Wednesday, June 16, 2010

JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Days Fourteen & Fifteen=Half Way!

This post is part of the June Food Stamp Challenge located HERE.

Monday was Day 14 of the June Food Stamp Challenge.
Monday was also the day 2 of the mouths I feed left home--one will be back in a week, one is gone for the summer.
So I am down to 3 people in the home this week.
And the rate at which the food gets eaten up here will slow waaaay down.

Or will it?

Though I only have 3 people to feed this week, yesterday was the last day of school for #2 son.
That means my food bill will increase because a couple of the neighborhood kids hang out here during summer recess.

We have a pool and a mom(me) who will feed whatever stray teen shows up.
While the JFSC doesn't allow me extra in my food budget, I will go through extra food rations for the remainder of this month.

If someone is living off of EBT alone, having extra hungry teens eating through your kitchen cabinets and fridge could mean running out of food before the month is out. You want to be welcoming to your kids friends but it could be very stressful to your budget to have them around.

You could try to stretch the food budget by buying cheaper foods. This might work as teens love all that processed junkie food, but it would also mean pouring empty unhealthy calories into their growing bodies(which is bad) plus your family's food choices would also suffer as you'd either have to buy less of the healthy food or buy lesser quality of foods for your own use as well to stay on budget.

I am NOT buying soda but the teens require a teeny bit of sugary beverages along with the water I make them drink, so I'll make them homemade lemonade(at least they will get real citrus fruit along with the sugar in the deal).  As a cheaper alternative to soda we'll break out the Kool-aid on occasion...the packet ones where you add your own sugar as that is less costly than the premade canister stuff(and more eco-friendly since you only have a small paper packet to compost and not a big plastic container to recycle). 
For snacks I'll do some crudites(raw veggies)and dip, homemade hummus and crackers, sliced apples and peanut butter, and homemade pizza(offering some veggie options to go under the pepperoni slices), and make stir-frys with frozen veggies and the ramen noodles they always eat.  Once the garden starts producing tomatoes(crossing fingers!), I'll offer BLTs and Fried Zuchinni slices.

How would you handle this dilemna?
And please share any low cost/healthy-ish foods I can offer the gang of teens this summer.  (Nothing with margarine or artificial sweeteners however.)  I'd love to hear any ideas!


Back to our Eating for the last 2 days.....

Monday was leftover Turkey with Dehydrated Mashed Potatoes, homemade gravy using the leftover pan drippings from when I roasted the Turkey last week, and peas to round out the meal. Cost of food...turkey-free, potatoes-free, peas-.30¢, gravy-.10¢ for the flour/butter/spices=.40¢


Tuesday was Beef Enchiladas with Corn.  I added the leftover chili from last week to the beef filling and made my homemade Enchilada Sauce. 
Cost of food here(not bought during June)that was used includes sauce ingredients-.80¢, corn-.30¢, tortillas-.60¢=$1.70

Since I did no grocery shopping the last 2 days, my only 'spending' was for the food used that was bought before June.


We are halfway through June and our food budget is looking good!   Sticking to the budget on the back end of the month will be vital to staying on task.

 'Spending' for Day Fourteen and Fifteen...$2.10

Spent to Date....$142.76
June Food Budget Left....$267.96
Days of Challenge Left....15


Sluggy

8 comments:

  1. I'd send the extra kids home to eat. Ok, I probably wouldn't, but I would want to. LOL

    You ideas sound solid to me. Maybe a few homemade cookies to satisfy anyone with a sweet tooth. You could add popcorn to the list. It's cheap (even the micro kind is not that expensive) and it doesn't all have to be the fat-laden faux-buttery kind I eat. ;)

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  2. I'm doing a bit better with grocery $. Anna never is home and never wants to bring anyone here so it's been a bit cheaper!
    You are doing very well on the challenge. It would be hard to make it on food stamps. You would just have to build up a reserve. But I think that would be slow going too.
    Have a great hump day!

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  3. AnnieJ--cookies and popcorn, check! I'm waiting for a sunny day here that I don't need to drive anywhere so I can make some solar cookies...blog post to follow when I do.lol
    Thanks for the list additions. ;-)

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  4. SonyaAnn--Glad to hear it on the grocery $. Anna is at that age where they don't want any of their friends being around their parents...Holly is there as well. It's a good thing for your budget so enjoy it.lolol

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  5. YUM! Good job! And as I got onto your page, I was suddenly greeted with Weird Al! LOVE him! Perfect.

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  6. McVal--Yes, you will notice that I stole your Playlist on your blog idea.lolol
    I might set it to not play automatically tho...I don't want to scare anyone. ;-)

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  7. Sluggy, you are doing great on your food $. I feel for you, having extra teens there. When ours were teens, Meredith dated a boy for a while who did not like his stepmom. But he loved Meredith's! (That's me. LOL!) He was at our house pretty much every day after school and would leave around 9....after dinner of course. He ate at our house at least 5 days a week. Man! Our food bill went down a lot when they stopped dating.

    But we alwauys encouraged the kids' friends to hang out at our house...err...apartment. We always knew where they were. And we had a pool.

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  8. Frances--Pool=teen magnet....that and food.lol
    Noah's buddy's mom babysits Mon-Fri. She locks the door at noon when the kids go down for a nap, so her older kids either have to stay inside from noon to 4pm or they have to stay outside from noon to 4pm. If they stay inside they have to be silent so obviously, they all leave the house at noon. And they come here, coming and going through my house and my refrigerator.lol
    Isn't that nuts tho?....locking your own kids out of their house all afternoon?

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