expensive or appetizing.  This week, starting tomorrow, I will undertake the Food Stamps Challenge.  I decided to do this after watching Dose of Buckley's video concerning Gwyneth Paltrow's attempt at the Food Stamps Challenge.

If you would like to watch it, click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLjRf8wcvPo

(This image is created by Rob Rogers and it belongs to Rob Rogers. 

Source: http://robrogers.com/2013/09/10/food-stamps/)

Looking at Paltrow's blog (http://goop.com/my-29-food-stamp-challenge-and-the-recipes-brouhaha-that-ensued/) it seems like she did actually try to do the challenge or she at least had her staff try to do it, but midway through the challenge she was found eating at an expensive restaurant and she admitted that she failed after 4 days.  Whether her tastes were too expensive (or healthy, which is expensive as well) or she understandably had trouble feeding herself and her two children, she did try and she did make a donation to the food bank so I can respect that.  Not to mention the fact that she did raise some awareness and people are at least talking about the issue.

However, as a Canadian, twenty-something and former college student I am not above things like Kraft Dinner, ramen and canned food!  Therefore, I accept the challenge that no one challenged me to!

What I hope to gain from this is an understanding of budgeting and what it is like to live on just the essentials (no coffee, alcohol or expensive condiments like Parmesan cheese or olive oil - my bread and butter) and, admittedly, I wonder if I will lose any weight from this as it is a rather drastic lifestyle change.  Since I'm only one person, I'm hopeful that the food will last me a week, but I won't rule out the possibility that I'll run out.  Honestly, the most offensive thing about Gwyneth's food stamps challenge was the fact that she blew money on an avocado and 7 limes!  So I hope to be a bit more strategic when I am spending; no drinks, no unnecessary condiments or overly expensive items, etc.

Because I am Canadian, I have converted the $29 allotted for the challenge to Canadian currency (so it's fair), which adds up to $35.25.  I also will include reasonable things as freebies; spices, salt, cooking spray and water because those are one or two times a year types of purchases.  You might wonder why I don't follow the food stamps budget of my own country, but we don't have a program like that.  In Canada, the homeless or financially disadvantaged only rely on welfare and various food banks so I have decided to see what it is like to survive as an American living on food stamps.

I went shopping at No Frills this evening and tomorrow I will show you what I got for $35.  See you then!