The #FoodBankNYCChallenge

[Marionnette]

I read about it this morning and thought that I would post about it here to get some thoughts and perhaps see what others could do with the $29/week pp budget.
http://www.foodbanknyc.org/how-you-can-help/food-bank-nyc-challenge

Gwyneth Paltrow tweeted her haul, which included:

• A dozen eggs
• A head of romaine
• An onion
• Scallions
• An avocado
• An ear of corn
• Kale or some other leafy green
• One tomato
• 7 limes
  
• Cilantro
• A package of tortillas
• Frozen peas
• A bag of rice
• A bag of black beans
• One jalapeño
• A sweet potato

One avocado? 7 limes? One ear of corn? Who buys those when they're on a limited budget? An avocado runs around $1 when it's on sale here! And fresh limes? Seven of them? An ear of corn when corn is out of season? I think that I could do better than Gwyneth. And I'll bet that my fellow budget board posters could do better than me.

I'm not saying that $29 per person per week is necessarily a reasonable amount of food money to live on. But I do think that the above grocery list is out of touch with the way people on assistance would shop and is intentionally designed to appear sparse. And yes, I understand that grocery shopping in inner city neighborhoods or remote rural communities is vastly different from the suburban paradise that I inhabit.

So, I'm throwing it out there for discussion. Could you feed your family on $29 per person for a week? And if so, what would it include?

 

[toystory1130]

That is my regular food budget amount for the 4 of us weekly. We buy with that some vegetarian foods and some organic.
Our menu for this week:
Roast chicken with oven potatoes and organic asparagus
Southwest steak bowls- made with beef tenderlion
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans
Bourban chicken with rice and brocolli
Baked "fried" chicken with stuffed potatoes and spinach
Creamy Pork Chops over rice and green beans or corn

 

[TravelMommy]

Hi , I have been researching "reasonable food budgets" over the past several weeks. What do you think is a reasonable (good nutrition and variety) per person? I am always curious what people spend per week on groceries. I saw something online that had a person eating for $7/7days and while it including processed meat as one of the #1 protein sources, it served as an example to help people who were low on $$$ fill the gap. I also do not shop with coupons because most of the fresh produce and "whole foods" I try to buy, there are no coupons for. If you had 4 people in your family and had $120/week for groceries that certainly could be very doable. I see what you are saying about the list above: A bag of frozen vegetable for $1 or 1 avocado for $1, 7 limes ? I think I could do better than Gwyneth too. Eggs are a great and healthy protein source, seasonable produce, beans and rice, chicken, frozen fruits/veggies, very low cost/good options. Food for thought!

 

[TwoMisfits]

If it were me, I'd see Aldi's in my future. Based on their ad, I'd get
Chicken Thighs - 5lb (should be 10 thighs in the pack) - $4.45
Fuji Apples - 3lb - $1.99
Navel Oranges - 4lb - $1.99
Red Grapes - 2lb - $1.98
Canteloupe - 1 - $1.29
Strawberries - 1lb - $1.39
Bananas - 2lb - 88 cents
Butter - 1lb - $2.89 (gotta have a fat to cook with)
Salt - 1lb - 39 cents
Rice - 1lb - $1.00
Dried Beans (black or lentil for me) - 1lb - $1.00 (might do canned if I want no work and only want to eat it twice)
1 loaf of bread - 85 cents
1 jar of peanut butter - $2.00
Milk - 1 gal - $2.89
Eggs - 1 dozen - $1.49
Frozen Veg - 1lb - $1.00
Sugar - 1lb - $1.00
Total - $27.48 (so I'd used whatever money was left to get however much ground instant coffee I could get as my splurge to get to $29)

I'd eat...
Breakfast - Egg (or two) cooked in butter with one slice of toast and 1 sliced orange or 1/4 sliced canteloupe with coffee and milk/sugar
Lunch - Peanut butter and banana or peanut butter and apple sandwiches with a glass of milk
Dinner - Baked Chicken Thighs with fresh fruit (starting with the strawberries b/c they go bad 1st) and either rice or beans or frozen veg for a side - once I had enough thigh bones, I'd make a stock and maybe do a chicken and rice soup for a changeup mid week

I'd have a different menu if Aldis had all veggies on sale this week, but since it's all fruit (and I love fruit), I'll run with it.

Kristy

PS - If I had an extra buck and coffee already on the shelf, I'd buy a box of oats and make homemade oatmeal with all the fruit (and a touch of sugar) to change up breakfast or lunch throughout the week - but since coffee beats everything for me, I figure I need to save the $2 for the instant coffee and not the oats...

