SNAP Challenge- My Experience

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans. I hope however you spend the day and the weekend, it gives you what you need. My kids and I are joining extended family at my sister's. I haven't seen many family members since her July 4th (on the 6th) party. There will be good food, football, a walk post meal, and card games. All the kids and pets are staying with me, so that's special as well. 

Photo by Abby Kihano: https://www.pexels.com/photo/winter-squash-beside-corn-230127/

     The last three days I participated in The SNAP Challenge. As a refresher for readers outside the United States, SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The challenge was to eat from a budget of $5.16 per day for three days, the average  SNAP per person benefit, total of $15.48. I only shopped at my local store, walking to and from, aligning with the experience of limited shopping options so many families face when on low incomes. There were very good suggestions in the comments from my post from last week that could work in regular life.Use  those ideas if you are trying to stretch your budget for belt tightening or necessity.  I intentionally restricted where I could shop and passed on any free sources of food for the challenge. 

Goal: 9 meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner over three days. Snacks if I could fit in budget. I don't usually eat breakfast other than coffee with milk, but tried to use an average persons meal schedule. I had to settle for cheap instant coffee packets because I couldn't make regular coffee fit my budget, but it was sad that even just these 7 packets ate up $1.99 of my budget, but I had to have it. 

Purchases

• Coffee $1.99
• Betty Crocker corn bread mix $.89
• 6 pack chicken thighs, just under 3# $2.88
• Rotini pasta $1.18
• 1 can generic green beans $.89
• Baby carrots, 1 # $.99
• 1 can store brand diced tomatoes $1.33
• 1 can tuna $.99
• 3 bananas $1.09
•  Gallon milk ( on sale cheaper than smaller) $2.50
• Roma tomato $.47

Total: $15.20 with 28¢ to spare. 

Meal plan

• Baked chicken-2 dinners ( cut meat off so could use bones for broth), with pasta in diced tomatoes simmered for a sauce, green beans ( rinsed) 
• Creamed tuna and pasta -1 dinner, 1 lunch (can tuna, pasta, reduced milk, steamed carrots) with a corn bread pancake each meal with sliced tomato on top (really yummy) 
• Chicken noodle soup-2 lunch (carrots, chicken, pasta, broth) with a pancake each meal with sliced tomato on top
• Banana, 2 per day muffin mix pancakes (made 10 very small- 4 went with lunch and tuna supper), with milk- 3 breakfast

  

  A poor substitute for my
  normal brewed coffees. 
  

     While I met the challenge, and ate moderately well, it was tough! Nothing not thought through was put in my basket. It would  be a stretch to say I had five servings of fruit and vegetables a day and relied more heavily on pasta than I'd have liked to be filled up. I benefitted from bone in chicken thighs being on sale for 99¢ a pound, and stretched 6 thighs into five meals by using two for soup, eaten twice for lunch. The creamed tuna was one lunch, one supper. I really stretched the muffin mix, but since normally I don't eat breakfast, it was plenty and using a pancake as a bread for lunches made the soup more substantial. I limited seasonings to just salt and pepper to keep myself honest. 

     That was my SNAP Challenge experience. It would be exhausting to plan to this level regularly. It might have been easier if I had a whole month and could do more with $154.80, the equivalent at the $5.16 per day, as could buy larger sizes, but adding in needing to be able to walk to store and carry back, as reality for many people, limits that strategy. Even if I didn't want them, I missed the idea of having a snack, though there was more soup than I could eat. I had milk leftover, even with drinking a glass with each meal and using in meal prep. That only was because of the loss leader sale. I could have skipped coffee, but no one would have wanted to be around me. 

     Call me a left wing radical, but I believe in the SNAP program, WIC ( Women, Infants, and Children ) and the availability for my neighbors to have access to a food pantry when in a tough spot. Having access to decent food is a human right. So many of us in the US will have a huge dinner today, followed by leftovers falling out of refrigerators. Others will struggle for a single meal and sadly that's still a daily reality.