For me one interesting point was that he could get enough calories, but not enough protein or nutrients. And this is how poor people can be overweight but still malnourished.
The second was that he became careful how he handled his money - the actual cash, smoothing out dollar bills and so on. It's funny how being conscious of one thing makes you conscious of another.
This has made me think, if you were to follow the government's nutritional guidelines, about how much would you spend. The guidelines are much the same across the West, the Aussie ones are
here.
At a glance, for someone like me, a male in the 19-50yo bracket, it's,
Vegies = 6 serves = 3 cups/450g chopped
Fruit = 2 serves = 300g fruit
Grain = 6 serves = 6 slices bread = 3 cups or ~600g rice/pasta/oats
Meat/eggs/nuts = 3 serves = 300g meat/fish = 6 eggs = 90g nuts
Dairy = 2.5 serves = 2.5 cups full milk = 2 cups yoghurt = 100g hard cheese
Women and older folk get less, only breastfeeding women get more overall, so this can be considered an upper limit to consumption under govt recommendations.
Now looking at the cheapest versions of each at my local supermarket, assuming I bought in some bulk and spread things out,
Vegies, frozen mixed, 1kg = $3 or 0.45x$3 = $1.35/day. There are cheaper packs of mixed vegies, but these are usually bulked up with potatoes and corn, which technically fit in the "grains" category. Fresh can be had for $3/kg and up, though.
Fruit can be got for $2/kg seasonally on average, so that's 0.3x$2 = $0.60/day
Grain you'd want some variety, and with 3 cups to have just have 1 of each a meal. I would get
- oats 750g pack for $1.20 = $0.24/day
- rice 1kg pack for $1.40 = 0.15x$1.40 = $0.21/day
- pasta 500g pack penne $0.65 = 150/500x$0.65 = $0.20/day
Meat etc will be the pricey one. Again, variety would be nice. So let's look at some meat, some fish and some eggs each day.
- beef mince $7/kg = 0.1x$7 = $0.70/day
- fish, frozen basa fillets 1kg for $6.50 = 0.1x$6.50 = $0.65/day
- eggs, dozen, $3 = $0.50/day for 2 eggs
DairyLong-life milk $0.90/lt = 1x0.25x$0.90 = $0.23/day
Tasty cheese $6/kg = 0.04 x$6 = $0.24/day
Yoghurt $3/kg = 0.2x$3 = $0.60
In all, $5.52 a day, $38.64 a week or $167.31 per calendar month. You'd have to get some things weekly and some monthly, like you'd buy a 1kg block of cheese and use it over 25 days.
If we just chose the cheapest in each category and didn't care about variety, it'd be
vegies $1.35/day
fruit $0.60/day
grain - pasta $0.20/day
meat etc - eggs $1.50/day
dairy - milk $0.69/day
Or $4.34/day in all.
They allow for a person like me 0-3 daily serves of "discretionary food choices", which is basically junk food, fizzy drinks and booze.
You could get the price a bit down by buying fresh seasonal vegies, and looking for bulk buy and "almost out of date, straight into the freezer" meat purchases, that sort of thing. At a guess you could knock it down 10-20% without too much drama.
But assuming none of that, it's only 2-3 times the $2 a day.
As a comparison, my own household of 2 adults and 2 children spends $125 a week on average, so 3-4 times this minimum for 1 male. Which seems about right, especially since we do get things like camembert from time to time.
In her
other challenge, she tried to live in $4/day (being the equivalent of food stamps) and struggled. I would suggest that people who actually have a history of being poor would not feel prosperous, but they wouldn't struggle as she did. Speaking from my own experience of being low-income in the past, you learn strategies, you learn what tends to be cheap yet good, you learn the times supermarkets discount things, and so on. It's not easy but you manage.
For example, she bought a dozen organic eggs for US$3.99; people who are actually poor have no time nor interest in organic free range gluten-free vegan fair-trade stuff, they can't afford any pretensions. So that'd save $2 or so. Much the same goes for the half-gallon of almond milk - does she really think some single mother in the projects is putting almond milk on her cheerios?
Obviously circumstances will vary, some places are food deserts where all you can get cheap is sugary carbs. But she'd find she did better with experience. The pretensions would fade away, and she'd learn that butternut pumpkins are generally cheaper than pre-made butternut pumpkin soup.
Experience, and a lengthy acquaintance with the realities of low-income, make a big difference.