 

[worm761]

I could do it. I average around $150 a week for a family of 5. 4 of us eat all 3 meals and snacks at home or take to work from home. The other one supplements and eats at work/out when he feels like it. I would have to change the way we eat though. There would definitely be less meat centered meals. Which I am trying to do anyway.

While I could do better than Gwyneth did too, she got one week's worth of food for one vegetarian and she probably has a meal plan in place for those foods. I don't think she did bad at all.

 

[Marionnette]

I went online to "shop" at a local food store and was able to come up with this list for my family of 3 ($87 total). The hardest part is sticking with a challenge that doesn't allow me to use what I have in my pantry, such as cooking oil, flour and spices. I'm going with the assumption that even someone on food stamps is going to have salt and pepper in their cabinet.

• 1 - Chi-Chi's Flour Tortillas - Burrito Size - 8 ct $1.67
• 1 - Stroehmann Bread - King Enriched White - 22 oz. $1.99
• 1 - Tropical Select Premium Orange Juice - 59 fl oz $1.88
  
• 1 - Frosted Mini-Wheats Cereal - Whole Grain Wheat Frosted Bite Size - 18 oz $1.99
• 1 - Kellogg's Mini Wheat Touch of Fruit Raisin Cereal - 15 oz $1.99
• 1 - Kellogg's Raisin Bran Cereal - 18.7 oz $1.99
• 2 - Cento Broth - Chicken - 46 oz $1.99 each
• 1 -Goya Black Beans - Premium - 15.5 oz $0.89
• 1 - Liberty Gold Pineapple - Sliced - 20 oz $1.00
• 1 - Red Pack Tomato Puree - 29 oz $1.00
• 1 - Red Pack Tomatoes - Crushed in Thick Puree - 28 oz $1.00
• 1 - Red Pack Tomatoes - Petite Diced - 28 oz $1.00
• 1 - ShopRite White Kidney Cannellini Beans - 15 oz $0.89
• 1 - La Choy Soy Sauce - 10 fl oz $1.99
• 1 - Skippy Peanut Butter - Creamy - 16.3 oz $1.99
• 1 - Smucker's Strawberry Jam - 18 oz $2.49
• 1 - Wish-Bone Ranch Dressing - 8 fl oz $0.77
• 1 - Breakstone's Sour Cream - Reduced Fat - 16 oz $1.49
• 1 - Eggland's Best Eggs - 12 ct Large $2.50
• 1 - ShopRite Parmesan Cheese - Grated - 8 oz $2.99
• 1 - ShopRite Taco Blend Cheese - Shredded - 8 oz $1.99
• 1 - ShopRite Vegetable Oil Margarine - 16 oz $0.99
• 1 - ShopRite Corn - Whole Kernel - 12 oz $0.99
• 1 - ShopRite Steam in Bag - Broccoli Cuts - 12 oz $0.99
• 1 - ShopRite Steam In Bag - Whole Green Beans - 12 oz $0.99
  
• 1 - McCormick Taco Seasoning Mix - 30% Less Sodium - 1.25 oz $0.79
• 1 - Nasoya Tofu - Extra Firm - 14 oz $2.49
• 2 - Ground Beef 80% Lean - 1 lb @ $4.10/lb
• 1 - pkg. Perdue Chicken Thighs- Family Pack - 4 lb@ $0.99/lb
  
• 1 - pkg. Tender Choice Boneless Center Cut Pork Chops - Family Pack - 3 lb @ $2.49/lb.
• 1 - Ronzoni Fettuccine - 16 oz $1.00
• 1 - Ronzoni Spaghetti - Thin - 16 oz $1.00
• 1 - ShopRite Brown Rice - Natural Long Grain - 32 oz $1.99
• 4 - lb. Bananas Yellow - @$0.49/lb
  
• 1 - Eastern Potatoes - 5 lb Bag - 5 lb $1.99
• 1 - Eastern Apples - 3 lb Bag - $2.99
• 1 -head Iceberg Lettuce - 1 $0.99
• 1 - Kale $0.99/lb.
• 1- Peppers Green Bell @$1.49/lb
  
• 1 - Ready Pac Baby Spinach - 6 oz $1.64
• 1 - Ready Pac Spring Mix - 5 oz $1.64
• 1 - Red Onions - 12 oz $0.74
• 1 - ShopRite Carrots - 1 lb $0.99
• 1 - ShopRite Steak Cut Mushrooms 10-oz. $1.99
• 1 - Tomatoes on the Vine $1.99/LB.

