Living on food stamps

Here is a blog of a CNN reporter who decided to go on an experiment to live on $176 a month as his food expense. According to him, he wanted to see what it feels like to live using food stamps that the government gives out. So he approached a state government employee who told him that $176 is the most a single person can qualify for under this program. Since, he cannot get the actual food stamps, he got a debit card, placed $176 on it and decided to use only that for his food purchases for an entire month.

I just found his experiment a little trivial because I don’t think that it is that hard to live on $176 a month for food. Now don’t get me wrong, I am in no way trying to downplay the hardships of those folks who qualify and take advantage of the food stamp program, but his experiment does not really do them any justice either. Aside from food, like most people, they also need to find the resources for housing, utilities, child care, etc.

Why do I say it’s not that hard? Me and my wife spend on average, $80 on groceries every week. That accounts for everything we buy in the grocery including non-food products (which frequently are the most expensive like shampoo, razors, etc.).  In the past month, we did probably went out to eat twice a week for an average of 15$ per meal. Almost, everyday I bring my own lunch to the office made of leftovers and my wife goes home to eat lunch too.

Doing the math, let say our ‘food only groceries’ is 75% of the $80 total which is $60 a week. So that’s $240 a month. We eat out for $30 a week, which is $120, add that to the groceries, we spend $360 a month on food. Dividing that between the two of us, that’s $180 per month per person for food, $4 more than the experiment, without even really trying.

I guess my point is, there are so many people out there who are so out of touch, and are really spending so much, that they think $176 a month is so low to spend on food (this reporter even went to a doctor before the experiment thinking what he was about to do was a health risk) when in reality this is what most middle-class people really spend without even being stingy. They fail to see that it is really not the amount, but rather the smart choices you make. Just last Sunday, with a total of $83 for groceries, we spent $13 for 1.5lbs of snow crab and ate that for dinner (I felt I was living the high life). I’m thinking it wil cost you $40-$50 at Red Lobster to eat the amount of crab we had. You can always get more for less.