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If you are going through a real hard medical crisis, that should be considered...
Based on her post it sounds like her medical crisis is COBRA. Short of needing a transplant, I doubt the school will put her children on the lunch program. Sounds like the OP is doing very well financially if she can afford two mortgage payments and still keep paying COBRA too. Many Americans don't have health insurance and even more Americans can't afford COBRA payments becauee they are super high. Even if the OP needs health insurance, we live in a country where families have to chose between health insurance and food. Food wins. Yeah, it sucks, but that's the reality of our health care system and one family shouldn't be taken into consideration over other families. I would suspect that most people would rather she defaulted on the mortgage for one of her houses before their tax dollars went towards paying for her children to be on the school lunch program to help her pay her health insurance premium.
I highly doubt they will factor in expenses. If that were the case, many children with parents who have high debt would be on the school lunch program.
As a tax paying citizen, I would be upset if my tax money was spent on families who got themselves into heavy debt.
Feeding children should be the most important thing in a tight budget, not the first thing cut from a budget.
When you consider that this is about FEEDING children, the other debts are irrelevant. I'd go bankrupt before I didn't feed my children.
The government isn't going to help people feed their children so they can have or maintain a higher standard of living.
The lunch program is meant for families who do not have the means to feed their children due to extremely low income.
Wowee! I agree with Hopes on something! This is a historic day!
Like others have said, the lunch program is for people who would be sending their kids to school with an empty stomach if they didn't have assistance.
Peanut butter sandwich, an apple, some carrots = a nice cheap lunch that is way healthier than school food.
Yep- last year we calculated the exact cost of a lunch made at home vs. a school lunch. If I were to send my kids to school with leftover pasta, an apple, a juice box and a granola bar, it'd be about 75 cents. If they were to get pasta, a carton of milk and an apple (what a school lunch consists of in our district), it'd be $2.10 (what a meal costs).
I often make my own lunches, and I buy chicken salad from the supermarket deli for my husband to make his own lunches (he loves the stuff. He's weird like that).
When I buy deli meats for my lunch, it's usually decent roast turkey breast and either swiss or havarti cheese. I buy a loaf of the big thick-sliced whole wheat bread or multi-grain bread, and use real Hellmann's Mayo. I actually priced it out once and it came to around $2.00 for a sandwich, including the romaine lettuce and a slice of beefsteak tomato. And that's for the higher quality stuff. Got protein, dairy, vegetable/fruit, egg, starch/grain...all for 2 bucks.
I only buy organic peanutbutter, because I really like it, plus often it's on sale and ends up being cheaper than Skippy or Jiff or any other name brand that's loaded with corn syrup and other random crap. I prefer strawberry preserves to jelly, so I'm spending a few more cents on that. And even still, I'm paying maybe 80 cents for a sandwich.
Every monday is pasta night at my house, and I always make a couple extra meatballs and extra macraonis. So hubby gets one day's worth of leftover mac and meatballs for lunch, PLUS he gets a meatball sub another day for lunch. And I get my leftover too. Dinner-sized meals for 2 of this costs around $3.00 each. Leftovers is less than a buck each. For home-made meatballs, with the good jarred sauce (Emeril's is as low-rent as I get..the jarred stuff I usually get costs around $6/jar and I stock up when it's on sale), because I'm too lazy to make marinara and I'm not italian so I have a built-in excuse not to try.
It is SO easy to create leftovers when you cook so Junior has at least 1, possibly 2 days worth of awesome lunches, and the other days of the week he can eat a sandwich. My mom used to peel grapefruits and give us grapefruit segments, and give us Snack-Pack chocolate pudding cups in the bag. So, maybe make that a Friday treat to have the pudding for dessert, and you're talking an extra what - 40 cents a week.
Really though, if you have mortgage on two homes, and pay Cobra, and have managed to accumulate 25 boxes full of christmas tree decorations over the years, you're not really in any position to be asking for financial handouts.
OP- your expenses are your problem, not the GOVT so they don't owe you any help feeding your kids. Seems you have a shopping problem. Go get some financial counseling.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopes
I highly doubt they will factor in expenses. If that were the case, many children with parents who have high debt would be on the school lunch program.
As a tax paying citizen, I would be upset if my tax money was spent on families who got themselves into heavy debt.
Feeding children should be the most important thing in a tight budget, not the first thing cut from a budget.
When you consider that this is about FEEDING children, the other debts are irrelevant. I'd go bankrupt before I didn't feed my children.
The government isn't going to help people feed their children so they can have or maintain a higher standard of living.
The lunch program is meant for families who do not have the means to feed their children due to extremely low income.
OP- your expenses are your problem, not the GOVT so they don't owe you any help feeding your kids. Seems you have a shopping problem. Go get some financial counseling.
A shoppig problem?
Yep, let me tell you all the nonsense we've bought
3 years of Cobra, at $1600/month NO we didn't qualify for any govt subsidizes
3 years of paying mortgage, utilities, car payment, food, clothing, etc, all from unemployment, contract jobs, and depleting our savings
$12,000 of unreimbursed medical bills from a back injury
We do NOT own two houses---we are currently renting our home while we try to rent/sell the home we own. Finally my dh landed a job in another city, we had to move for the job, ok? Not a second summer home in the Hamptons, like you're implying.
Financial counseling-----for what? Trying to survive is frivilous and looking into govt programs is somehow "evil"?
Yep, let me tell you all the nonsense we've bought
3 years of Cobra, at $1600/month NO we didn't qualify for any govt subsidizes
3 years of paying mortgage, utilities, car payment, food, clothing, etc, all from unemployment, contract jobs, and depleting our savings
$12,000 of unreimbursed medical bills from a back injury
We do NOT own two houses---we are currently renting our home while we try to rent/sell the home we own. Finally my dh landed a job in another city, we had to move for the job, ok? Not a second summer home in the Hamptons, like you're implying.
Financial counseling-----for what? Trying to survive is frivilous and looking into govt programs is somehow "evil"?
Why in Gods name are you paying COBRA? Get an individual plan and slice that premium in half????
Just out of curiousity...when you moved, knowing you hadn't sold your previous home and knowing you had COBRA payments, why rent a 5 BR home? I would think a 3 BR would have saved some $ and worked out..?
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