Every Sunday, Steve plugs in every expenditure into Quicken. He started keeping these records, when money was extremely tight years ago. Now, it’s a habit. But, it’s a handy habit, because we know exactly how much money we spent last year on clothes, transportation, and vacations. We also know how much we spend on food every month.
Last year, we spent about 1K per month on food. That 1K includes beer and wine, lunch meat, and Jonah’s frozen burritos. We have a teenager in the house, so it’s necessary to have a supply of quickie meals that he can nuke when he gets home from school. I don’t cut coupons. I do try to buy in bulk, when the supermarket has sales. Steve and the boys get a brown bag lunch four days per week, which is cheaper than hot lunches at school and at work, but it adds to our monthly food budget. My goal is simply to save money by cooking rather than settling for crappy and expensive convenience food.
Could we live on food stamps if we had to? According to the NJ, we would receive $632 per month. I think we could live within that budget, if I did a better job of food planning and stopped drinking wine at dinner time.
|
SNAP Reductions by Household Size Beginning November 1, 2013 |
|
Household Size |
ARRA Maximum Benefits Through |
Maximum Benefits Beginning |
Monthly Decrease |
|
1 |
$200 |
$189 |
-$11 |
|
2 |
$367 |
$347 |
-$20 |
|
3 |
$526 |
$497 |
-$29 |
|
4 |
$668 |
$632 |
-$36 |
It would be much harder to survive on the $189 of benefits for a single person. I’m not sure how a person could eat three meals a day for an entire month with only $189. I suppose a person could do it, if they bought meat in bulk and froze it, and if most of the meal was pasta. Still, it would be tough.
However, there’s something silly about middle class people figuring out food planning for others. People who are on food stamps do not necessarily have the time to plan these things out. Their lives might be too complicated to do the extreme planning that would be necessary to survive on $189. A spacious freezer would be key to this task, and they might not have one. They might not have a clean pantry — also a necessity.
Do you know how much you spend on food per month? Do you keep a budget? Could you survive on food stamps?
Apt. 11d 