Quote:
Originally Posted by Lacerta
Hubby and I average about $75 on groceries (both food and household goods) per week. For 2 people. That's only slightly more than $30/person. We don't cut any coupons, and we don't comparison shop. Just don't have the time.
If someone is on food stamps, I assume they have more free time on their hands, and should be able to cut coupons. I know coupon cutters (not even extreme ones) who only spend $50ish on groceries each week for a family of 5.
$30/week/person is plenty if you cut coupons.
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It's really not reasonable to assume someone on food stamps will necessarily have more free time. Many who qualify for food stamps are the working poor. A single parent with a full time job is likely to have less time, and her food stamp budget will not go as far if she does not have time to do the coupon thing and cook everything from scratch.
There are many factors that determine someone's real food costs.
Another common issue is insufficient cooking facilities. Someone will not be able to stretch their budget as much without a full sized, working stove, for example, or a fridge that allows for buying larger quantities of foods (and therefore being able to save by buying in bulk or taking advantage of sales via a freezer).
Another often overlooked factor in the entire budget issue is the problem of "food deserts"; people having inadequate sources for reasonably priced groceries, lack of transportation, and the resulting heavy reliance on what is sold at smaller convenience stores and the like. Often if there is a full sized grocery store nearby in an inner city situation, or rural situation, there is no competition to help lower prices.
My sister in law is a good example of this problem. She is totally disabled and receives disability payments of about $600 a month. She lives in a housing complex with subsidized rent and I think she pays about $200 a month for rent plus utilities. She has no transportation aside from a bus pass and she physical issues that keep her from being able to walk very far. She has medication costs and transportation costs related to her necessary doctor visits. She does not receive food stamps because when she applied in the past she was told she'd only get $17 a month. So she doesn't see it as worth it. She manages to feed herself but there are significant challenges.
In her scenario, if she cannot get a ride to do most of her shopping at least every other week, she ends up having to buy things at the nearest corner store and suddenly the cost of milk or bread has tripled.
She is fairly lucky in that she can get rides, can take the bus, and she is just one person so doing all her grocery shopping on public transit isn't a huge issue... but you can imagine the difficulties it would present to someone with a larger family, less money for the bus or a taxi, and more people to buy for, right?
For five years I lived in the zip in my city with the lowest income out of all in the city, and the highest population density as well. I observed people attempting to buy "dinner" at the corner store (and then some) *all the time*. Canned goods, milk, cereal, bread, what "fruit" is near the checkout (if it isn't brown), all because that's the only place they could get to on foot and they are paying double or triple for these sort of basics.
For a short time we received food stamps when we lived there, and we were way ahead of the game because we had a car, a modern full sized kitchen, a large chest freezer, and knowledge about cooking from scratch, buying in bulk, etc. We also grew some of our own veggies and had already established this prior to needing assistance. Others around us had none of these advantages and zero knowledge about how to stretch their food dollar because no one had ever taught them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RememberMee
I looked at a purchase receipt paid with EBT, it did have remaining balance on it, $1500+.
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Well, it could be a very large family. Or it could be a family with no income that applied in the previous month but was just recently approved. What happens in that case is that if the local HHS office takes forever in making a decision, the applicant receives food stamps for the current month of approval plus retroactive food stamps from the date they originally applied.
And no, to the OP (I think?) who assumed that someone on food stamps would always or often be receiving other forms of assistance as well. This is not at all "the norm". It totally depends and varies from family to family. Many families work full time and receive some food stamp assistance and nothing else. Some *only* get Medicaid for their kids, even though they probably could qualify for food stamps. Likewise someone may work and have health coverage through work and only need some food assistance.
There are, of course, people receiving TANF
and Food Stamps
and Medicaid
and Housing but they are not necessarily "typical" and in many places, housing assistance is incredibly difficult to get (if even possible at all).
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