Finishing the SNAP Challenge - How we Fared on the Budget

Home Again.

We actually finished the SNAP Challenge on Friday, September 16th, when we flew to Minnesota to be with family after Jahn's father died.  We spent almost a week there and returned with a renewed commitment to count our blessings, treasure our loved ones, and live purposeful lives.  Raising hunger awareness continues to be a priority for us, so we wanted to continue to share our experiences during a week of eating on $4.00 per person per day (Buying Groceries to Eat on $4/day or Less)

What Else We Ate on the SNAP Challenge

As mentioned earlier in the blog (Days 1 and 2 of SNAP Hunger Awareness Food Challenge) , we continued to eat simple breakfasts of generic oat cereal and coffee.  It was pretty boring and as the week went on, we definitely missed variety and "flavor."

Gary continued to eat ham and cheese sandwiches all week.  Jahn had plain tuna sandwiches twice (although she "borrowed" one of Gary's cheese slices once), then finished her remaining bananas and apples by mixing them with peanut butter on sandwiches. 

Dinners included leftovers from our first chicken crock pot meal (made with chicken thighs) and leftovers from our favorite dish - the pasta and tomato sauce sauce pictured below.

Pasta with Tomato Sauce - One of our Favorite Meals!

When it came time to make the second chicken crock pot meal, we realized that we hadn't bought enough chicken.  The chicken thighs were inexpensive, but they weren't boneless!  That meant a lot of extra work - deboning them - and a lot less actual chicken meat:-(  Consequently, we added lots of potatoes along with the carrots and celery.  We were grateful for the Bisquick mix so we could add dumplings to the crock pot:

Chicken & Dumplings in the Crock Pot

The chicken and dumplings tasted quite good, but more chicken and fewer potatoes would have been much nicer.  Also, while neither of us really like cooked carrots, we decided we should add them for nutrition and color:

Our Chicken & Dumplings Meal - Tasty, but lean on the Chicken:-(

Our 6th dinner was leftovers from the pictured crock pot meal, but our unexpected trip to Minnesota meant delaying the roaster chicken meal until after the Challenge.  Thus, we ended up "cheating" on our final dinner - we ate at the airport just before our flight.  This was NOT on the budget and while we "exchanged" the roaster chicken meal for the purchased fast food, we know that folks with limited resources would have struggled to either buy the last-minute plane tickets or dine out during their travels.

How did we do on the Budget?

Besides the dinner in the airport, we ended up cheating when Gary ran out of milk on the 5th day and we both ran out of the oat cereal before the week ended.  Had we been truly faithful to the rules, we would have allowed ourselves to experience hunger during those final breakfasts.  Instead, we raided the pantry and fridge and ate Raisin Bran and Cheerios.

So, our unspent $1.93 from the initial shopping trip was easily exceeded by the need for additional milk and cereal.

As noted above,  buying bone-in chicken thighs was really not a wise choice for the crock pot meals.  The "Chicken & Dumplings" was more like "Potatoes & Dumplings" with a little chicken on the side.

We managed to avoid eating between meals and confining our evening snacking to the Aldi popcorn.  One would think we would have lost weight, but we both pretty much maintained our usual weights.  As one can imagine, meals that are heavy on carbohydrates and not especially well balanced don't assist with dieting.  When we returned home from Minnesota last week, we were happy to plan and purchase healthier, more balanced and fulfilling meals!

Up Next: Responding to Criticism of the SNAP Federal Assistance Program . . .