Every time I hear somebody busting on food stamp recipients I have to bite my lip. My family spent a good amount of time relying on aid like food stamps and other programs to survive when I was younger, and that was despite plenty of hard work by my parents.

The worst of the criticism comes in the form of “those welfare and food stamp people are living it up while we working middle or upper-middle people slave away at dependable and relatively lucrative jobs.” People say the same sort of things about the homeless – that they choose to live on the street, that they make more panhandling than one can imagine – and I’ve done a bit of time living on the streets and, much later, working to help feed the homeless, and can say with full conviction that such lines of thinking are complete and utter nonsense.

All I have to say is: Give it a whirl. Live off food stamps. Be poor for a bit. It can be rather eye-opening.

And, as luck would have it, such an opportunity is coming up later this month in the form of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona’s SNAP Challenge. It offers a chance to see what it’s like to live off what a food-stamp recipient gets each month.

There’s more on the week-long event over here.

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Guest Commentary

It’s not easy to live—and it’s almost impossible to eat healthy—on $4 of food per day

This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2012.

32 replies on “Can You Survive on $4 of Food a Day?”

  1. I think that the problem that people have with SNAP is the abuse. I’ve had people try to sell me SNAP cards for pennies on the dollar. I’ve been caught in the check out line MANY times with people who have two orders 1) food that SNAP will cover and 2) beer, liquor, junk food, etc. If they can afford the luxuries, then they can afford the basics. They’ve made the choice to not prioritize and to put the cost of their lack of prioritization on the backs of others. Then there’s the SNAP card users with the talon-like, professional manicures and smartphones. You know why I don’t get my nails done every week and have an expensive smartphone? Because I prioritize my expenditures: necessities first, luxuries if there’s anything left over. I’m not saying that all people on the SNAP program are doing this, but there are many, many who are.

  2. Maybe not jumping to conclusions on less than complete evidence may be helpful. For instance there are people who are well off who will do shopping for those who are elderly or shut ins or who for whatever reason may not be able to do shopping for various other reasons, either on a temporary or semi permanent basis.. They may sometimes pick up some items for themselves out of their own money while shopping with cards for others.
    I give thanks to all those who offer their own time and talents in assistance to others.
    If, God forbid, I should ever need them I do not want them to be embarrassed to do this kindness for me.

  3. You could be absolutely correct, but I guess I’ve never been in a grocery line and looked over to see what kind of payment somebody else is using, although I do offer my Fry’s card if someone doesn’t have one. Doesn’t a SNAP card look just like a credit card? Back in the day they used to shame us poor people by making us tear off the actual food stamps from a book, but I figured the new cards had done away with that. Also, do they separate junk food from real food and only let people buy certain things with SNAP cards? I didn’t know that. I guess I have some more research to do.

  4. Here’s the short can and cannot list. The link that follows has all the details.

    Households CAN use SNAP benefits to buy:
    Foods for the household to eat, such as:
    — breads and cereals;
    — fruits and vegetables;
    — meats, fish and poultry; and
    — dairy products.

    Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.

    In some areas, restaurants can be authorized to accept SNAP benefits from qualified homeless, elderly, or disabled people in exchange for low-cost meals.

    Households CANNOT use SNAP benefits to buy:
    Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco;

    Any nonfood items, such as:
    — pet foods;
    — soaps, paper products; and
    — household supplies.

    Vitamins and medicines.

    Food that will be eaten in the store.

    Hot foods.

    http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailers/eligible.htm

    For the record, I only notice how people are dividing things up when they are in line ahead of me and trying to categorize their purchases.

  7. Truth be told, SNAP has the least amount of fraud or abuse of any government subsidy program. Most of the errors are done by the government in shorting benefits to people in need.

  8. Adam,

    I support SNAP but I do think the program needs to be modified some. Here are some things I would like to see;

    1. Double the value if spent at Farmers Markets or on CSA’s.

    This would not only be a great way to help introduce people to a healthier supply of food but it would also be a direct stimulus to small and local farmers that are routinely left out of the large subsidies granted by Congress to the mega farming corporations.

