We were just talking about the Yahoo! News version of this article over on Mustachianism Around the Web:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mustachianism-around-the-web/snap-challenge-'it-was-easy'/
So cool to see it was an actual MMM forum poster!
Any favorite takeaway tips for general healthy frugal eating?
Thanks so much for posting it. The feedback from this community has been amazing - you all are great.
Probably the biggest eye opener for me was how inexpensive a real farmer's market really is. I was pretty surprised that friends and colleagues I spoke with believed farmer's markets were expensive. Turns out they go to the really hipsterey farmer's markets in very upscale parts of town. There's a big difference between a farmer, and a hipster with a garden selling their vegetables. The prices totally blew my mind - potatoes, onions, tomatoes 75 cents/lb, garlic $1.25/lb, fresh berries $1.50/lb - the list goes on. It's a double whammy that you're getting super cheap things, and supporting farmers directly. Seriously, use the USDA link I provided and look for a local farmer's market.
And PLEASE PLEASE stop all the poverty-shaming on this forum with "they don't want the help" or suggestions that SNAP benefits be even more restricted - sure, getting whole foods only would be great BUT please remember that many people that live in poverty don't have access to healthy foods in their neighborhood. Living in poverty highly correlates to living in a food desert in much of the country- the only place that many people have to go to spend their foodstamps is the corner store.* Many folks experiencing poverty have to travel once a month 20-30 miles to a Walmart to get healthy foods and use their SNAP and WIC benefits, and produce just doesn't last that long. A Requirement is not the answer. Increasing access is the answer.
*And if you want to support healthy corner store initiatives, many states have bills in the legislature that provide tax benefits for targeted corner stores to provide whole foods. Check out your state's campaign.
Not my intention at all to shame anybody. The overall point of the article was that - we're doing a pretty good job making sure people can eat in this country. The statistic for 50m people who are "food insecure" just can't be correct - there's no way that many people are consistently making good food decisions and still going hungry. It's an education issue. SNAP should absolutely not be restricted, it's good where it is. It doesn't need to be increased either. Any budget that would increase SNAP, should instead be going to food education, mental health, or a homelessness initiative.
On my own Facebook, a very good friend and extremely well respected journalist suggested that I try it again without using a stove or refrigerator. At that point, the challenge is unreasonably difficult (probably still not impossible for a mustachian, but we don't hold others to the standard we hold ourselves). It's also not a SNAP issue any more, that's a proper housing issue. Giving that person $300 a month even - still wouldn't help them.
It's a complicated set of problems that needs constant scrutiny to be sure it's being solved in the right way.
The "food desert" is a very interesting point to me. I wonder what it might take to move to one of those areas and attempt to do the challenge again, and how much harder it might be? Another interesting point a good friend brought up is for diabetics, or any genuine food restriction. He looked at my meals and saw so many carbs, my diet would quite literally kill him. I've also considered doing it again with him, just to see if it's possible.
The person who said this: "imagine doing this for a very long time not just for a very short amount of time. and living off of it with a very large family ..and heck that $124 per person is a utter lie..." has some different experiences than me.
See what I meant about entertaining comments? If you're not going to believe the thesis of the article, then you've taken away all power for me to prove my point. Good job commenter guy - you win. There's literally nothing I can do to prove otherwise.
Great article!
I can't believe the biggest complaint people have in the comments is that you didn't do it longer. A month sounds like a pretty good stretch of time. Much better than the 1-week Challenge, where you could technically skip entire meals/days of eating if you had to.
We've been living well below the SNAP benefits line for 9+ weeks, now. Granted, we're not following all the rules, like turning down free food, etc. We're doing it to grow our 'stach (You know, by choice...) so it's a little different.
The takeaway I got from the article is that the amount of money you have to spend is only one factor in the cost of living. (As Mustachians, this is more obvious to us.) Being able to shop and cook from whole, cheap foods is incredibly useful, and could help solve many of the problems we have in America (overspending, nutritional deficit, health care, obesity, poverty). WHY DON'T WE TEACH COOKING IN OUR SCHOOLS?!
Now you've got me thinking. Instead of increasing SNAP benefits, would it be more beneficial to offer free shopping/cooking lessons? If I went to the SNAP benefits line and held up a sign that said "Learn to Cook and Eat for $2 a Day," would people take me up on it?
The 1-week challenge is actually extremely deceptive. A lot of the rules of the challenge that I took issue with was because of the obvious political agenda of "look how hard this is, let's increase these benefits." If you're only buying for a week and following those rules - it just decimates your ability to take advantage of any sort of economies of scale that make the challenge possible. Compounded with the other rules of not using previous food or accepting free food; it makes the challenge almost impossible.
As far as teaching cooking - YES YES YES YES YES YES 1000 times YES! I go so far as to argue that cooking is AS important as literacy. An individual who can cook will have the opportunity to use those skills 3x a day, every day, for the rest of their lives. That's more useful than algebra, history, or science. I'm not saying take any of those things away, but there are plenty of useless things taught in school that can easily be replaced with cooking to a very minimal societal disadvantage.
Thanks for all of the comments everybody! I may write some more articles on BI, and you can be sure they'll be somehow mustachian. I'm not actually a writer, so they'll be very occasional, but it's encouraging to know there are people out there who read and understand.