JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Using Coupons with EBT/Snap

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

One way to make your EBT/SNAP/Food Stamps stretch further is to utilize store and/or manufacturers coupons.  Every dollar you use in coupons is one more dollar that isn't used of your food stamps allotment.
Pretty basic concept,huh?
But I've read where many people who receive governmental food benefits don't realize they can combine their food stamps with coupons.
I am sure as well that there are people who use food stamps who just don't care or want to take the time to clip coupons just like in the non-food stamp using population.
But we need to get the word out to people who just don't know that you CAN use coupons with your food stamp benefits.


If you live in a state that taxes food purchases, if you pay with food stamps, you are not taxed.  For example, if your state taxes food and you buy $50 of groceries and pay with cash or with a debit/credit card, you would be charged $50 + whatever the sales tax rate for your state is on that $50 purchase.
If you buy the same $50 in groceries and pay with EBT/Snap benefits, you would not be charged tax on the purchase.

However, if you use manufacturer's coupons along with your EBT/Snap benefits to pay for your groceries, you will owe CASH on the face value of the coupons at whatever the sales tax rate is for your state.
Store issued coupons on the other hand are NOT taxable.
Both types of coupons are solely an adjustment of the sales price of items and outside of the food stamp sales tax exemption.


Here's an example using my state of PA(sales tax rate of 6%)....
You buy $11 worth of eligible food.
You pay for your $11 of groceries with your EBT/Snap.
You are out of pocket no actual cash and $11 in EBT/Snap benefits for the month.
But--
You buy $11 worth of eligible food, using $1 worth of manufacturer’s discount coupons, and $10 in
food stamps.
Since the sales tax is imposed on the dollar amount of the coupon, the recipient
would pay $10.06 and would therefore have to supplement the $10 in food stamps with 6¢ in cash.
If the $1 coupon is a store issued coupon/discount it's not taxed, and the recipient pays $10.

While the coupons save you some EBT/Snap credit, you do have to pay out actual cash.
If you are in a situation where you can not afford using any of your cash to cover the tax on the coupons, you may not want to use manufacturers coupons.

Personally, I don't quite understand the reasoning of how this works.   You would think the government would encourage people to combine coupon use with EBT/Snap benefits so they could stretch their food credits further or be able to buy a higher quality/price of food.

Dinging someone with such low cash resources who wants to utilize coupons makes little sense to me.  You would think the government would do everything in it's power to encourage thrift among it's recipients!
Perhaps we need to get the rules changed and make manufacturer's coupons exempt from sales tax when used on food stamp eligible purchases.

Sluggy

JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Day Ten & Eleven

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

On Day Ten of the June Food Stamp Challenge I was finally able to cook the Turkey.  I had planned on serving Sweet Potatoes with this meal so while #1 son & I were over in the neighboring town I stopped in for some inexpensive taters and to use a coupon on a special on bagged salad at a small market there.

5 x Sweet Potatoes--1.98lbs. @.69lb.=$1.37
3 x FE bagged Salad on sale B1G2=$2.97
3 x Friendly's Ice Cream on sale B1G2=$5.99 **Not Pictured**
SubTotal....$10.33

Coupons Used
1 x FREE Fresh Express Salad(won in giveaway)=$2.97
Coupon Total....$2.97

$10.33-$2.97=$7.36 Out of Pocket
 Regular Retail of Items purchased...$28.31


While the ice cream was not a need(I'm still stocking up on some items) everything else was bought to be used this month during the Challenge.

I served turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and home-grown beans on Day Ten.
Cost breakdown on the items I already had on hand....turkey(free last fall for buying $x amount during a promotional period), stuffing($2.00), cranberry sauce(.80), beans(free from our garden last summer-the last of them)=$2.80.

Since I had ground beef thawed in the fridge I still needed to make and serve Sloppy Joes this week and I was still out of rolls and bread.  Another bad day for baking on Day Ten so I planned on going to the Entenmman's Outlet in the big city for inexpensive bakery products as usual.

But you know what?.....They don't take EBT at the Bakery Outlet.  So someone on Food Stamps is out of luck procuring day old bread there and I don't feel right while on this Challenge shopping there.
So the Entenmman's Outlet was out.

Luckily, I remembered a Stroehman's affiliated Outlet near the little grocery we shopped at in the neighboring town.  So we checked them out and they DO take EBT....yay!

I found a loaf w/out HFCS for .99 but all the rolls had HFCS in them so I picked the least expensive ones.

