The Glade 4.0

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/usdafoodcost-home.htm

According to the USDA, for a family of 4 with 2 kids over the age of 9 (our family), the monthly food plan costs are as follows:

Thrifty: $618.80
Low Cost: $805
Moderate: $1003.30
Liberal: $1218.80

We budget approximately $500 a month for groceries and spend an additional $50-60 a month on extra milk/bread in between shopping trips. We don't eat out or get fast food more than once a month. We are spending less than what the USDA would consider an appropriately healthy amount for groceries for our family.

As of the word of mouth information I had from a few years ago, a family of 4 was getting between $800-$900 a month in foodstamps if they were eligible.
I cannot verify this officially because the Department of Human Services here said (I called them) they can't give me any information without having an appointment and putting data in a computer and waiting for the results...in other words, they have no official guidelines for how much free food money people receive, they just rely on a computer to spit out an answer.

So basically, poor people eat better than we do...we pay taxes so people can sit on their butts and afford to eat steak, while we are budgeting for ground beef.

That's messed up.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

This is probably a national average. I understand you live in a rural area, so your costs will probably be lower. "Thrifty" has to take into account the fact that a "thrifty" food budget in Manhattan is probably $5,000 or more.

We spend about $800 a month in groceries alone, for us and 1 kid. We also go out to eat and that does not include lunches for my wife and I during the work week.

Ask your state rep. I'm sure he or she has access to the numbers or at least total recipient families and total amount handed down, which should give you an average amount spent per recipient family in Miss. Actually your state web site might have those numbers. That will give you a number that is comparible to your own grocery bill, despite any hemming and hawing to the contrary.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Here's a great page for Illinois program http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=30357
It lists the maximum benefit for a family of 4 as $668, with most people getting less. And Illinois is a fairly expensive place to live, states with lower revenues and costs of living give lower foodstamp allotments. Not sure where you got your word of mouth, but it sounds like someone was either scamming the program or lying about the numbers.

http://www.ehow.com/list_6317356_missis ... efits.html
This website says:
Monthly Benefits

The amount of money you receive as your monthly benefit will depend on a variety of factors, including your household's annual income and the number of people in your family who need benefits. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, Mississippi offered a maximum monthly benefit in 2007 of $408 per month for a family of three with a net income of $16,608.00 per year. The maximum annual Mississippi food stamp benefit for the same family in the same year capped at $4,896. The Kaiser Family Foundation maintains a listing of state facts for Mississippi food stamps. It recorded an average monthly benefit of $113.82 per person.

That's a 2007 number, but it sure doesn't look like $800 a month.

Minor correction, Chicago is very expensive to live in, the rest of Illinois is dirt cheap.

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Well yes. But Chicago skews the average rather a lot. I wonder if they take zip code into account when they decide on SNAP benefit amounts?

FTFY

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Usually you go into the office of your county of residence so it's probably based on that.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Here's an interesting series of articles by a journalist eating on a food stamp budget... which she says is $30 a week for a singe adult.

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2011/09/28/the ... =obnetwork

That's pretty close to what we are spending on food right now per person, but no one goes hungry and we have pretty well-balanced meals and snacks. (We are spending $34 per person per week.)
I do not recall the exact amount that I was receiving in food stamps years ago as a college student and single mother, but my son and I ate VERY well....food was not a problem because the amount of money we got for food was enough for us to eat steak some nights and even allow for me to buy enough pediasures for my kid to have one every day, and those things are expensive.
Seems to me we must have been getting more than $30 per person a week, or have groceries really gone up that much in the past 6 years?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

$30 per person per week really is a pretty fair amount in the rural south.

It's not feasting, but it's definitely enough to eat steak occasionally, have plenty of fruits and vegetables, etc.

Especially if you buy less prepared food and more basic ingredients.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Probably both. Food costs have gone up a LOT. And if you were giving your child pediasure they probably gave you an extra boost because they ARE expensive!

No easy or polite way to say this, but she sounds like a fat person, since I cannot find a picture of her any where online (Sheila Steffen) and since she only appears to socialize around food I am assuming this to be true. That said I skip meals all the time without freaking out, I'd never bring two sandwiches to lunch and rarely if ever snack. She makes it sound like after a week she was wasting away into nothing even after buying and consuming:



This is also not taking into account that I would imagine she did not use all the PB&J, pasta, beans or rice during the week so if she bothered to go more than a week those expenses would be gone and she'd have even more cash for the upcoming week.

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That's really not a whole lot of food for a week. Farina for breakfast, a PB&J for lunch, an apple as a snack, and beans and rice for dinner? In the portions that allow her to not run out of food for the week she's running about 1400 calories.

Yeah, I have an athletic figure and I eat like a horse...I couldn't live off of just that for a week...but I could have found a much better way to spend $30 for groceries for the week as well I'm sure.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Yeah, chicken breasts? WTF was she thinking?

Are you being serious or facetious? I can't tell.

Also, $30 a week is the minimum that someone can get as an allotment...and that minimum is given if it is shown that person has enough income to where that $30 would be an addition to their food budget. It's not meant to be it's entirety. The maximum is $200 a month for an individual, or $50 a week, and in that case it would be their entire food allotment.
If you can't feed yourself on $50 a week, there's something seriously wrong with you.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I'm always surprised at the choices people make when they have to eat cheap.

Beans and Rice make a great cheap baseline, and you can do a good many variations, with small amounts of meat (sausage, etc) to spice it up- Chili's, Red Beans and Sausage, White Bean and Pasta Soups, etc.

For fruit and vegetables, you can't go very far wrong with Cabbage and Bananas. Throw in others as you can for spice and extra nourishment. Potatoes and Onions are also usually quite cheap relative to the amount of food they provide.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I don't know what Farina is but I don't eat breakfast and I wouldn't eat that nasty looking stuff for any meal. That said, I've lived on PB&J, Kool-aid, spaghetti and rice for weeks.

PB&J (one sandwich, not two): 331 calories
Apple (medium): 95 calories (she can have two a day based on her bag of a dozen) so 190 calories
Black beans and rice: (1/2 quarter cup serving): 614 calories
Farina: 120 calories
Coffee: 2 calories

Actually puts her at 1257 calories per day. I would assume pasta days would be higher.

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Hop, where are you getting your calorie count for the PB&J?

Walmart generic bread: 80 calories a slice
Jif PB serving size 2tbs: 190 calories
Smuckers strawberry spread 1tbs: 50 calories

That's 400 calories. And I doubt she stuck to only one tbs of jelly and two tbs of peanut butter....odds are she had a 450 calorie sandwich, and she ate two of them...which puts her at almost a 1000 calories just for lunch.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I just googled how many calories in PBJ and assumed it was an average. Her bread looked fancier and it had powdered sugar on it.

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That's oats, not powdered sugar, on the bread.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Oh ok, haha, I actually went to my cabinets and looked.
I have a jar of generic peanut butter and it has only 10 less calories per same serving size. Also, the last time I bought a loaf of non-generic bread, it was 110 calories per slice, which would add even more to her total intake.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I was being absolutely serious, chicken breasts are one of the more expensive protein options available. And I agree... $50 per person per week should be plenty, but $30 a week is pretty lean, especially if you don't have experience in budget shopping or live in an area with high cost of living.

My non-generic bread is 80 per slice, and she only got to double up on her lunch sandwich once. Even so... her breakfast of farina is probably about 150 calories (250 if prepared with 2% milk). So a 450 calorie lunch (I agree with your assumption that she didn't stick to the serving sizes, but that means she runs out sooner) still leaves her low and in need of a more substantial dinner except on the one day she had 2 PB&Js.