A while back I heard about the One Dollar Diet Project and was intrigued by their food budget ($1/per day per person in the household for food). The couple blogging about their experience donated $2300 to a local food pantry using the interest created in their project as a forum for donations.
Now they've posted a new challenge, this time one they found on the Crunchy Chicken blog site. Can you live on locally grown, organic food for the amount you would get for food stamps. Looking at how much you get for food stamps, I'd say, piece of (locally grown) cake.
As a single person I would get $176/month, which is slightly more than $40/week for food.
Including Gerd (who wouldn't do this project because he eats out every day for lunch) we would get $323/month.
A family of 4 would get $588/month, which may be trickier. I wouldn't know how much a family eats, but according to a friend on Adventures in Motherhood, the cost of food for a family is pretty big.
I'd really like to do this project, but I'm not exactly sure how I could keep track of how much I'm spending on me alone. I could ask Gerd to go on the diet, but lunch out is his worktime escape. Maybe I'll got on the challenge only for the next two weeks while Gerd's in Ireland so I can see if it would be difficult (but I think it would be very easy for me, I don't eat much meat). Right now we spend probably $50/week for food for the both of us, but Gerd doesn't eat breakfast and that's not including the times we eat out (usually at least once a week).
2 comments:
Clearly, tracking how much money we spend on food has been interesting for me. I think that my family could eat for a lot less by cutting out a lot of the higher-priced meats (nicer cuts of beef mainly, but seafood also, especially during Lent).
If you calculated the per-serving cost of a lot of things, they aren't very expensive. If you buy larger quantities. And if you don't end up letting things go bad and throwing them away.
We've been doing much better overall the past few months. In part, that's because I've been shopping at Sam's more for things, stocking our freezer, etc. I think what we'd have the most trouble with is the "local" part of the challenge. There is one farmer's market within a decent drive of here, which may be on the verge of closing, and it doesn't even open till May.
My pitiful attempts at gardening don't produce anything until late July. The butcher we used for a while retired, so we're back to Sam's and grocery stores for all meat products. And as for grains? Forget it. I don't know that Missouri produces much wheat :) Or seafood (the thought of eating catfish that may or may not have been in the Mississippi is kind of scary....).
My problem in Boston is the fruit. I'm willing to cut out most grains, and even if I wasn't I know I could get flour from within a 500 mile radius. Rice, well, that's more difficult, but other grains are locally grown as well.
But I'm not really wiling to give up fruits. There's a deal on Boston Organics, which is where I get my fruits and vegetables, where you can sign up for the Dogma box which is all local. Only problem is, they only offer apples for fruit. I suppose I could go one whole month with only apples, but I'm a bit spoiled. I want my oranges and pears.
So, I know I *COULD* do it, but I'm not willing to. I think it's really more about moving in that direction anyway.
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