Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)Great post: "The day I bought steak with my food stamps" [View all]
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/simchafisher/2015/04/17/the-day-i-bought-steak-with-my-food-stamps/So there we were, in a dead end town. But we were getting by. I budgeted like a maniac, playing Scrooge with the precious hoard of toilet paper, detergent, and apples we could afford. I once bought a used linen toddler dress for four dollars and blushed the whole way home, nauseated with the extravagance of my purchase. It wasnt a great way to live, but as long as my husband could get enough overtime hours and WIC kept us in cheese and Kix, and as long as the kids could stomach a rotation of pasta, hot dogs, bananas, and tuna noodle casserole, we were okay.
Then my husbands employer cut the overtime hours, but still required everyone to hand in the same amount of work. No, its not exactly legal, but there werent any other jobs to be had that year. His schedule still varied wildly and unpredictably from day to day, and we couldnt find any jobs that would make up the lost overtime income and allow him to show up at either 8 a.m. or 11:45 p.m., depending on what else he was doing.
Now the kids got hot dogs for supper, and the adults got a hot dog bun with ketchup. We figure and figured and figured, and discovered that, no matter how hard we squeezed, we were always going to be about forty dollars short of being able to eat and pay our basic bills. Just forty dollars something that, five years ago, when the economy was better, I would have spent on odds and ends at Target without thinking twice. But it was forty dollars that we didnt have now, at all.
<snip>
And we followed this plan for many months. I salted away savings, and I strolled past the meat freezer in the supermarket, lusting after the trays of meat, scorning the shameless slobs who stopped and filled up their carts on the taxpayers dime. Freeloaders. Scum. Oh lord, look at that steak. Stop looking. Now go get some spaghetti.
FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/simchafisher/2015/04/17/the-day-i-bought-steak-with-my-food-stamps/
Highly recommended read!
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
17 replies, 3391 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (58)
ReplyReply to this post
17 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
My understanding was no cash benefit but they were able to save a little due to the food stamps.
Shrike47
Apr 2015
#8
I think a lot of this belief that food stamps are wasted stems from anecdotal evidence
Calista241
Apr 2015
#4
Unfortunately, some people have to be smacked across the face by a proverbial 2x4
calimary
Apr 2015
#14