    2. Limit what people can buy at the supermarket to fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, breads, and dairy, etc. Basically people should not be able to buy soda or junk food with our SNAP money.

    -SNAP out of it “forgot” to mention these other items that people are allowed to buy, per the USDA web site;

    Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items. Energy drinks that have a nutrition facts label are eligible foods. Gift baskets that contain both food and non-food items, are not eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits if the value of the non-food items exceeds 50 percent of the purchase price. Items such as birthday and other special occasion cakes are eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits as long as the value of non-edible decorations does not exceed 50 percent of the purchase price of the cake.

    3. Oversight! When purchasing with a SNAP card people should be required to show ID to prove that they are the recipient. Right now they just need to know a PIN number.

    Number 3 is a big one. I lived in a very sketchy part of town, in an equally sketchy apartment complex for over a year. On a weekly basis I had other residents try to sell me their food stamps so they could buy drugs. They were not shy about this and usually offered to sell them at a steep discount, 50-75% off the value. Even though I needed help at the time I never purchased these cards because I was morally opposed to it.

    I later found out that many of the people selling the cards were not even the recipients, but the boyfriends or husbands of the recipients. Roughly 48% of recipients are children and %28 percent are women. I did some investigation and talked with other residents and I realized that this is a form of domestic abuse and control over women in low income communities, either directly or worse by controlling their kids food supply. The man takes the SNAP cards and the woman is that much more dependent on him and stays in the bad situation. I imagine there are a lot of men doing this who do not sell the cards and actually use them for food, but do this as a power play over their girlfriends/partners. It must be incredibly difficult for these women to report this to the police for obvious reasons. I wonder how rampant the problem is and if there is any way to actually ever know. Lets play it safe and require ID and offer free ID’s to low income citizens (it is amazing how many low income people in this country don’t have ID’s and this would also be a nice F-you to the voter restriction ID laws being passed by Republicans all over the country to disenfranchise low income voters.)

  9. after living off $20 or less a month for years, when i was issued food stamps i went and bought all kinds of exotic shit i’d never be able to afford.

    the cashier was looking at me thinking food stamps.. dragonfruit??? only chance i’d ever have.

    $4 a day… wow.. is that what the queen gets?

    btw i’m a skilled dsp programmer who graduated alongside gabrielle giffords. unfortunately, i disagree with the masons, so they screw me at every job and residence. i haven’t had either for four years.

    wake the fuck up!

  10. It is our choice as a people to give these subsidies. Once given we really have no right to choose what some one buys with it. I got actual food stuffs from the government when the mine my father worked at closed. There is nothing like 5lbs of usda velveeta boxes of powdered milk, rice in enormous boxes, and these wierd cans of honey that we would have to boil a little to make the honey less crystalized. Maybe we should switch back to actually giving hungry people food that would most likely resolve the 12 pack of pop and a tbone steak complaint. Until then, stop complaining.

  11. Ah yes, the typical response “i saw someone doing it so that means they ALL do it! and since it was a latino it means all latinos are on food stamps and they’re all cheating the system!!!”

  13. Just stand in line at any circle k or quickmart,I see all kinds of people using their foodstamp cards,I see people buying actual food and most of the time they’re buying soda,chips and other totally unhealthy fattining food crap,items that should be banned from the card users,on top of that a lot of times they drive pretty nice cars,or the boyfriend is standing there waiting for the chips and soda to be paid for,,on another occasion at Frys at golflinks/Kolb I’m standing in line and a guy comes up to me offering to buy my groceries for me for 50 cents on the dollar,I’m sure there were hungry kids at home waiting for food not antisapating daddy needed drug or alcahol money,,so abuse is rampet,and everytime we use another method to confront it they find away around it.

