Friday, November 15, 2013

Long day yesterday

Thursdays are my longest days of the week. Yesterday, I had an exam at 5:30. I stayed on campus from 8am-7pm. I brought some snacks, the usual poptarts and crackers, to hold me over throughout the day. I have to say oatmeal is a great choice for breakfast because it fills me up and I don't get hungry for a while. Plus, it's cheap obviously. The hardest part for me was my exam. I had been stressing out about it all day. It was an oral exam, meaning I had to meet with my professor one on one and he asked me questions and I would have to answer them and explain things to him. So a lot more stressful than my usual exams, and it was pass/fail so... Obviously after my exam I wanted to hit up the closest Taco Bell or McDonald's because I was starving and because I stress eat. Nothing sounded better than a root beer and something greasy. And now I am imagining eating a big mac right now... Seriously, I don't even like big macs that much. Anyway... I got home last night and made some mac and cheese, with a side of toast. Healthy. One thing that I have to confess I have "cheated" on is butter. When I went to walmart I didn't buy butter, but I have had to use it several times. This is something to think about though, because you need butter for a lot of the things you cook but I didn't factor it into my budget. Yes, I have four dollars left so I could have bought some but if there was something else big that you needed it would be hard to decide what you could buy.

I think I'm going to have a hard time this weekend. I'm really bad about eating out on the weekends, so this will be a struggle. I'm trying to decide what to eat for dinner... maybe another frozen pizza.

Good luck this weekend, everyone!

I Cheated, Kind of?

So....long story short my roommate gets a lot of free Red Bull every month. I was up late working on a project, so I went ahead and drank a Red Bull to help keep me awake while I finished a project. However, I never would have had enough money to actually buy an energy drink had my roommate not had a bunch of them lying around. This is hard, a lot harder than I thought it would be. Like, eating turkey sandwiches and peanut butter sandwiches everyday may not seem that bad on the surface. But it's like I'm not even eating real food anymore.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Shaking things up Elvis Presley style

Normally I'm a peanut butter LOVER.. I eat it straight out of the jar or put it on anything possible. However, when faced with a week of at least one meal a day consisting of peanut butter, I have to admit, it gets a bit boring. Today I mixed things up, though. I took a lesson from the King, toasted my bread first and added slices of banana to my peanut butter sandwich. So delicious! Not much variety in my diet this week in terms of nutrients, but I've been trying to add a bit of interest to my meals. Any other delicious meal ideas out there??

Community

I'm sort of getting used to this being hungry thing. I just try not to think about all I have left to eat is some turkey and peanut butter sandwiches through Sunday. This is just all so weird, and the only thing stopping me from cheating is knowing that I don't want to let down the other people who are doing it.

It was fun last night meeting with other people participating in the challenge and talking about our experiences and struggles. But then I got to thinking, what if I didn't have anyone to talk to about it? How long would it take for me to give up on myself if it was just me?

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Free pizza!

The highlight of my day was finding out that the blood drive was happening AND there was free pizza and soda. Now I usually donate blood when they are on campus, but I was overly excited about the free pizza this time. And I was also more nervous about getting turned away because of low iron. This makes me think about all of the events I hear about with free food. Would I be on the lookout for these if this was the budget I had to strictly follow every week?

Totino's pizza success

Day number 3 and going strong! When you buy cheap food, you don't get good quality. Had a frozen burrito for lunch. I think it cost a dollar and now I know why. Pop tarts again for a snack. That was by far my best purchase. Thanks Evan for the idea! Totino's pizza for around $1 was my dinner and it wasn't too bad! It was small and I'm still kinda hungry though. Who else is craving some serious fast food? Or a soda? And I don't even drink soda. Being on this challenge makes you miss food you didn't even know was that important to you. Still upset about my bread purchase by the way...

I'm nervous about tomorrow because I have class from 8-12:15 then meetings until 3. Then I have a test at 5. Probably going to stay on campus until after my exam is over but I'm going to have to figure out what to bring to eat. Probably pop tarts...

Big Mistake

Turns out, eating peanut butter sandwiches everyday sucks. Being a self-proclaimed peanut butter fanatic, I really believed I would not get tired of it. But I am, and I'm not even halfway through the week yet. I have a remaining $3 left. I have no clue what to spend that on, should I go to McDonalds and get a couple of McChickens for lunch and dinner?

