I gathered my receipts from my most recent trip to the grocery store and made a chart of the food purchased on those trips that I plan to consume this week. Their costs are subtracted from the $20 remaining in my budget, after I took $1 off the top for random condiments like salt, pepper, garlic, and the other necessities of life. Here’s what I wind up with–my baseline foods, and a balance of $8.26 for the other items I need.
| Food description | Qty | Price | Remaining balance |
| Dry black beans | 1.62 lbs | $ 1.09 | $ 18.91 |
| Flour tortillas | 12 | $ 0.98 | $ 17.93 |
| 6-cheese blend | 8 oz | $ 1.68 | $ 16.25 |
| Yukon Gold Potatoes | 1.1 lbs | $ 0.98 | $ 15.27 |
| Serrano pepper | 2 | $ 0.11 | $ 15.16 |
| Yellow pepper | 1 | $ 0.12 | $ 15.04 |
| Braeburn Apples | 1.11 lbs | $ 1.10 | $ 13.94 |
| Yellow onion | .75 lbs | $ 0.74 | $ 13.20 |
| Tomatoes | .75 lbs | $ 0.97 | $ 12.23 |
| Romaine lettuce | I bag | $ 1.78 | $ 10.45 |
| Nancy’s plain yogurt | 1 quart | $ 2.19 | $ 8.26 |
It’s fairly obvious to me that there’s not going to be a lot of variety, but I really wanted to have some fresh foods and some active bacteria in the mix. Three things I still want to buy include brown rice, oatmeal, and a few eggs. The rice and oatmeal will be from the bulk foods section, of course, and unless I can buy 6 eggs for about .89, I’ll skip them. Some bread would also be nice, and I’ll have to see if I can afford to “buy” the bread I purchased last week for consumption during the food stamp challenge.
The other thing? Coffee! There’s no wiggle room for my Stumptown whole beans that I take to work for use in my French press.
Good for you to try this and to blog about the experience. I hope you’ll keep blogging on poverty issues after the food stamp week is over. There aren’t many of us out there.