  14. I just think of the kids. Sure, some people may have seen SNAP cards being used to buy unhealthy food – by the way, doesn’t it seem kind of strange to dictate what others eat in a “free” country – but even if it is unhealthy, it is better than nothing, which is what a lot of kids would get if the program wasn’t there.

    The dangerous thing about passing judgment on others is that you could be wrong. I ate a lot of unhealthy food growing up, because that’s all we could afford. We were good people trying to make it. Should I have gone hungry because people with money were worried my mom might drive a decent car or get her nails done?

  15. To Human – 2. Limit what people can buy at the supermarket to fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, breads, and dairy, etc. Basically people should not be able to buy soda or junk food with our SNAP money.

    I work, my wife works, we pay taxes. So I am spending my SNAP money, not yours.

  16. Limit what can be purchased like WIC.. only healthy and necessary AND DRUG TEST ON TOP OF THAT.. LIMIT THE AMOUNT and REQUIRE PROOF of EMPLOYMENT or APPLICATIONS for employment and the amount of time allowed to receive benefits. REQUIRE ID FOR EVERYTHING AND PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP

  17. Rather than helping the people WHO WORK AND PAY TAXES & CHOOSE NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN THEY CANNOT SUPPORT… MY TAX MONEY goes to those who CHOOSE not to work, CHOOSE to have MORE CHILDREN they cannot afford to feed or educate, and benefit from FREE HEALTH insurance, FREE FOOD, LOW RENT and TAX BREAKS… while I STRUGGLE to pay my rent, pay for my education and pay for medication that will keep me healthy enough to KEEP WORKING MY ASS OFF AND SUPPORTING THE VAMPIRES of this country. Why am I being PUNISHED for working hard and doing what is BEST for this country?

  18. Ms. Salazar,
    I encourage you to do some research about this topic you seem to be so passionate about. Many of the things you suggested are already in place for SNAP while others are very short sighted and don’t take all factors into consideration. Here are the things I would like to address from you post above:
    #1 — There are already requirements for ID, Social Security Numbers, Citizenship or eligible, lawfully-present non-citizens — http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/government/POLIMGRT.HTM

    #2 — There are already requirements for employment or seeking employment. According to the USDA’s website Work Rules, “With certain exceptions, able-bodied adults between 16 and 60 years of age must register for work, accept an offer of suitable work, and take part in an employment and training program to which they will be referred by the SNAP office. Generally, able-bodied adults aged 18 to 50 who do not have children and are not pregnant can only get SNAP benefits for 3 months in a 3-year period unless they are working or participating in a work or workfare program. There are a few exceptions.”

    #3 — You claim SNAP recipients “choose not to work” But 36% percent of the more than 431,000 families receiving SNAP in January 2010 were working according to the DES website. Your statement also doesn’t take into consideration the children, elderly, and disabled who also receive benefit but are not able to work.

    #4 — These “vampires,” as you call them include: children, elderly, homeless, mentally ill, and the disabled. These are the most vulnerable members of our community and I do not think the majority of Americans would call these groups “vampires”

    I appreciate the discussion about this important topic but we need to make sure we are talking about facts.

  19. Conservative Independent,

    “I work, my wife works, we pay taxes. So I am spending my SNAP money, not yours.”

    I am sorry but it is not yours. SNAP money is a part of a social contract and we as a society have a right to dictate what can be bought with it. It is OUR money as part of a collective society, not your money, not my money. The choices that you get to make with food stamps are limited to a range defined by congress as a part of the food bill (You can’t buy beer with it can you?). Hopefully, as a part of the next food bill we can ban the purchase of soda and other junk foods with SNAP money, until then you can continue to use OUR money to feed your children soda and junk food. I hope they do not develop diabetes, become obese or perform at a lower level in school because of your choices.

  20. I’m stunned to learn that there are people who, while standing in checkout line in a supermarket, actually watch what other people buy!

    Or, that some apparently even follow some out to see what model of car they drive?