1 x Bread=$.99
2 x Rolls(2/$1)=$1.00
Total....$1.99

I am working on tonight's dinner(Day Eleven)now.  We will have the Sloppy Joes and I have made no trip to the grocery store today.  Items used from the stockpile for today's meal amount to $1.00(Sloppy Sauce).

Spending for Day Ten & Eleven...$13.15


Spent to Date....$116.02
June Food Budget Left....$294.70
Days of Challenge Left....19 

Sluggy

JUNE Food Stamp Challenge....Days Eight & Nine

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


Again I am having to show ya'll a photo of leftovers.....sigh.....get it together Sluggy for pete's sake!lol

This was dinner on Tuesday...Day Eight.  The only reason we had leftovers is because #2 son had an Orthodontist appointment that afternoon and his teeth didn't feel like eating that evening so he had soup and applesauce instead.

If you guessed that this is Spaghetti and Meatballs you are only partially correct.  It's actually faux meatballs or meatless balls.  They sure look like meatballs and with the sauce on them they sure taste like meatballs(albeit less dense than my homemade meatballs).....but they have no meat.
They do have dairy in them however.....alot of dairy!
(cheese, egg and a dash of milk)
The recipe is posted on my bloggy friend Annie Jones's blog HERE.
I can attest that these are VERY GOOD.  The teens didn't know they were meatless until I told them.  I did double the batch and making my usual sized meatballs, the mixture made 20 meatballs total.  Everyone got a serving of 4 meatless balls with their pasta and sauce.
I think next time I'll tweak this recipe by chopping or grinding up some rolled oats and adding that to the mix as well as coating them with the rolled oats.

Making the traditional Spaghetti and Meatballs sans meat is one way to bring the cost down when you serve this meal.  Meat products are by far as a group the most expensive items in a food budget.  If you are living on Food Stamps you need to be frugal with your purchases if your EBT is going to last the entire month.
The cost of this meal for the ingredients I haven't bought during my June food shopping came to $4.00(counting #2 son's food).
(I served a salad along with the Pasta just so you know we did have veggies too.)

Wednesday's dinner plan was a disaster.
I had planned on serving the Turkey that night....but the Turkey had other plans of it's own.
I still wasn't thawed. ugh
So I went to the next night's plan which was Sloppy Joes and pulled a package of Ground Beef out of the freezer.
And that refused to thaw in time.
Plus I had planned on making rolls today for tomorrow's Sloppy Joes but the rainy humid day was NOT conducive for baking today.

So 2 hours before dinner I pulled out a tupperware container of leftover BBQ Pulled Pork, popped it into a glass bowl and set it on defrost in the microwave since I didn't have much time left.
After 2 rounds of nuking, I discovered that my BBQ Pork was NOT BBQ Pork.....it was leftover homemade Chili!!
Hey, frozen into a solid block they looked the same, ok?lol

So we changed the plan again.  Now we were having chili and burritos with a side of corn.
But I had no burritos.
This meant a quickly thrown together plan for a trip to the grocery store.
There were some things I wanted to pick up at Weis this week on sale that I had coupons for, so that's where I went....

1 x 1/2 Gallon Skim Milk=$1.59--we were almost out of milk
4 x Sargento Shredded Cheese on sale $2=$8.00
2 x Hanover frozen Broccoli on sale $1.69=$3.38
1 x frozen Burritos=$3.99
SubTotal....$16.96

Coupons Used
4 x $.75/1 Sargento Reduced Sodium Cheese ManuQ(doubled to $1)=$4.00
1 x BOGO Hanover Vegetables=$2.19**
1 x $7 OYNO Catalina from last week's shopping=$7.00
Coupon Total....$13.19

**The Veggie coupon when scanned took off the maximum value allowed on the item($2.19) even though the item was only $1.69.  The cashier asked the front end manager if that was ok and he said yes, so I received an extra .50¢ discount on my order I wasn't expecting.

$16.96-$13.19=$3.77 Spent Out of Pocket
A savings of 84% over regular retail.

Other items on hand not bought in June we used on the Burrito Meal came to $.80.
Total of additional spending on food in June for the last 2 days....$8.57

Spent to Date....$102.87
June Food Budget Left....$307.85

Sluggy

Rite-Aid Trip on 6/9/10......Survey Says....

Made a quick trip to Rite-Aid Wednesday looking for a ProGlide Razor with a survey inside.....

