It’s Day 5 of the Food Stamp Challenge and I did finally make it to the grocery store today but detailing what I bought will have to wait for another day.
While I admit that we are not completely adhering to the Food Stamp Challenge guidelines because we have eaten on other people’s tab and used only items from our stockpile to create our meals this week, I did try to compensate for that in several ways. First of all, I’ve been keeping track of the appoximate value of the food we’ve consumed and I deleted that from the amount available today when I went shopping. Our running total for food consumed the first four days of the challenge was $19.09. The maximum food stamp allowance my family would receive is $102, but I set our weekly food budget at $50 since many people only receive half the maximum . So, when I went shopping today I only spent $30 bringing the weekly total up to $50. We’ll see how I do for the remaining couple of days.
The second way I compensated for the guidelines I’ve been unable to follow this week due to the multiple meals provided for us is to freeze a meal-size portion of leftovers (cost $0) for the meals we’ve eaten at someone else’s expense. For example, tonight we ate dinner at my parents’ house so I froze the leftovers we would have eaten at home to make up for our free meal. Obviously, this isn’t an ideal way to complete the Challenge, but my older sister is in town visiting along with my brother-in-law and niece. They live in Australia so we don’t see them as often as we’d like, and I want to make the most of the time we have together.
Thirdly, the meals that I have prepared this week have not been based around the cheapest ingredients in my pantry. I could have skewed our running food total by basing our menu off all the freebies I’ve accumulated over recent months and thus had more money to shop with by the time I got around to grocery shopping, but I wanted to give a realistic picture of what we eat in a given week. Granted, we don’t usually have three lunches and a dinner provided for us so that’s not typical and I usually have the time to go grocery shopping earlier in the week, but I’ve done my best to make a realistic yet inexpensive menu.
So, today, as I mentioned yesterday, was a busy and somewhat atypical day. We each ate a helping of baked oatmeal with blueberries and milk for breakfast (cost $1.50) and then Anna and I went to a birthday party where lunch was provided. My hubby ate the last of the pizza from last night’s dinner (cost $0) and we all ate dinner at my parents’ house so the rest of the leftovers from the week are in the freezer as that is what we would have eaten if we were at home (cost $0).
We’re staying at my parents’ house tonight to make the most of our time with my sister and family so depending on what time we return home tomorrow and how many meals we eat away from home, I may pick Day 6 of the Challenge back up on Monday.
Approximate daily food expenses: $1.50
Running total: $20.59
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