Posted on 08/07/2007 11:00:37 AM PDT by NEMDF
Slice: Mother strives for healthful meals on a budget
Sandra Shepard has to make the $500 food stamp allotment she receives reach to the end of the month. She plans carefully so that she will be able to feed her family of five, including, daughter Macole Shepard, 13, and son Dominic Shepard, 10.At half past noon, the No. 30 rolls up. And the family's monthly marketing ritual is on.
Shepard's next three hours will be filled with comparison pricing and child pleas. It will wrap up with 33 plastic grocery bags and a crowded cab ride.
Not a suburban soccer mom's ideal afternoon, but Shepard doesn't mind.
The 44-year-old mother has no job, no car and no husband to share the bills. In her world wracked by financial instability, the monthly shopping trip offers a welcome bit of control.
The tricky part is stretching her food stamp allotment to feed her family of five.
Providing nutritious fare for a little more than $1 per meal per family member is challenging - and it's getting more so every month.
* * *
Grocery prices are soaring at the highest rate in years.
Not since 1980 has the annual growth rate of food bills been as high, said Steve Reed, an economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Fresh vegetables and fruit helped drive up grocery costs 4.6 percent in June compared with a year ago. That's faster than the 2.7 percent inflation rate during that period.
Combine the squeeze at the supermarket with increasing demands on time, and
we're all in danger of falling short of hitting the U.S. Department of Agriculture measures for fit and healthy Americans.
Consider: Only one in five people eats the recommended daily amount of fruit; kids eat less than half the fruits and veggies our federal government advises; and obesity in youngsters is on the rise.
Failure to pull it all off could mean low performance at school or work and raise a number of health problems.
Nationwide, roughly 26 million people receive food stamps on debit-type plastic cards. Shepard is among the 120,000 or so in Nebraska. Half the recipients are children.
For them, the challenge is magnified with every trip to the grocery store.
* * *
When the No. 30 reaches the No Frills intersection, several passengers quickly jaywalk toward the store.
Shepard pauses, her bad foot still smarting from a slip on the ice while walking home from a party in December.
The broken bones have temporarily exempted her from food stamp work requirements.
When she gets a job, she wants day hours. Her past night shifts, Shepard says, have left her kids vulnerable to the streets. Her 15-year-old son has been in the youth detention center for truancy.
Thirteen-year-old daughter Macole, however, is on the honor roll, a distinction mom boasts on a bumper sticker plastered on her front door. Son Dominic, 10, also is on track, and Shepard wants to keep it that way.
She instructs Macole to run into the Dollar Tree for deodorant.
"Ain't nothin' but a dollar, and just as good."
Dominic and his mom saunter into the cool market. It's bursting with brilliant colors and orderly shelves, a contrast to their public housing apartment.
Shepard mounts a motorized scooter. Dominic grabs a shopping cart, and the mom-son caravan heads to the produce aisle.
Mom bypasses bananas, examines strawberries and settles on a pineapple. "Dang," she exclaims. "Apples went up."
She bags 10 nectarines and, after a third thought, gives in to the pricey Bing cherries. "It's summer," she reasons.
Shepard draws the line at the Asian cocktail shrimp that caught her daughter's eye. Nix on the beef Twister Dogs her son saw on TV.
She chooses calorie-dense, generic fish sticks over the trans-fat-free kind. Sodium-plenty salami and smoked liver are in; two-for-$1 corn on the cob out.
"That's just ridiculous. I'll buy the frozen corn."
Key to staying within budget, says Shepard, is buying in bulk. Economy-sized ketchup and pickles. Pork chops by the carton.
"I don't really care for pork chops, but they're cheap."
The 10-pound pack of ground beef will make four meals: spaghetti, sloppy Joes, tacos and hamburgers.
Breakfast? Her kids like the taste of plain-label cocoa puffs.
Snacks? She buys four $1 boxes of gummy candies.
Shepard calls the eight frozen pizzas and two dozen $1 TV dinners "fast food" - they're the closest her children get to Pizza Hut or KFC.
More often, she carves her own nuggets out of chicken breasts.
"Anything a restaurant can make, I can make better," says the former waitress.
She learned the craft from her ex, who was a better cook than a husband.
Just when it seems nothing more will fit in the two carts, Dominic stuffs in 30 Kool-Aid packets. They have sugar at home.
Finally, mom lets the kids splurge on the spicy deli wings they've been eyeing. They're cold and must be microwaved at home. Warm munchies, just like paper products and alcohol, aren't allowed under food stamp rules.
On to the register, where a cashier honors the outside ads tucked under Shepard's arm.
* * *
Total price tag: $346.
Shepard calls a cab, then pores over the draping receipt.
