I was excited that I was at $21/day on my diet.

For those that have a "better idea," perverty wasn't invented yesterday. The world has tried all kinds of stuff, and we still have poor people. Try living in a country without the social safety net, it gets pretty grim pretty quick.

By the way - do any of you have your EBT guy?
You have a recurring deal with some crack head who sells you his food points and you get your groceries for way cheaper :1orglaugh

Excited that you managed to spend such a high amount?

Sly posted a great $20/week diet some time ago :thumbsup

Just killing poor people would solve this problem a lot easier

Nope. It should be. they don't do it out of kindness of their heart though.

the bare minimum to feed, or artificially keep the price of corn/rice low like a in developing countries (even mexico) is the only thing preventing jobless men stabbing you for a piece a bread. a hungry man will do anything. This protects the rich. Give the poor some bread and a tv, they will keep quiet. The government's function is to protect the population, protect the system, this does a better job of it than any police force.

This was mentioned, and my diet and food bill was debated. It is in part where I live. Downtown of a major city. Also his diet did not include beverages.

And personally, I see nothing wrong with this. The poor are happy and the less poor(me) are happy. Win/win.

Yes it did, water. If you really don't like water, you can get generic Kool-Aid or lemonade packets dirt cheap. Less than $.25 a packet, that would last a few days.

if you think a lifestyle that is based on gaming the system for $29/week for food is a quality passed on generation to generation then you should brush up on Darwin's theory.

you didn't mention homeless people and that was exactly my point.

and i did address your main point specifically. you stated


i fully addressed that. the problem with a $29/week SNAP card has nothing to do with rewarding people for having children. you seem to think $29 is a reward and getting $29 week off da man is some special family trait passed on like a gene. it ain't. that's the point of the challenge paltrow failed on. which you also missed.

I saw something about this on Reddit and the major gripe about what she showed off, was it's not sustainable as a diet. Sure maybe you could go a few weeks on it, but you would end up having problems as even though it looks health, there isn't enough vitamins or protean. Don't get too googoo eyes because she bought some green stuff..


Now my whole gripe with this kind of thing is food stamps aren't meant to fill someone's dinner table day after day, week after week or month after month. They are meant to supplement a persons grocery bill whom needs it, but not give it too them for free.

I don't really agree with the endless welfare system. I'm ok with it if a person is handicapped or elderly but in most other cases it needs to be seen as a temporary solution much like unemployment.

It looks like she also chose a lot of items that aren't really necessary. They taste good, they add a nice zest to a meal (onions, scallions, garlic, herbs) but they are unnecessary.

Gwyneth Paltrow in the never-ending attempt to prove that she is the "average" woman.

you make it sound like we don't have a homeless problem in USA. much opportunities.


we're talking about eating for a week on $29, it doesn't matter if your sleeping in a ditch, a van or on a couch or wherever. it doesn't matter if your a dope fiend or have 18 kids with 6 different mothers.

south seems to think the problems with a $29 SNAP food budget would be cured by stopping [certain] people from having [too many] children combined with passing on some sort of game the system gene, i replied to that.

I was trying to say the homeless can get other help besides the $29 for food.

I assume you would get extra money for each child you had. So having less children to be covered would mean more money for others. I have heard of people taking advantage of the system. Claiming their spouse lives somewhere else, not reporting cash income and stuff like that. I don't know anything about the gaming the system gene or having a bunch of kids just to get free money though.

:thumbsup
Too bad various lazies leach it as their regular "job".

my experience relating with people on food stamps/ebt is it's very difficult for them to break out of the cycle. i don't disagree that there are people places and things in place to help people get out of that cycle, nevertheless, based on what i've witnessed, people in that group struggle to get those opportunities. regardless of what the reason for the struggle is, booze, drugs, depression, hard times, bad luck, lazy, LAZY. that lack of motivation is a common denominator, again, regardless of the sitch, bad luck, dope fiend, hard times, alcohol, mental issues, there's always an element of lazy in there, in my experience.

not pointing my finger at lazy people, i think we'd accomplish more by looking at ways to motivate people to change their situation. to me, trying to address the problems from this way is better and more realistic that simply saying we need to sterilize certain people/not allow them to have children.