The total comes to just shy of $87 and I would have to put items back if the packages of meat or produce were larger than I budgeted. The cereal would last us more than one week. So would the Family Pack of pork chops. But my family could eat 3 meals a day on what I listed. And other than the ground meat (which I only serve once per month) and the white bread, they are all items that I would normally purchase anyway.

 

[TwoMisfits]

I will say, the more people in the family, the easier it is to budget and have variety (since you can spread staples among more people and use the value pack and bulk items across more people. With my family size, I would find this challenge a breeze (since I do it every week in my current budget, although I do garden all my fresh herbs - rosemary, thyme, basil, chive, mint, etc). That's why I tried doing it as a single person. I also didn't want to go the easy "ramen/pasta" route and wanted proteins per meal, since most people complain that you have to eat like crap to stay in a $29/person budget and you really don't...

 

[pjlla]

If anyone is interested in reading more about this idea, there is a great recipe blog out there called budgetbytes.com. She did a SNAP challenge (essentially a food stamp challenge) for a month and her take on it is REALLY interesting. Here is a link if you are interested............

http://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/09/feeding-america-snap-challenge/


She talks a great deal about parts of a challenge like this that you might not think about.... like do you have cooking knowledge or do you have cooking time (many folks on SNAP are working multiple jobs to make ends meet) or even cooking ABILITY (i.e. if you are on SNAP because you are physically disabled, it might make it hard to cook for yourself). How about the tools? Sure, most of us probably have a food processor (or at least a good chef's knife and a cutting board) plus a skillet and a stockpot and an OVEN.... which may not always be the case for some of these folks.

Anyhow..... I've thought about taking on a SNAP challenge as a Weight Watcher and blogging about it. Still mulling the idea around in my head. I'm very interested in ALL of the responses here so far...............P

 

[MomToOne]

My food budget for DD14 and myself is $110 every two weeks, which is about the $29/pp per week amount.

That budget covers breakfast for both of us, lunch for DD (she packs one for school), and dinner for both of us. We eat out about once every two weeks, which isn't included in the budget. The budget is strictly food - it doesn't include any paper goods or cleaning supplies, I buy those other places, not at the grocery store.

I have no problem making it work. We eat lots of (in season) fresh fruit and vegetables and not a lot of processed food items. BUT...that said...I realize the following:
- I have reliable transportation that allows me to travel further (8 miles) to a cheaper grocery store than the regular ones in my area. This allows me a huge savings (easily 30% or more).
- This amount works now that I have a pantry and freezer stocked with our staples. I only have to refresh the staples that I run out of - having to buy everything new to get started would be expensive and send me WAY over my $220/month. And I am able to buy meat on sale and freeze it.
- I have the time and ability to cook. And all of the appliances, pans and other items needed.
- I live in the Central Valley of California, which means in-season produce is cheaper for me than probably many of you
- Milk prices are controlled in the state, which helps make that more reasonable (still not cheap, but probably cheaper than some of you)
- I only have to feed the two of us. We don't live a life where extra mouths to feed are likely to be around at meal/snack times.
- I have time to meal plan. I think this is a big one.

So I absolutely get how people on SNAP can't make it work.

I HATE this celebrity challenge stuff. What they buy is so whack-a-doodle sometimes. It makes me tune OUT to them doing it, not pay attention to them. It trivializes the problem in my eyes.

 

[kymom99]

I read about it this morning and thought that I would post about it here to get some thoughts and perhaps see what others could do with the $29/week pp budget.
http://www.foodbanknyc.org/how-you-can-help/food-bank-nyc-challenge

Gwyneth Paltrow tweeted her haul, which included:

• A dozen eggs
• A head of romaine
• An onion
• Scallions
• An avocado
• An ear of corn
• Kale or some other leafy green
• One tomato
• 7 limes
  
• Cilantro
• A package of tortillas
• Frozen peas
• A bag of rice
• A bag of black beans
• One jalapeño
• A sweet potato

One avocado? 7 limes? One ear of corn? Who buys those when they're on a limited budget? An avocado runs around $1 when it's on sale here! And fresh limes? Seven of them? An ear of corn when corn is out of season? I think that I could do better than Gwyneth. And I'll bet that my fellow budget board posters could do better than me.

I'm not saying that $29 per person per week is necessarily a reasonable amount of food money to live on. But I do think that the above grocery list is out of touch with the way people on assistance would shop and is intentionally designed to appear sparse. And yes, I understand that grocery shopping in inner city neighborhoods or remote rural communities is vastly different from the suburban paradise that I inhabit.