Her food stamp allotment for the month is $500. She has yet to buy food items she saw for less at Walgreens. That will barely leave the $100 food stamp reserve she tries to save for midmonth incidentals.
"Those Bing cherries did me in," she concludes.
The family's separate $500 state welfare check pays for rent, clothes, toiletries and other nonfood supplies.
Fifteen minutes later, Happy Cab arrives and Shepard packs the trunk with bags. Jumbo egg and Ramen noodle cartons ride on kids' laps.
Shepard calls ahead on her cell phone to round up carriers.
Keith, her 18-year-old, meets the cab at the 29th and Parker Streets housing project. A recent South High graduate, he baby-sits his girlfriend's child while she attends school.
Monte, the 15-year-old, is a no-show. The two oldest live in Missouri.
Once inside, Macole and Dominic snap into action.
They remove all frozen items from boxes so more fits in the refrigerator-freezer.
They store meat and cheese in the deep freezer, which Shepard bought for $80 with her Earned Income Tax Credit. She calls it her salvation because it lets her stock up on sale items.
"We always had a deep freeze growing up."
Shepard fondly recalls her "spoiled" childhood on a Missouri farm with fruit trees.
She became pregnant with her first child at age 20, had another child but never married their father.
She wound up in an Omaha shelter seven years ago after escaping the abusive man she did wed. Here, she received higher public assistance benefits and was absorbed into public housing.
Despite being in a high-crime pocket, she is pleased with her four-bedroom apartment. It's on the outer ring of the housing development, and she says violence is worse near the core.
Nonetheless, summer requires extra vigilance. The same watchful eye goes for the family budget, since the kids during this break don't get free school breakfasts and lunches.
* * *
For now, anyway, the refrigerator is full. Everyone's happy.
Shepard is frustrated by her limited mobility, but there's a bright side: She'd be throwing together a lot more "fast food" dinners if she were working.
Indeed, preparing healthful meals on a food stamp budget requires time and planning.
Dominic lobbies for his favorite: weenie and bean casserole topped with cornbread. Low in nutrients, but tasty and cheap.
Mom's doughnuts - hot biscuits topped with powdered sugar glaze - will be dessert.
"We manage," said Shepard. "You just deal with it the best you can."
---Still available for pennies.
and maybe a splurge on moisturizer or sun screen?
---LoL.
What about diapers, baby wipes, feminine hygiene products and a few basic first aid supplies for the kids?
---Vinegar, cotton balls, a cotton sheet, isopropyl alcohol. Again available for pennies. I can just see me asking my dad for "first aid supplies" as a kid. What could that possibly mean beyond a band-aid? LMAO.
---When mommy and/or daddy can pay for extracurricular activities then they can pay for food.
I'm not arguing with you; I am against the perpetuation of the welfare lifestyle. Encouraging smart shopping, budgeting and good household habits rather than just giving away or cheaply selling prepared boxes of food is a better approach. My point was that the "pennies" add up.
By "first aid supplies" I mean benadryl-type stuff for allergies/bee-stings,etc, antibiotic ointment for burns scrapes, maybe over the counter vitamins, particularly important if your diet may be lacking in some areas. Generic over the counter cough medicine, acetaminophen and such is certainly cheaper and faster than a trip to the emergency room for two $50 tylenol charged to Medicaid.
And if you take your kids on the train or bus to the public beach in the summer or even soccer field, don't you put some sunscreen on them? Doesn't sound like a wild extravagance or terrible waste of money to me. I'm not talking about cigarettes and manicures.
BTW, many school districts make sports (and music) programs available to any student at no additional cost so that all may participate regardless of their family's financial situation. Once we taxpayers have agreed to fund these programs in our school budgets, all students get their uniforms and transportation to games at no additional cost to the family, regardless of their ability (or inability) to pay. Band and orchestra instruments are made available for those who need as well.
I've always felt the kid carrying the trumpet or violin who passes down my street walking from the high school to the projects a few blocks away is less likely to be one who mugs me.
Exactly. I have 2 kids, I'm a SAHM and my husband owns his own business. I have worked hard to learn how to match grocery sales with coupons and now am spending at most about $200 for groceries, and another $50 or so on other essentials (TP, paper towels, toiletries, household items, etc). And my pantry is overflowing. I'm so sick of these sympathy ploys by the MSM - whether it's for the "poor and oppressed" or for the "illegals that are just trying to make a living and not get deported" - give me a break.
If you include toiletres, etc, I’m way over 500! I have all daughters, but agree with your post.
Nobody who is so lazy that they are on government support should bripe about how much they get. If they don’t like it, get a damn job. The government already gave them a high school diploma, unless they intentonally screwed thta up too, but then why the hell is that the fault and burden of the taxpayers? Yeah, this stuff really pisses me off.