The problem with homeless people is different IMHO. Food stamps should be more to supplement people's needs whom have a income source. People whom work at Walmart for example or elderly people with just social security as an income.. The govt has to supplement many of those people's incomes because their income is too low to live on. We then need to look at why their income needs to be supplemented and then address that issue.

People whom are homeless or whom have 10 kids need to be in a different type of program and should not be on endless food stamps.

Homeless people for example, as you should know living how you do are often mentally ill, some whom are hit on with hard times and then also some whom really are lazy bums.

If you really wanted to tackle homelessness then you would have to identify those groups and deal with them case by case. Raising their food stamp limit for example isn't gonna help much of anything. It certainly wont get them off the streets and lets be fair, most homeless people tend to be fairly capable of getting food. I don't think we have a "starving homeless" people problem. They know where the soup kitchens are, they pan handle or dumpster dive. It might not be an attractive life style but I don't think it's an issue of them staving to death.

As for the welfare queen type of person. I don't really know how we deal with those kind of people. Any time there is a system in place certain people will figure out how to game that system. IMO anyone not disabled or elderly (ie not capable of working) should be placed on a temporary status with food stamps much like unemployment but you have to have actual interaction with these people.

The problem is those kind of people use the kids as a crutch and they know they can do that. They know you wont stop giving them money because the kids would be the ones you hurt. This is why it's difficult to deal with welfare leeches, because it's not the kids fault their parents suck. I don't know really how you deal with this..

IMO Food stamps are just used as an easy out by states rather than actually trying to solve the issue. They tend to be a band-aid that states can use and claim they did something, while never having to address the actual cause or problems.

and by lazy i mean there's a lot of hopelessness. people with no hope don't have much motivation and in turn end up becoming lazy/looking like they are lazy.

if these people can grab on to some hope, i believe many of them can then grab on to opportunities to change their sitch.

I've posted here before about a local gas station and seeing EBT purchases of sliced pizza and energy drinks but was told it couldn't be true. But there it is everyday.

If i wasn't traveling right now I would try the $29. challenge myself. I think it would be interesting to see how well I could eat. Or not eat .......

i don't disagree with any of this, i also don't necessarily agree with it all. i agree it's a comlex problem though and that was my point in replying to south, i fully disagree the problem with poverty and hunger won't be solved by picking who can have how many children. i can guarantee that won't solve shit, not to mention it's beyond draconian.

you can buy a pound of loose leaf green tea for like $10, which should last you for months... tastes pretty good and is healthy too... :2 cents:

In Kentucky there is a farmers market every Saturday morning from 7 to noon at the Courthouse. Being a late sleeper I would always get there near closing and farmers would be practically giving away stuff instead of taking it home. I always wondered why I never saw low income people taking advantage of this. Instead it was yuppies with their golden retrievers with scarfs on their necks. Then again farmers don't take bet.

This is why I say you have to determine what kind of situation the person is in, specially with homelessness. We have no state or federal mental heath system anymore so those whom have mental illness and don't have family to take care of them, end up on the streets.

Those people are pretty much "disposable" as far as the state & federal govt is concerned. There is no help for them, they will never get the meds they need or the treatments.

As for those whom fell on bad times, those are really the only ones you can help with much of any success. These are people forced into the situation be it their own fault like drug addiction or perhaps loss of job. These are the ones whom don't really want to be there. These are the only ones you can really hope to ever get off the streets and that's where the focus should be.

We should have programs specifically tailored to these people if they want the help. However much like mental illness treatment, these people are also treated like disposable people. It's really up to them to pull their selves out of the gutter. Some do and some don't and that's the way it is sadly.

As for the other group which I called lazy bums. Well I don't know if they are lazy but lets just say they don't want to live like normal people. Many people actually do choose to live on the streets. It's a fairly big sub culture in many cities. Many people are just not interested in conforming to society and there is a certain freedom to be experienced by being homeless.

In the olden days these people might of been called mountain men or hermits for example but there has always been a small amount of people whom don't want to live the social norm of their day. Many homeless do fit that bill and I have zero issue with that, but I do get irritated when I see these types standing on street corners begging for money.

I have no issue if someone chooses that life style but I do find it annoying when they expect others to pay their way.

I wouldn't agree with anything about number of kids people can have either, but I just used the baby making welfare queens as an example of part of the problem which is very hard to solve.

There's no way I could eat Gwyneth Paltrow for $29 a day.