So, I'm throwing it out there for discussion. Could you feed your family on $29 per person for a week? And if so, what would it include?

I'd like to see the meals she proposes to make with that list!

 

[aprilchem]

$29 per person per week is my normal food budget for my family (about $150 for my 5-person family). I cook completely from scratch, bake all of my own bread, we only eat grassfed, pastured meat, and we don't buy any convenience foods. Sometimes (in the summer, especially) I spend less than that. I thought Gwennyth's purchases were kind of weird, too, but my guess is she doesn't cook for herself in real life, nor does she shop for herself either.

 

[KingofJapan]

I wish we were only $29 per person per week. Maybe it's the area we live in but we spend between $150-$200 a week for 2 adults, a 6 month old and a 2.5 year old. We do a most of our shopping at whole foods and do buy mostly organic meat/poultry so that may be a reason but I can't imagine only $29 a week.

 

[keelyhealthnut]

That's more than what our grocery budget is, but it's not easy to stick to that. We average between $300-$400 a month for a family of 4, mostly organic vegan. Most of what I cook is from scratch and I probably spend more time in the kitchen than most people. I'm also able to do that since I work from home and I know that time is not a luxury that all people have! I also have the luxury of knowing if we go over budget, we just have less money to go towards vacation or Christmas savings or my husband can even bring food home from the restaurant that he works at...either way my family won't be going hungry. That's so tough mentally/emotionally.

We commonly have lentils/quinoa/veggies, homemade burritos, soup, tofu & noodles, etc and those are super cheap meals. I don't feel like we are doing without...I'm sure that we eat better (for cheaper) than many others and we quite enjoy the food! We also eat plenty of more expensive fresh vegetables like mushrooms, avocado, artichokes, etc but stick to the basic fresh fruit like apples, mandarins, bananas. Things like organic blueberries, cherries, mixed berries are too expensive fresh, but a decent price in frozen form from Costco. That's another thing...I get a ton of things from Costco including most of the healthy oils that we cook with (coconut, avocado, olive). If it weren't for being able to spend several hundred dollars at once to stock up on things at Costco for a few months, we probably wouldn't be able to stick to our budget and eat the way that we do. Plus, many people don't have these types of stores nearby (I've certainly never seen one in the inner-city where I went to college or a very rural area like where I live now) or a way to get there. They're often relying on mini marts with a lot of processed foods and a very small selection of fresh produce. We have to take our Santa Fe when we go instead of the Veloster - there's not even enough room in a car, much less if I had to grab a bus or ride a bike to get there. I also end up going to all sorts of stores...Costco, Whole Foods, Kroger, and Aldi, mostly. Again, I have the means to get to those places.

I also feel like more community education on cooking, nutrition, meal planning, etc would help the monetary assistance in programs like this go a lot further. I actually used to volunteer at an urban farm in Houston that let those in the neighborhood work the land in exchange for tons of fresh produce. It takes much more than throwing money at people to change things!

I grew up on assistance because my mom became disabled. I know what it was like to live the stigma.

 

[AquaDame]

If I had to, yes. Since there are only two of us I doubt we could afford many fresh veggies or fruits though - certainly a sack of potatoes, a sack of onions and a couple heads of garlic though! Otherwise it'd all be frozen or canned, especially some tomatoes - pastas or a batch of chili lasts us a good while when we serve it with rice or cornbread! For starters I'd definitely pick up dry bulk beans and rice, oatmeal, flour, bulk noodles of whatever shape is cheapest, some butter to help the oatmeal fill us up, eggs, cans of tuna, whatever ground meat is on sale or the cheapest chicken/pork if that was cheaper - we'd get a thing of hot dogs too if we could. Honestly we go without meat sometimes anyway so I'm not sure how much of that we'd need - beans and rice do fine and there are a lot of recipes out there that don't call for much meat per serving. Its very rare to see a hunk of meat on our plates! In that case I'd get a jar of peanut butter and some celery though. Tofu or dried VP is always welcome too...also I actually really like spam! I don't know that it is that cheap of a meat when you get down to it though, lol! One of the weeks I'd have to splurge to get some pantry staples like vegetable oil/baking soda/salt/yeast/sugar then we could make tortillas/bread. In the summer I'd get seeds and try to save my own for year to year planting if it was an ongoing thing. We have lots of this stuff already but if I had to start all over that's probably where I would start!

