In case anyone was worried

[hummingwolf]

I finally received notification last week that my application for food stamps had been approved! Based on the date of the letter, it looks like someone approved me within hours of my last phone call to the social services office, which fact would suggest that calling the department is a good way to get results if you did not know about all the other phone calls that never achieved anything at all.

Anyway, I have spent approximately $60 of those benefits in the last few days, which leaves me with $708 to play with. Yes, that's right: since food stamp benefits are retroactive, and they took so bloody long to find someone who could clear their schedule and deal with the massive backlog of applications they have in their office, I received more than seven hundred dollars worth of benefits all at once. Benefits which may be spent only on food. My medication may be making me hungry, but it's not making me that hungry. So mostly I've been buying sensible foods (bread, yogurt, cheese, beans, frozen veggies), stocking up on nonperishable items that are good to have around when I'm too tired to go to the store (dry milk, peanut butter, canned chicken), and splurging on a few things I might not ordinarily buy. (If anyone's interested, today's lunch was chatpate choley. With pierogies.)

For those who don't know, food stamps cannot be used to buy:

1. any nonfood item, such as pet foods; soaps, paper products, and
   household supplies; grooming items, toothpaste, and cosmetics
   
2. alcoholic beverages and tobacco
   
3. vitamins and medicines
   
4. any food that will be eaten in the store
   
5. hot foods that are ready to eat
   
6. any food marketed to be heated in the store
   

This means that you cannot use food stamps to buy a nice, nutritious meal from the supermarket soup & salad bar, but as long as you have enough benefits to pay for 'em, you can stock up on Mountain Dew, chewing gum, and caviar. So I'm curious: given the restrictions above, if you suddenly had over $700 to spend on food and nothing but food, what would you buy?

Comments

[compostwormbin.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you got your benefits!

I am aware of the food stamp rules because it was part of my cashier training. I think that some of the rules make no sense. I don't want to say people can't get junk food but ready to eat hot foods? We sell pre-cooked chickens that aren't that expensive and make great healthy meals and I totally don't get why they can't be included.

With over $700 in benefits - I'd buy organic fresh veggies and lots of organic canned goods and a few Amy's freezer pizzas. Maybe some 100% cranberry or pomegranite juice - expensive but nutritious and good! Organic berries and fruit too. Make breakfast smoothies. :) If you eat it, honey and pure maple syrup are expensive but awesome.

How long are the benefits good for? Do you have to spend them up in a certain time frame? If not I'd probably get a few splurge items and save most of it for a rainy day.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

I think the ready-to-eat foods rule makes a certain amount of sense in that most of them are more expensive than regular groceries and it would be terribly easy to waste precious benefits on them if you were allowed to do so. Still, there have been times when I could have killed for something from a salad bar that I couldn't buy anything from with the food stamps.

The first time I ever applied for food stamps, it took them even longer to approve me--which meant that by the time I was able to use them, I had over $900 in benefits. And then someone at social services told me I had better spend them quickly or I was in danger of having benefits reduced! That time, I really did stock up on a lot of things--beans, rice, canned vegetables in particular--and also bought lots of gourmet items, many of which I gave away to other people. It was crazy! But as far as I know now, having my benefits reduced is not really a danger, as long as my financial situation stays the same otherwise. I will spend more of the benefits than I otherwise would, just in case, but I do intend to save a lot just in case.

Benefits are valid as long as the card is active. That is, if I've used the card within the last nine months, all the benefits will still be available to me.

[hasufin.livejournal.com]

Thing about the ready-to-eat is, bear in mind you're actually in better shape than many people on food stamps: you have a kitchen! Barbara Ehrenreich raised a good point in Nickel and Dimed: it's very hard to conserve food money when you don't have cooking facilities. Dried beans are something like 1/5 the cost of canned beans, but they're not much used if you don't have the means to cook them for hours. Uncooked meat is cheap, but what if you don't have a refrigerator?

I see their point in trying to push people toward cheaper foods, but I suspect there's a basic disconnect on the options available.