Go Away

[BaristaTrav]

Really? They're still like 12 cents a piece around here.

Yea.. I'm in one of the hardest-hit places for food price increases.

[Sliceanddice]

Trust me the churchs do better now.
I know i have needed it
right now we are really tight for money especially because of a nice fraud thing
so sometimes we live off 100 dollars a month for food
for 4 people
united food banks have full boxs on fridays for 15 dollars, really handy
the church run places actually give out dairy products alot and they always inculde well balances stuff
Rice, Peanut butter, Cereal, canned food like corn, chile and beans, dry beans, bread some veggies.
we have gotten some of the bad stuff but alot more churchs have people going through to work out well balanced boxes
now im not going to say the big charity stuff like toys and clothes are perfect, but we have even be secret santaed by our local church and while they gave us the wrong sizes, all the clothes where good quality, rather oldish but it was tee shirts, jeans dressses and sweaters and nothing too old, hell they even gave us movie tickets and stuff like that
toys where always useable, though mostly stuffed animals, but they knew we loved books and gave us a whole box full....
i know i can buy a weeks worth of meals for 4 people with 30 dollars

[depechemodefan]

I remember when I used to work with the Health dept. I had to go to Women shelters. One shelter, in the foyer, anyone can walk in and ask for a sack lunch. And at the library, across the street at City Hall some organization will come around sundown giving free lunches.

There's this one guy who we don't know if he is homeless. He might just be eccentric. He rides his bicycle everywhere. But once in a while there's a festival or some thing in the park at City Hall and there's free food for everyone. He is there (with all the other homeless people). One day there was this deal where you buy a $5 bracelet that allows you to get food from all these boothes in the park, like James Coney Island hotdogs, Alontti deli, Chick-fil-A, etc. Now it's one booth where you buy the bracelet and you can enter the park from diff. directions. I went to the chick-fil-A w/o knowing about the bracelet and I got a sandwich. I went to another booth and the women there (really chipper and nice) told me I had to have a bracelet. The guy with his bike said he wanted a sandwich and they told him he had to have a bracelet. He says, "You gave it to that guy, and he didn't have a bracelet." And they told him that he did.

This is the guy (the guy with the bike) where one day I went to a yard sale and he tries to haggle the prices with the owner and she told him, "If you don't like my prices then leave."

[BlaqueKatt]

That said...it's really cheaper to eat healthy stuff than most of the junk (candy bars, cookies, crackers) people fill up on. Boggles the mind.

cooking takes effort-I actually know people that can't even cook a tv dinner-yes I'm dead serious.


Personally myself, MR Katt and the two furbabies(I have two very spoiled mice-and yes you can spoil a mouse-Pudge mouse loves pumpkin seeds but won't crack them himself-and yes I do it, he just gets sooo happy) live on around $150/month in groceries, a little more when I find fresh fruit I really want(two weeks ago bought 2 cases of mandarin oranges)

[Seraph]

If you go by the charity places, you'll see people putting the boxes of food in the trunks of Mercedes, while yapping on their cell phones, wearing expensive clothes. They're totally working the system. It's beyond disgusting.

A-freaking-men. Where I used to live, that's so incredibly prevalent that it makes one wince. I've watched people use food stamp cards to buy nothing but junk food. When we had to get on food stamps for a few months ourselves, I can tell you that we clipped coupons, checked sales...we did EVERYTHING we could to pinch pennies and stretch that little bit we got every month. It was just infuriating to then watch people in expensive clothes just stand there and waste the ENTIRE thing on stuff like cheesy doodles or whatever.

[Primer]

The only experience I've had with food stamps was back when I was in college. I was taking a full time load, and working part-time (all I could handle) one summer and needed a little extra help to get me through until the next semester. I was told I would have to drop out of school and get pregnant. Um...no. NOT an option. I survived that summer. I had to do a few things I'm not proud of, and hopefully will never have to do again, but I survived.