 

[barkley]

If anyone is interested in reading more about this idea, there is a great recipe blog out there called budgetbytes.com. She did a SNAP challenge (essentially a food stamp challenge) for a month and her take on it is REALLY interesting. Here is a link if you are interested............

http://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/09/feeding-america-snap-challenge/


She talks a great deal about parts of a challenge like this that you might not think about.... like do you have cooking knowledge or do you have cooking time (many folks on SNAP are working multiple jobs to make ends meet) or even cooking ABILITY (i.e. if you are on SNAP because you are physically disabled, it might make it hard to cook for yourself). How about the tools? Sure, most of us probably have a food processor (or at least a good chef's knife and a cutting board) plus a skillet and a stockpot and an OVEN.... which may not always be the case for some of these folks.

Anyhow..... I've thought about taking on a SNAP challenge as a Weight Watcher and blogging about it. Still mulling the idea around in my head. I'm very interested in ALL of the responses here so far...............P

I'm glad you bring up these points-these were the issues with allot of my clients back when I administered food stamps. I had clients who had very minimal cooking supplies let alone cooking facilities (the oldest fridges w/smallest freezers so no making large batches, barely functional ovens that were very small, and some with barely more than a single burner working on a stovetop-crockpots and such were 'luxuries'), and those that may have had better/more often had no idea how to cook from scratch (never saw a dry bean or lentil until they got it in a food bag at the food pantry, canned meat? didn't know what to do with it, same with powdered milk and baking supplies).

honestly-one of the best learning/budgeting experience I had some go through was an opportunity where a landowner offered up some vacant property (in an urban area) for a community garden. everyone who got a section had to contribute a share of their produce and share ideas of how they used it. I had clients who had never tried types of very low cost produce learn a variety of ways to cook it, and as they shared ideas of how to use the produce they shared other cooking tips-including the use of dried beans/lentils, how to use rice to stretch meals, how to bake certain items, and how less expensive cuts of meats can be used to make healthy and filling meals.

 

[aprilchem]

I wish we were only $29 per person per week. Maybe it's the area we live in but we spend between $150-$200 a week for 2 adults, a 6 month old and a 2.5 year old. We do a most of our shopping at whole foods and do buy mostly organic meat/poultry so that may be a reason but I can't imagine only $29 a week.

Maybe check local farms to buy your meat in bulk? I just got a half a pig last Friday for $6.50 a lb, for free-range, organically fed, pastured pork. I get our organic grassfed beef for the same price. Our family usually eats about 3-4 lbs of meat per week in total, so that's about $5 a person per week for meat.

 

[LilMamiBella]

I spend around $200 per week for 7 of us and that includes non-grocery items (toothpaste, toilet paper,etc). Last week I shopped at Aldi's, Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and Walmart. We are mostly vegetarians here and I like to rely on packaged stuff for the school lunches I pack. So its definitely doable to go cheaper especially if I relied on more beans, rice, and potatoes.

 

[Kbee]

I can definitely feed us for a week on $29 per person, that would be $150 for us. I've been doing alot of shopping at Aldi and we have a local grocer that has cheap local produce. Sometimes they have good sales on meat too.

 

[Colleen27]

She's been criticized all over the place for her list but I think it is actually rather interesting in the sense that when you don't eat meat you can afford to "splurge" on other things. For us that wouldn't happen because I'd be trying to get some cheap chicken or beef in there, but she did get a week's worth of food for a health/calorie-conscious vegetarian out of the money.

For me, the hard part of the challenge is not using what we have. $30 per person is pretty close to what I spend on groceries on average, but that's using the veggies I froze from my garden last fall and meat from the quarter cow in the freezer and the spices that I have on hand. Starting from scratch on that budget would be tough and would probably include more starchy fillers than we normally eat, especially this time of year when nothing is in season locally.

 

[Colleen27]

Maybe check local farms to buy your meat in bulk? I just got a half a pig last Friday for $6.50 a lb, for free-range, organically fed, pastured pork. I get our organic grassfed beef for the same price. Our family usually eats about 3-4 lbs of meat per week in total, so that's about $5 a person per week for meat.

And if the organic label isn't a must, you can do even better. I get most of our meats from a local farm that isn't certified but uses old-fashioned (before the need for the organic label) practices, and from 4Hers who do the same. A sick cow gets antibiotics; healthy cows don't. Cows eat grass, not corn. Animals spend their lives in pastures. But there's no certification and thus no organic compliance costs so the meat is less expensive. I think our last beef quarter came in at $4.50/lb which is pretty competitive considering the range of cuts. It only works if you take the time to know your farmer and his practices, though, because really that's what the organic label is; assurances about the farming practices of a stranger. My girls are in 4H so its been easy for us to cultivate relationships with growers and get comfortable buying their products even without the label.