    Please, explain more fully what could possibly motivate such rude and crude behavior.

  21. Please support your local Food Banks….People need help during these had times no thanks to our wondful state lawmakers.
    What is with this rude and crude behavior of people putting down people that have nothing?….Please give when you can.
    I don’t think anyone can survie on $4.00 bucks-a-day.

  22. Okay, I’ll be honest. I feel that the food stamp program is a necessary one, but it needs to be managed a little better. I was an employee of Circle K for several years and at the beginning of the month we would get SLAMMED by food stamp recipients coming in and literally purchasing $50+ of Cheetos,Twinkies,Ben & Jerry’s and all sorts of other junk food you can imagine; then a lot of these people would make a secondary purchase within the same transaction that involved a couple of cases of beer & other useless convenience store items on the cash-assistance side of the card. For the program to truly work as it’s intended they need to investigate the abuse that goes along with it. The first rule that should be implemented is that convenience stores shouldn’t be allowed to accept EBT(food stamp & monetary benefit) cards; not only because the nutritional foods found in these places is basically non-existent, the exorbitant cost mark-up on these items compared to grocery stores is criminal. The second rule would require grocery stores(remember, convenience stores cannot accept these anymore because of rule #1) to enter items in their price scan systems such as Cheetos, Twinkies, etc… as unqualified EBT items. Yeah sure, people could still take the cash benefit side & purchase items like these, but they’ll more than likely think twice before doing so & maybe they’ll make the more logical decision. I’m just sayin’.

  24. SNAP Challenge is next week already! I am beginning to get nervous. I live on a student’s budget anyway and thought doing this challenge would be pretty easy. I mean hey, I love peanut butter. But I also love organic fruits and veggies and looking at what those items cost and what percentage of my daily diet they make up is leading me to reassess my approach to this challenge. I grew up on the poor side. Being one of three kids raised by a single working mom we ate a lot of processed food. As a result, I developed some fairly serious health problems in my early 20’s about 10 years of dietary adjustment and adding lots of exercise has gotten me back to good health. I am not looking forward to cutting out the good stuff and substituting with cheaper processed food just because I know how badly I will feel after eating it. So I am trying to figure out how to eat healthy and cheap. If anyone out there has some good, practical suggestions please do help me out!

  25. Ttown tom, Have you tryed window gardening….just Google it.
    Very low cost if you have a southern exposure, Lettuce,Tomatoes,squash,Green Beans almost anything.
    Good luck on $4 bucks a-day living, hope it turns out for you.

  26. Ttowntom,

    Don’t look at it as 4$ a day. Look at it as $120 for the month. Cut out coffee. Cut out fruit juices. Cut out Milk. These things do very little for you anyways and are expensive luxury items, plus they won’t satisfy hunger.

    Buy your grains in bulk.

    Read the ads, there is a huge price difference between stores. If you shop at Albertsons, Bashas or Safeway you are probably paying too much usually for the same produce you can get at food city (same supplier, same farms, but maybe not always as pretty). When you see a good deal, don’t buy what you need for a week, buy it for a month, the sale will end in a week.

    Coupons!

    Give up meat, or at least make it a once a week item.

    Try frozen veggies when appropriate, especially for out of season produce.

    No more snack foods, sauces or sodas, these things cost a lot of money!

    Learn to cook! Pre-made or easy meals cost a premium. Give up the mac and cheese’s, and all those dinner ready in 10 minutes things. The more you cook, the more you save.

    You have to become a smarter more discerning buyer. It is not difficult to do, but you have to break away from what the advertising/food industry has raised us and brainwashed us to believe we need. It has taken me years, and I am still not all the way there. I know it is hard.

    When I was down and out, I would spend around $200 a month on food but that included luxuries like coffee and quality beer. If I had given those up I would’ve be down to around $130 or so. Yeah, I drink around 12 beers a week and that adds up at 6.99 a six pack. $120 can be done but it takes some effort and planning ahead. Of course now that my life is back on track I can afford to go out and socialize and spend at restaurants and bars, but that was not the case for many months over the last 3 years.