My biggest mistake is when I bought expensive roast beef, thinking it would be more filling than cheap roast beef. Boy, was I wrong. Not only was it no more filling, but it had very few pieces of roast beef. I'm barley going to get 3 sandwiches out of the $4.50 container of roast beef. Yikes. I also worked until midnight last night, and then had to be at my other job by 8:00 am. I could really use some caffeine, but I do not want to use my last $3 on it.

AM

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Day 2...

So I am eating dinner as we speak. I decided to reheat the mashed potatoes and stuffing I ate yesterday because I had leftovers. It's basically thanksgiving dinner (minus all the good food and desserts). 

This morning I had class at 8, so I ate oatmeal again but I was rushed so I didn't get to finish it. I have class until 12:15, but was hungry in my 11 o'clock class so I ate the pop tarts I brought with me. I had to work until 5, which left me with only a package of crackers to last me until I got home. I ate those at work and managed to last. 

My main issue so far hasn't been hunger necessarily and I still have plenty of food, but it's affecting the rest of the things I do. Like I can't eat lunch on campus and I have to make sure I bring something. If I don't bring enough, I'm screwed. I can't stay on campus any later than dinner time to study or do anything else. It'll get worse as the week goes on. 

Also, this 99 cent bread is awful! I made toast and it's basically cardboard. Ugh. 

Also just realized I ate the exact same thing as yesterday minus the ramen, which I don't think I can eat. Anyone want 3 packs of ramen noodles??? 

Bland Food

Well so far I have noticed that the foods I chose to buy are all very bland. Eating bread, peanut butter, pasta, and pretzels is already boring by day 3. I know that I can make myself eat these foods for one week, but only because I know that when day 8 rolls around I can finally "reward" myself with some fast food. I don't feel bad about making myself eat the same thing over and over again, but if I had a family and kids I was expected to feed, I can see myself feeling pretty guilty. I probably would have spent more time planning a more cheap, diverse menu if I was worrying about feeding someone else. As a future social worker, I think this week is going to help put into perspective what many of my client's will be going through living off of SNAP benefits. I know only experiencing this for one week can not open my eyes to all of the struggles faced, but I hope it will help me see some of them first-hand.

Studying on an Empty Stomach

So far, this SNAP Challenge has been exactly what it's called-- a huge challenge. I've been pretty hungry yesterday and now today. Like Alex said, it's tough because I know I have food, but I don't have MUCH food, and if I eat too much today, will I have enough in a few days?
This week I have 3 tests.. It's hard to focus on studying or schoolwork when my stomach is growling. But, if I'm hungry after just a day and a half of the challenge and finding it so hard to focus, how do kids do it everyday? Some days all they eat is the meal provided at school. If I'm finding it this hard to focus on school, how much harder is it for them to hear the teacher's words over their own hungry thoughts? This week is definitely showing me how grateful I should be for the abundance of food normally available to me everyday and how hard it can be to live on so little.

Day 1 Reflection

I think I'm going to run out of food. When you go to the grocery store with $29 it feels like you buy a lot of food. But then I realized during the first day that seven days is a long time. I had to pay a lot more attention to how much I ate. I only put a few pieces of my roast beef on my sandwich, and wasn't sure how many grapes were too many to eat. I was hungry during the day yesterday, even though I ate lunch and dinner. It's just weird; it's weird to be hungry even though you know you have food to eat, but you don't want to eat until your full because that could mean not having enough food to last through the week. All these fears of running out of food will only get worse as the week progresses. I mean, that was day 1. What am I going to be saying on day 5?

Monday, November 11, 2013

First Day on the challenge!

So... my day hasn't been too bad. I had oatmeal for breakfast, which isn't out of the ordinary for me at all. I eat it almost every day. Then for lunch I had a cup of ramen noodles, which wasn't too bad but I don't know if I can eat them again. I had poptarts and some crackers for a snack. I eat probably every 3 hours, so I was worried about that! I am now at home and trying to decide what to eat. It will either be a frozen pizza or I'm thinking some boxed mashed potatoes and stuffing, which I love. One thing about the food I bought is that I do not have meat, fruits, or vegetables so not very healthy obviously. I was going to stay on campus to study but I was just too hungry and I knew I wouldn't be able to eat fast food, so I went home! The highlight of my day was the piece of chocolate someone gave to me! They were being nice so of course I had to take it! :)

How's everyone's day going?

