Welcome Smart Spending Readers! An article today by Karen Datko discusses whether you can live on $100/month for one person? This is less than the amount of food stamps for many. The consensus of many personal finance bloggers is YES!
She mentions my article “Still Hungry with Food Stamps“ where I ask why a woman can’t feed herself and her baby on $280/month food stamps. It’s quite a lot of money for a mother and infant, and diapers aren’t covered by food stamps. And she gets WIC for formula. Could you survive on $280/month?
3 responses so far ↓
1 FW // Jul 22, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Great article! My family of 3 could totally survive on $280 a month - in fact we routinely do. Part of the problem, I think, is that the people getting the food stamps either have no idea what foods to buy or don’t have the cooking skills to do much more than microwave. It comes down to education, and unfortunately they’re not the ones looking for the information online. i’ve considered doing an ebook with some basic shopping/cooking information in it and encouraging those who read it to print it out and leave it in places people who really needed it might find it… laundromats, grocery stores, even the library, since the people i see using the free internet aren’t doing much more than playing games.
2 Sense // Jul 23, 2008 at 8:59 am
My sister is one of those people that gets food stamps and it still isn’t enough to last her through the month–it’s crazy!
Her food stamp allowance of $169/mo is definitely enough money to live off of in the small town in VA where i’m from (and where she still lives), but she really doesn’t have the skills to manage her money to make it last…no matter how many times my mom and I teach her quick, cheap meals, or ways to manage her wants vs. needs, she’s too ill with acute schizophrenia for the messages to sink in–it’s like a switch is flipped off. she’s dealing with things more important that money right now…i think the case is the same for many like her. she just has NO IDEA how to deny herself anything–she wants, she gets. that’s it. money isn’t even in the equation.
she uses credit cards to fill the gap…and then gives the bills to her case manager to pay out of her disability money. she’ll never learn this way. i really fear for her future.
3 Zombie Money // Jul 24, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Nice article
My goal that I’m trying to stick to currently is $80 a month and its filled with meat, fruits and veggies. It isn’t a huge banquet but it still gets me by. I go shopping once a week at $20.00 and some weeks I’m a few dollars under or I’m a few over so it balances out.
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