    Discipline discipline discipline. If you do it right, you might even have an extra 5 or 10 buck to splurge on ice cream or a couple slices of pizza.

    Here are some tips;

    Traders Joes has a high quality peanut butter with flax seeds (omega-3s) for $2.99, all the time. Hard to beat.

    Food City usually puts avocados on sale 4 for a buck on weekends. These things are so tasty and good for you.

    Don’t be afraid to over buy and freeze things like berries when they are cheap.

    Walk around you neighborhood. Talk to people with fruit trees. This is a great time of year for getting free food from you neighbors, many of them will want you to pick their oranges, grapefruits, kumquats, etc. Ask them first, most people are happy to share what would otherwise rot on the ground.

    Let us know how you do! Good luck and I hope you find some other techniques to make it work!

    Anyone else have any tips?

  27. Great tips HumanBean! Also, don’t forget the Ramen. There are a lot of great recipes for Ramen on the web.

  28. Agree – great tips. Even more than that, a gracefully written plan for living well.

    I’d like to add that I buy dried beans, chick peas, and lentils (much cheaper, and sodium free).

    I soak them overnight, rinse, cook, drain, and pack a portion of a cup or so into separate freezer containers. They are rich in fiber and protein, and I really like having them handy to add to any number of dishes I cook. Just dump them in.

    (Cooked brown rice also freezes well.)

    Also, I do the same with fresh vegetables on sale.

    In fact, today I’m cooking up 3 lbs of mushrooms on sale at only $1.19 a lb. Plus, a huge bagful of Swiss Chard my neighbor brought over this morning.

    I’ve done the same with other fresh vegetables on sale – carrots, sweet potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and even celery.

  29. @HumanBean: Spoken like a master! My main suggestion is to find a couple of super cheap meals that don’t take much time to make.

    My go-to poverty food is big pots of noodles mixed with just about anything, especially big, cheap cans of spaghetti sauce. That can feed you for three or four big lunches for less than 50 cents per meal.

    Cutting out coffee is a big money saver, same goes for just about anything prepared.

    Baked potatoes cooked in a microwave are a meal for pennies. Beans and rice is cheap-o to the max, even if you buy the beans in a can (even cheaper if you buy them dry and prepare them yourself; I’ve got a pot of them on the stove right now!)

    A cheap loaf of bread – day-old is the cheapest and can be found at most super markets – is quick and you will soon learn to love toast more than you ever thought possible.

    In my most poverty-stricken moments I have hoarded soy sauce, honey, hot sauce and just about anything else I could find in packet-form at fast-food joints. Skip the food; nab the packets. It adds a lot of flavor to otherwise bland meals in a pinch.

    Here’s the problem though: It’s no big deal to eat the same thing every day or every three days if it’s just you, but good luck trying to get a six year old to eat spaghetti four days a week. Ever wonder why some moms on SNAP buy processed foods? On day five of attempting to convince a kid to eat beans and rice it will become abundantly clear.

  30. Day old bread? I often snatch up a loaf, usually at half price.

    But when I bring it home, I pop it into my oven set at 270F degrees to bake for an hour.

    That’s because most supermarket deli breads are so limp and soggy.

    This process turns a loaf of whimpy supermarket deli bread into a treat that even native French or Italians might consume.

    (PS: Bread also freezes well.)

  31. These are really great suggestions. My nervousness is turning into excited anticipation! I love to cook, don’t consume milk or much meat and don’t mind planning ahead. I usually grind my own peanut butter at Sprouts (used to be Sunflower) and couple it with a high-protein bread from Trader Joes which gives me lunch for the week. I could do the pasta thing for a couple of dinners. Bulk grains, beans, brown rice and frozen berries and veggies are all right up my alley. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Human Bean, Riorican, Adam et al.

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