The question is, are you? The five-day event put on next week by the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona is probably the only time my finely honed cheapskate skills will ever be openly celebrated, so I’m all over it like a spice packet over Ramen noodles.

And, not to be rude, but if you’re one of the people who still believes people on food stamps – now called SNAP benefits – are living it up, here’s your chance to prove yourself wrong. $20 bucks a week. Just you and your stomach. Are you ready to rumble?

I’m registered. You can do the same over here. My initial meal plan leans heavily on rice noodles, cheap boxes of macaroni, potatoes and, yes, I will be making sushi mid-week (nori is cheap as hell and nutritious – hallelujah!). I might even toss in a 22-ounce can of cheap beer to cap off the week. It’s been a while since I had a Steel Reserve anyway.

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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 20-26, 2012.

9 replies on “Uhhh, Yeah I’m Taking the $4 a Day Challenge”

  1. I absolutely love this idea! While I am way to fat and foodie-ish to partake in it, I also, do not take shots at people who are obviously down.

  2. I’ve done this before, not really by choice but I’ve done it. There was a lot of ramen and other dried soups consumed. Cabbage was pretty cheap so I ate that in some form or another in every meal but sometimes just pan fried it with onions and a hot dog, tuna or sardines.
    When I was first out of college I subsisted mainly on ramen, saving my money for 80 cent drinks at Club Congress on Thursday nights (where are you Spider Rhodes!).
    I still buy meat on clearance but do a lot more organic veggies (per the list).

  3. Increase your water intake if you feel the adolescent need to consume Ramen (esp. the “spice packet”), “cheap boxes of macaroni,” and so on. These foods are very high in sodium and deadly over a lifetime. The USA food industry is one that kills its customers. Avoid starchy products such as potatoes and processed pasta. And get some 30 minutes of exercise each day…like walking to the bus stop to or the store.

  4. I wonder how many people know that the gut rumbling/craving food is often just the body telling you it wants/needs water, especially in AZ’s low humidity that just sucks you dry even if you’re sitting around doing nothing.

    I found it very interesting how little money I really needed for groceries when I stuck to the basics, cooking from scratch, not processed/prepackaged (yes it takes more effort/thought) and cut out the frivolous stuff I don’t need for nutrition… cookies, chips, candy, frozen garbage “dinners,” and eliminating anything with high fructose corn syrup after which much to my surprise I lost my lifelong craving for sweets.

  5. A rather hefty portion of the TW readership is already on the $4 a day plan. I’d like to know where we can sign up to get the hell off of it.

  6. Approximately $18/month is what I spend on groceries. Those $1.67/gallon milk prices in Tucson’s grocery stores and the fact that the Walmart near my house honors other store’s ads makes it easy. In season produce – especially at Food City’s or El Super’s fantastic prices, a lot of milk, and plenty of homemade bread and other homemade treats (cookies; ice cream) leaves money for unhealthy and unnecessary things like coffee. I admit if I counted the part of my water bill that goes to my vegetable garden the $18 would go up, but nowhere close to $4/day. No wonder food stampers load their carts with expensive junk food, fancy microwave dinners, soda, etc. and still have the cash to pay for beer and cigarettes! When my son was growing up, we ate more meat and he needed more food; my groceries might have cost as much as $1/day for each of us. Other than a few colds, flu maybe once, and chicken pox – he was extremely healthy (and still is at age 29).

  9. I think it would be far more productive to donate $20.00 or what ever you can to the Food Bank directly and they can then purchase more food for the many here who need it. My starving myself will not make the problem go away now anymore that being forced to eat broccoli when I was little prevented the children in Europe from starving.
    Give folks – $1.00 buys $9.00 worth of food and they can always use volunteers.

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