Poor people lack transportation.

Any idea how to find the thread? Any unique word in it?

"What's in the box?!"

The idea of getting $29 a week in food stamps might not be a generational trait, but living on the system is. It is called the cycle of poverty for a reason. Not everyone ends up in it and some people are even motivated to work hard by growing up poor, but there are a lot of people who are raised with the idea that living off the system and living as their parents do (meaning welfare, food stamps, housing assistance etc) is a fine and normal activity. They are much more likely to repeat that behavior than someone who was raised in a typical middle class life and taught to work for what you want.

A lot would depend on how well you take advantage of the grocery sale flyers and coupons, too. My wife spends time looking at all the grocery flyers and waits until items are at really good sale prices before stocking up (especially orange juice and cheese slices). She's a rather thrifty shopper...rarely pays full price for anything. Often times we'll just do without something until it goes on sale price - no hardship.

Some friends and I did a version of the $29 a week challenge several months ago. I think $29 a week is the average of what people get. We looked it up and found out that the most a single person could get is $190 a month. So we decided to try to live on just that. We also lived with the restrictions of that meaning we wouldn't buy anything you can't buy with the food stamp card.

I came close. I ran out of money with about 4-5 days left in the month. My two friends that tried it with me didn't do as well. One just gave up after about 2 weeks and the other ran out of money with about 10 days left.

It was interesting and certain gave me some perspective on just how much we spend on food.

More people should try this. I know she got shit for it but it brings it into perspective.

At the very least it got a few people discussing it.

Maybe that was her goal from the start. Knowing she made a few mistakes and bad choices made for even more discussion.

Yes, but food stamps are called assistance. They aren't meant to be the only source of income in which you eat from, this is what everyone seems to lose grasp of with this. ie they are not providing you with your food requirements but rather assisting you.

Lets also forget pretty much everywhere has food banks and then there are of course always soup kitchens if you are really that much in need.

Now even if you are making $7.25/hr and working only 35/hrs a week that is still over $1k a month. No it's not shit, but if you combine that with the $29/week or $119/month add in a food bank and yes it is possible to live on very little. Even if you spend $600/mth to rent a room which is high in most places, you would still have around $100/wk to live on) Can you not live on $129/week? It would be rough but yes it can be done. (lots of elderly people live on SS which is very often in the $900 to 1200 range)

(I used 35/hr week because many low paying jobs keep their workers under 40/hrs a week.)

No you aren't going to live in San Fan or New York on that kind of money but then again you also aren't going to be making min wage at those places either..

Oatmeal is dirt cheap. Buy a package of fresh berries for four dollars to spruce it up for the week, or go all out and buy a nice bag of frozen berries for three dollars and that will last longer than a week no problem. I like water in my oatmeal but if you want to grab milk, grab a fair priced container for another couple dollars and you are looking at a weeks worth of breakfast for under $10 no problem.

Eggs are cheap as well. I just bought 18 for $3. Two eggs a day for breakfast and you have breakfast all week for three dollars.

Chicken is usually fair priced. I just bought a 6 pound package for $12. Spread 6 pounds across 14 meals easy.

Rice, cheap. Potatoes, cheap. Pasta, cheap. Beans, cheap.

Frozen/canned vegetables, fair priced. Frozen would be a better deal.

This is not extravagant. This is not a meal plan I would want to live on week in and week out, but you can easily survive on it (especially if used supplementally, as intended) and healthwise it's not bad at all. Yeah, you'll be missing some nutrients and whatnot, but let's be realistic, the majority of us do that anyway with our $50-200 weekly budget.

I probably spend around $50 a week on actual food (beverages are a different story.) I eat steak, I eat salmon, I eat tuna. I don't see what the big deal is. Use your head and make it work.

This is what I get: Quaker Oats Old Fashioned Oats, 18 oz - Walmart.com

It's not even three dollars, 13 servings at 40 g per serving (that's about half a cup, which is too much for me.) That's two weeks worth of breakfast, maybe one week if you need a larger breakfast. Add berries for flavor and fruit intake, seven dollars for breakfast for a week.

Here's generic: Great Value: Oven-Toasted Old Fashioned Oats, 42 Oz - Walmart.com

That is a fantastic buy, easily 30 servings of half a cup for three dollars. You'll save money the rest of the month by not needing to buy breakfast. That's $.10 per breakfast, before fruit.

