Tuesday, May 01, 2007

$21 a week

The governor of Oregon stuck to a $21/week food budget to raise attention to the hungry. More than that, actually, because the household had a $42 budget, the average amount of food stamp value for 2 people.
HT The Simple Dollar

2 comments:

frugalmom said...

I heard a sound bite on NPR at the beginning of last week about the "hunger project" They wanted people to eat on $21 a week but use the "empty pantry" principle, assuming that they had nothing at all in the cupboards to use. While I do think this is a fair assumption to make, it's not a fair assumption every week. There would most definitely be something you bought one week that you'd have something leftover the next, like some mayo or mustard, or a bottle of herbs. Frugaldad and I had quite a lengthy discussion about the menu you could plan for $21/person/week and it was quite extensive, and we even branched out from rice and beans!

$21/week seems kind of spendy, when you read frugal blogs from familys of 4 or more spending $50 a week for their whole family!

Anyway, I thought it was a very interesting experiment despite its flaws, thanks for bringing it up!

Anonymous said...

Meredith,

I read that article in my local paper this morning, and all I could think about was the "Iron Chef Moms" challenge! You two could show the governor a thing or two about eating well on a limited budget. By the way, I loved the challenge and it inspired me to clean out my pantry and do a better job of using up what I already have on hand before grocery shopping for something else. . . .

Susan in San Antonio