Longest grocery trip ever

Last night I took my $29.96 to the Dillon's down the street from my house. After a lot of price comparisons and bargain hunting, I spent a total of $25.79. For hardly spending much money, I spent the most time ever on that one shopping trip. I definitely realized how much meal planning would be necessary to live on this type of budget every week! 
As for what I bought, I tried to keep my purchases healthy. I hear a lot of arguments that eating healthier is too expensive so this week I'm challenging myself to not only live on a budget, but also continue to eat healthy. I purchased bananas, apples, and carrots fresh, some frozen vegetables, frozen strawberries, bread, milk, peanut butter, greek yogurt, cheerios, animal crackers and fresh chicken-- my splurge for the week since it was $5.23! 
I portioned out my food as soon as I got home too, since I normally eat a LOT and couldn't risk eating all of my food in one day! It's definitely going to be a challenging week and I'll probably get bored of eating the same food everyday, but I'm excited to give this challenge a try! 

Expectations for SNAP Challenge--Day 1

Expectations of SNAP Challenge

I really have no idea what to expect this week, living on $29.96 this week. I feel like it is something I can manage pretty easily. Last night at the store I bought two loaves of bread, peanut butter, 2 pounds of grapes, a box of pop-tarts and some processed meat. I came in about $3 under budget. This being said, I really wanted to buy deli meat, because 1) it is much healthier and 2) it tastes much better. However, it was just too expensive for my limited budget. I also realized when I left the grocery store that I did not buy salt, pepper, milk, eggs, or cooking oil. Which means if I was doing this more than 1 week I'm not sure how I would make it without milk. There is a part of me that wants to try this challenge for a month long, because knowing I only have to use a limited budget for a week makes a huge difference. I am excited to see what perspective this week will bring to me; I will either gain a deeper appreciation for those who live SNAP check to SNAP check and realize the money provided for these checks are not substantial enough or I will find that $4.28 is enough money. Again, I have no idea what to expect this week, so here goes nothing. 

--Alex Miller

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Aldi it is!

I decided to start the challenge today and went shopping at Aldi this morning. I was too nervous about spending all my money at once, so I only spent $18.87 today- in hopes that I can splurge on something later in the week or buy something new if I get tired of what I have! Whenever I shop at Aldi I don't usually pay attention to what I grab because everything is relatively cheap. But I definitely paid attention today and added it all up as I went through the aisles! A few things I bought were eggs, english muffins, spaghetti noodles, bananas, and peanut butter. I think I can survive eating most of the same meals for 1 week- but not sure I could last much longer than that! 

My WalMart Trip

I just got back from my WalMart trip. Before going, I was pretty nervous. I'm a really picky eater and do not eat anything that I don't completely love. I also get tired of the same foods really quickly. Once I got there, I was feeling kind of lost. I usually just go through the aisles and pick out the foods that I like or that look good. I also eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, but I skipped both of those altogether. I wasn't sure what I could get that would be cheap and taste good. Another big issue that I'm going to have is that I am on campus for 10 hours a day sometimes. I eat lunch on campus every day, sometimes I bring my lunch but sometimes I eat at the PSU or somewhere close. Sometimes I am on campus for dinner too. This makes it really hard because I have to make sure that I have food that I can take to campus with me. I don't want to get half way through my day and be starving! So one thing I made sure to get were some foods I can take with me. I'm still nervous I'll get hungry and not be able to run through the PSU or a drive through. But I am going to do my best!

I live about 0.2 miles away from a WalMart market so I thought about just shopping each day, but decided to go ahead and just buy everything at once. I am so surprised by how much food I got for the money I spent! I usually spend around 70-100 dollars each time I go to WalMart. I spent $23.06! Yes, I will probably get tired of this food very quickly but I am still amazed. Some highlights off my receipt: ramen noodles (SO CHEAP!), frozen pizza, half gallon of skim milk (I usually buy skim milk anyways, and it's the cheapest so that's a plus!), oatmeal, 80 cent chicken pot pies, and crackers, and more. The most expensive item on my list was a box of great value poptarts at $2.68, how crazy is that? Most everything was under $1!

I'm nervous to start tomorrow! After my Walmart trip I went to KFC so.... You can tell I'm going to have trouble with this.
Just got done shopping for the SNAP challenge! At $23.83 I have only $6.13 left remaining. I am excited to start and see if they amount of food will last a week. From pasta, rice, pop-tarts, and bananas I think this should last. Wish me luck!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Getting ready...

I'm getting excited about our SNAP challenge. I was at walmart this weekend and actually saw some food that I'm excited to try. Ramen noodles, here I come!
Jackie Hampton