These blueberries will last you for the week easy for another three dollars: Great Value No Sugar Added Blueberries, 12 oz - Walmart.com

Here is some brown rice on Amazon for $3.50: Amazon.com: Lundberg Brown Short Grain Brown Rice, 32 Oz: Prime Pantry I'm sure you can find it at your local supermarket for a similar price.

32 ounces which is around 5 cups. Average person, 5 cups should easily cover 10 meals for you, especially if you mix in some frozen vegetables.

I like broccoli with my rice: Great Value Broccoli Florets, 14 oz - Walmart.com

This is $1.50, 14 ounces which should get you 5 servings easily, maybe even more since you are mixing it with rice. Grab another bag and we are at three dollars.

Broccoli can get boring. Let's try corn. Here we have 32 ounces (that's a lot of corn, 10 servings easy) for $2: Great Value Whole Kernel Golden Corn, 32 oz - Walmart.com

Now we have 14 meals. Chicken ($12,) rice ($3.50,) broccoli ($1.50,) and corn ($2) for a grand total of $19.

Breakfast for $10, lunch and dinner for $19.

Drink water. It's better for you anyway.

Gwyneth should have consulted Sly before her failed stunt. :2 cents:

It annoys me because there are thousands and thousands of families, full families, out there surviving on much less than $29 a week per person. It's a fucking joke and an insult to every "average woman" that she so desperately tries to be.

protip: raisins work great with oatmeal too, only $3 and if used just for breakfast will last you a month... :thumbsup

Great Value California Raisins, 20 oz - Walmart.com

Yes, great tip, sometimes I do Craisins but usually I do a spoonful of homemade jam. Lots of options to spruce up oatmeal.

True, there are other sources for food if you are that much in need. And with my experiment I spent about $30 on stuff that wasn't really food like olive oil, butter and a few cooking spices. I could have done without them. Also, taking better advantage of sales and coupons would have helped me.

Had I really been in a situation where I had zero money for food I could have gone a little cheaper, hit food banks and used those coupons and I likely would have been able to make it.

The interesting part was my buddy who only made in 2 weeks. We all did this just to see how hard it is (my friends and I are always doing various 30 day challenges). He was certain he was going to do it with ease because he doesn't buy much at the grocery store. The reason is because he eats out a lot and orders in a lot. When those options were taken away from him things got difficult in a hurry.

I recommend everyone try it. It is a challenge.

Food is cheap in the US? The healthier you eat the more expensive it is. Eating healthy is hard work. Makes sense that a lot of people on assistance would buy the frozen food, processed nonsense to make food last so they don't have to spend as much or shop as often. A bag of chicken fingers can make a few meals where as 1.5lbs of chicken is just going to feed for tonight. Not even sure of poundage I could be off with that, I always look at how many pieces since I cook for 5

We make it so easy to be unhealthy. It's a shame.

Thank you for the info! I will pursue a little harder now. My heart would be so happy to see city kids growing their own food and being proud of it. "Oasis of hope" nice name!

As I was saying...

Gwyneth Paltrow bought on food stamps what only rich people buy - The Washington Post

Come on. Who can live without kale, cilantro, romaine lettuce, fresh tomato and avocado? Don't forget a lime a day keeps the debt collectors away.

i can see how mooching can be unconsciously learned but i seriously do not graspt the idea that intentionally getting into and staying in an economic situation that is struggling to eat so as to abuse welfare systems has been noted as an attribute parents teach children and children embrace.

Bleeding heart assholes ...

Many people are products of their upbringing and environment. If you are raised by parents that work hard and teach you to work hard and tell you that you can achieve success in your life you grow up believing it and the odds are you will be one of those people. Your parents lead as much by example as they do by words.

When you see your parents living in a different way you begin to associate that way of life with being normal and okay. They don't necessarily "teach" their kids that they too should be on welfare, but it is what they grew up around and some of these people have a sense of entitlement about it. There are plenty of welfare parents to try to teach their kids to work hard and get an education and build a good future for themselves, but there are also those that don't and their parents lead by example and the example is piss poor.

Obviously it is not something that every kid raised on welfare ends up doing, but there is a cycle that pulls certain people in and makes them want to be in/on the system instead of working.