Astrogirl

The USDA offers what they call a Thrifty Food Plan which is a guide to feeding a family of four on food stamps. They studied this in 2000 in Washington, DC by attempting to purchase their recommended foods at urban supermarkets.

This report, compiled in May of 2001 details the shopping order and the results [...]

Rebecca Blood is living within the actual food stamp budget ($74 for two). She’s eating one heck of a lot better than we will be as she belongs to a produce cooperative. We just don’t have that available here. Eating cheap or no, I’d be all over that.

Here’s her site for Week [...]

This is the breakdown of where we spent the money. It actually comes out to $54.04, not $54.11, so I picked up 7 cents somewhere.

Big Lots (spices, veg oil, syrup, jelly spaghetti, salt, canned veg)
$9.77

Food Lion (ramen, celery, tea, soy sauce, black beans)
$6.03

Martin’s (everything else)
$38.24

I normally do all my shopping at Martin’s. I [...]

Some of the congresscritters are trying to get the food stamp allocation increased and are pulling a publicity stunt.

They are trying to eat on $21 per week. That number is basically pulled out of a hat as it is an average of what a food stamp recipient *spends*, not what they actually get. [...]