And, what of her children’s college tuitions?? Pre-college? (For example, we spent a few grand so our 11 year old could go to a good college this summer). Have her children even been to summer camp?
What is worse is that what is happening to our nation that we don’t give a shit anymore. This story is about a woman with an abusive ex-husband struggling to raise her children in an urban project. Perhaps it would be better for all of us if this were more “newsworthy.” I am tired of hearing about people getting murdered, aren’t you?
I can’t believe I am a lawyer (a mostly stay-at-home mom one raising her five kids on her husbands salary as a foreman carpenter!!!), always thought of as unfeeling by trade, and I have to be the one to say this?
You blame her for taking your tax dollars? What about the billions of dollars the government wastes every year? And if she doesn’t get food stamps, then what? Uncle Sam going to issue us a refund? Don't forget, many woman receiving food stamps are in fact underemployed (minimum to low wage) woman who pay taxes themselves. I feel my time is better spent considering how the price of necessities has risen so dramatically in the last decade while minimum wage has risen less than a dollar.
When you were growing up, things were alot cheaper!
She would only collect anything from a dead father if paternity were established before he was buried.
She was married. She was married sometime after baby number two, the article says. If you actualy read the article, you would know she is fleeing an abusive ex-husband.
I am disgusted I have to breath the same as as someone who would say such demeaning things.
Staples were actually more expensive in the 1970s than they are now on an inflation adjusted basis.
And I’m disgusted to have to wake up early in the morning and go do work I don’t enjoy for half wages because the other half is taken from me to reard welfare brood mares for perpetuating themselves.
There’s disgust to go around and then some.
Parasites.
How about babysitting like all the other 13 year old girls around the country are doing? Granted, she wouldn’t get the big bucks the kids get in the suburbs, but even 3 bucks an hour is better than zero. She could even do it in her mother’s apartment, since Mom’s home.
I still think the world would have been better of if she was sterilized. And I will continue to hold that opinion as long as she continues to live on my tax dollars
When you don’t have the money, you don’t spend it. I spend maybe $10 a month eating out because I don’t have the money to do it more often, because my taxes are allowing this person and people like her to live in a style that I cannot afford. I cannot buy sun screen for my children, it is NOT in the budget. So what? you ask... So what is that I CANNOT COME CLOSE to having the kind of money to spend on the things that she does, and she does not work, AND she seems to think we should be doing more. Maybe I have a so-called middle-class suburban life? I don’t know. Live in a suburb, have mortgage payments. But with inflation, (property taxes went up 31% last year) etc. and being a single parent, I cannot spend the kind of money that she does to feed my lot. No spouse carrying my bag. Yes I blame her and the system that allows it for taking my tax money. This is just one of many places that the government wastes millions of tax dollars every year.
But it truly offends me that I WORK very hard and cannot afford the same things that are being given away as our money in tax dollars. AND the recipients seem to think they have it hard...
Yes, there was arguably a more dramatic housing cost increase in the 1970’s. But see these links discussing how grocery prices have risen in the last decade.
See http://consumerist.com/consumer/cost-of-living/basic-costs-have-increased-dramatically-in-the-last-decade-284347.php ; http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2007/07/15/2784264.htm.
What was demenaing? I think that was a great idea but overly generous. If you can’t feed them, DON’T breed them.
Good for your daughter. I mean that sincerely. My 15 y/o son has been beating the bushes here in west O and as soon as he tells them he’s 15 ( he’s 6’+ and looks older) they tell him he’s too young and it’s not worth it to hire him for the 18 hours a week that the feds restrict the companies to.
Hey, let me tell you, you people are just jelous because you have to bust your asses working. Suckers! let me tell you about my day. Tommorow is my food stamp day. While you all get out of your warm beds to go to that hellhole you work at, I’ll be sleeping till 11 or maybe noon.
I get a free van ride to Wal Mart and its paid for by the goverment. I get $200 in food stamps. I’m going to buy, pizza, sirloin steaks, bags of candy, chips plenty of soda, tv dinners, and all kinds of other goodies.. Oh ya, I can’t buy beer with food stamps, but I can with SSI, so i’m going to get 2 cases.
You see I can buy treats cause my lunch and dinner are delivered by meals on wheels for free.
You people hate me? Well I hate you too, but you are the ones slaving away, so whos the stupid one?
P.S. I pay only $30 a month for subsidizied rent, $12 for utilities and thats it. i have plenty oleft over for Satelite TV with all the movie channels, broadband internet, and an I phone!
Have a nice day haters! :)
Welcome to FR. You signed up today just for that?
Not to worry, Obamba will get his pound of flesh out of you. He’ll probably assign you to the Civilian National Security Force and make you go around confiscating guns. At that point you’ll wish you’d taken that job at McDonald’s when you had the chance.
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