2 x Old Spice Red Zone Deodorant on sale $3.50=$7.00
1 x Old Spice Red Zone Spray on sale=$3.50
1 x Lubriderm Lotion $4.29 w/Wellness 20% discount=$3.43
1 x ProGlide Razor on sale=$9.99
SubTotal...$23.92

Coupons Used
1 x $5/$20 Purchase AdPerks/VV IPQ=$5.00
1 x B2 Red Zone Deo./G1 Red Zone Body Spray ManuQ=$3.50
1 x $1/2 Red Zone Old Spice Items ManuQ=$1.00
1 x $2/1 Lubriderm IPQ=$2.00
1 x $3/1 Lubriderm In-Ad Store Q=$3.00
1 x $4/1 ProGlide Razor ManuQ=$4.00
Coupon Total.....$18.50

$23.92-$18.50=$5.42+$.33 tax=$5.75 OOP put on free Rite-Aid Gift Card--ZERO OOP
Value of Items....$31.65
Qualified for SCR#102=$5(Gillette Razor)
Received $4.00 +Up Reward

Since I bought a razor I obviously found one with the Survey inside.  It's a folded up piece of white paper behind the razor.  You can see it from the side of the package.

And here it is unfolded.  The survey takes about 5 minutes and the $5 Gift Card is suppose to arrive in 3-4 weeks.


My Rite-Aid Totals so far this month......
Number of Transactions.....4
Total Spent....$17.35--all put on free Gift Cards so ZERO  OOP
Total Value of Items Purchased....$127.66
SCR qualified for....$22.99 (working on #555 & #101 also for gift cards, not cash)
+Up Rewards Earned....$8.00(it spends like a CVS ECB)
Additional Rewards....$5.00 Gift Card from Gillette
 
Even without the gift cards to put my OOP on, I'd have $5.64 in cash overage, plus $13.00 in merchandise rewards to spend.

I have $18.50 toward the $25 needed for SCR#101 Gift Card and still at $19.51 toward the $50 needed for SCR#555 Gift Card.

Sluggy

Garden June 6th Update.....10 Days

Because of our location, we are not able to have a longer growing season or even garden year round like other parts of the country.  Man, if I lived someplace that was warm year round I'd be a growing fool...instead of just a plain fool!lol

The best way to live frugally foodwise, if you have the climate and a little land is to keep a garden.  I don't care if you think you have a black thumb, anyone can grow something!  I truly believe that.
You may not be P. Allen Smith or the world's most knowledgeable horticulturist but everyone can find something they can grow and eat.

Some seeds are pretty forgiving and fool-proof....just throw em down and even if you ignore them(and the skies provide rain when you forget to water them) and the bugs don't chew their way through everything, you'll end up with something to eat.  Imagine if you make any kind of effort to fend off the bugs, water and nurture these little seeds, what you could accomplish! ;-)

I am a lackluster gardener.  I like to garden but my old decrepit body does not, so I like my gardening simple and I don't put a big effort into it.
We don't have acreage here, we have about 1/3 of an acre lot.  We've got a deck over part of the land, drainage ditches & underground buried power lines in other parts of the land and an above ground pool taking up more valuable real estate.  Take away the areas with large shade trees and there isn't much ground for gardening but we use what we have.

Seriously, if you don't garden but you have a little plot of land or even a pot of soil, get a packet of seeds and try growing something this summer. ;-)


Here are some piccies I snapped last weekend(June 6th) of the garden.  10 days out so it's still early here and not much to see....lol
The butternut, peppers and marigolds in the front....still no sign from the sunflower seeds.

Here's the side bed on June 6th....

Peppers doing ok.  The tomato plants have blooms already!   Here's what the tomoatoes looked like on May 26th....

You can tell by comparison the pepper plants have done squat.....lol

More tomatoes and marigolds.  This end of the bed has worse soil and less sun.  I've manured and I'll give them 'fish tea' so we'll see how they do...
DH sewed zuke, squash and bush bean seeds in the middle 3rd of this bed Sunday so nothing to see there yet.

Now to the back bed.....

Tomatoes grew some....

And the Cauliflower on the right has started growing.  DH planted the eggplant on the right in the photo and they are holding their own.  Here's what the cauliflower looked like on May 26th...

Marked improvement with the cauliflower.

And I'm glad to see that the salad greens #1 son and I sewed are starting to pop up!  It was only a matter of 4 days or so for them to germinate and break the surface.....we'll have salad in a few weeks...yay!!

Here's what our salad greens part of the bed looked like last summer at it's peak in mid-July....the greens sort of took over due to the wet and cool summer we had last year and just wouldn't die!lol

Last but not least, here is a planter with some leftovers that didn't fit into the beds(peppers, a butternut and a yellow squash?).  Not much growth yet but they aren't dead so I am happy with that.lol

Looks like it's time to get the fencing up though.  Our resident rabbit(who lives under the shed)has been eye-ing the plants..... 8-(

Sluggy