But the point is its too hard for a successful college graduate so it must be too hard for the unwashed masses as well.

Much better to simply give them enough money to buy all their meals at Wendys and McDonalds

Yea, and I get quite crabby myself paying taxes to pay for those programs which I don't benefit from myself!

I wouldn't be quite so crabby if I knew that these programs would be there for me if I ever needed them.

But, I know for a fact that they are NOT there for me. Several years ago I was in an accident; nothing, and I mean nothing was available from the government to help me. Nothing, and yet, I am suppose to help pay for others!?

Why no linky-love for SayAnythingBlog?

I looked at what he bought. I have lived on a low food budget diet. It included rice, ramen, hamburger in 5 lb loaf form, spaghetti sauce and PB&J's. I also learned to cook eggs in a microwave. On a good pay period I might have added in frozen chicken thighs.

There were no canned veggies, bananas, lunch meat, or English muffins. And everything was the store or generic brand.

So I give him a D- minus on the challenge.

It's supposed to be hard. Otherwise, where is the incentive to better yourself? It's hand UP, not hand OUT.

And this from a representative from North Dakota, where they have jobs out the a**.

I learned this week that one out of three kids in the USA get their food through the SNAP program. After learning last week that half of the births in the USA were paid for by Medicaid. That's an awful lot of people who shouldn't be having kids.

At some point, the idea that "My children were my choice to have, and therefore my responsibility to support," gave way to "Oh look, a baby! Where is the nearest taxpayer, so that I may present him with the bill?"

Canned veggies are usually incredibly expensive compared to frozen, and fresh, and they are also not as good.
Unless there was something in this challenge where you had to pretend you didnt have a refrigerator or a freezer, there is no reason to buy canned anything to save money. (Except for maybe tuna, and tomato sauce)

I also agree with the suggestion of chicken, or other cheap cuts of pork, or beef. No one on a really restrictive food budget should be buying prepared foods.
They should have a slow cooker, a frying pan, and a couple of large all purpose pots.
A microwave, primarily for thawing is also helpful for those who dont plan ahead very well.

Well, really, if these welfare programs worked as intended, can you think of any reason why more than one out of every, say, hundred births would be paid for by Medicaid? Or one out of every hundred kids would be fed through the SNAP program?

It baffles me. I just don't see any reason for people not to get into a position where they can support children before having them. And where the occasional accident does happen, why on earth would people have MORE kids when they were already on public assistance for the one they currently had?

I do know a couple of women who accidentally got pregnant at 19. They got assistance for a while, but they didn't have any more kids than just the one, and they got degrees and good jobs and now they pay the system back. Their kids grew up and neither of them has ever gotten on welfare. I think at one time you could say that this description fit MOST people getting assistance. I just don't think it works that way anymore. You can't look at those numbers and conclude that that there aren't a bunch of people making a permanent lifestyle out of it.

But then consider the effect of multiple generations. Even if at the beginning only a minority (say, 10%) of people on welfare crank out more dependents, the effect will spread in the next generation if those dependents repeat the pattern - and it happens exponentially. Where you started with one person on assistance, now you have five. What does the picture look like after three generations? Or four, especially when a generation happens every 15 years as opposed to more like 30 for everyone else?

What pisses me off is that on parenting forums I go to the women talk about and compare how much money they get in food stamps each month (and they also get WIC). Most of these women get more money in "supplemental" food stamps than we budget for our (usually) larger family and no assistance, and we eat very well. We budget $600 a month for a family of 5 and this includes buying formula for the baby. We eat well and will often have money left over at the end of the month. On my forums I've seen plenty of women with the same size family posting that they get $800-$900 a month in food stamps. That's ridiculous!!!

On the other side of it, I have a friend who became a single mom through divorce and received no child support (her ex quit his job and started staying with family and friends to avoid paying). She got food stamps and other assistance while she was in nursing school. They paid her $560 a month for her, a 3-year-old, and a 6-month-old. She said it was way more money than she needed to feed them so at the end of the month she'd spend what was left on staples like cereals and rice and donate it to a food pantry.

My SIL has 3 kids with her baby-daddy who she never wed but lives with (a fact I'm pretty sure the state doesn't know about). At one point she got over $800 a month in food stamps. I don't spend that, and I have a family of 6. Show me 10 food stamp recipients, and I'll show you 9 people who spend more on their clothes, shoes, phones, nails, and tv than me. So I do not give a rats ass when the media says X% of people are food-insecure. Um, no they aren't. They just want to spend their money elsewhere.

Did you know that the reduced and free lunch programs require NO documentation whatsoever? You fill out a form saying you make X. You get your benefits. It's JUST that simple. And the rest of us are paying.

I'm on a lot of local FB groups for selling items. Almost daily there is someone posting baby formula or baby cereal for sale. That they got free from WIC. It makes me sick. I report them, but nothing ever happens.

Way back when my lady was on SSDI. She also received over $200 a month for food stamps. (Back before 2005.)

She and I agreed that the card would be used only for staples. Anything excessive like steaks or seafood would come out of pocket.

When she passed, I took her adult daughter on a food shopping trip to use up the remaining balance. It was over $500 left over.

I think it was very much possible to live on $30/week in groceries in 2009 and that too in New Jersey. All you have to do is cook your own food. I always cooked my own food. I think my monthly grocery came to just about $125 or so and that too after I indulged like hell on cheesecake and ice cream. Oh, and I ate a lot of fruits almost everyday. If I got $30 a week, I could practically do away with my grocery bill

For a while back around 1990 I lived on a food budget of about $150/month. My now-ex had forged my signature on a bunch of credit card applications and she had emptied out my bank accounts. I had money coming in but a whole bunch of bills to pay, and no savings or assets to fall back on. I lived that way for about a year, until I got some of the credit cards paid off and was able to start putting money back in the bank. The food part didn't actually bother me that much, except for the lack of variety. (The main part that did bother me, other then being angry about how I'd been taken advantage of, was having nothing to fall back on in an emergency. That was stressful. Fortunately, there wasn't any emergency.)

I haven't checked lately, but I know that here in Massachusetts, in the mid-1990s, one could eat quite well on $50 a MONTH - not counting junk food or anything expensive, such as buying butter when you could buy margarine instead. OK, so that didn't include much meat.

I suspect, last year, that it was more like $80 a month - again, not counting junk food.

Its not the money thats the problem, its the attitude.

I used to run a food bank distribution point for St Mary's.

The popele on assistance who were using it as a hand up would ask if they could help set up or break down, after the transitioned off food stamps they'd still help out and purchase with cash."

Those using as a hand out? They'd bitch and moan about EVERYTHING.

The coffee is too hot/cold/bitter/sweet
Its free

Its too hot/cold/bright/couldy/windy
I dont control the weather

Why cant we sit indisde the church
Becuase its not your and you leave your trash everywhere

$10 bucks would buy you about 8lbs of meat, and with all the produce and breadstuffs sent out on the rig you could walk away with, at the very least the box of meat and 10lbs of various produce, but often times we had up to three full shopping carts for $10 dollars.

Peoples response? I dont like that, why is the meat in the box different from week to week, why cant I have 27 loaves of bread as I was here first, bitchbitchbitchbitchbitch

Once a month or so St Marys would give away free boxes as well. If you were on assistance you got a box, if you werent you had to wait until all those on assistance had gone thru the line and if any were left you could get it for free.

Peoples response? why dont you do this every week, I missed last time so I want two this time.

No fucking gratitude, just an attitude of entitlement. They were OWED damnit and fuck you for daring to point out it was charity and to be shared with everyone