When Googling what the average amount of money spent on groceries was for Americans, one sight said that about $50 per week per person was about how much is spent. But on the video it talked about people having to live off of about $3 a day.
So this is what I tried. I decide to try and live off of a $15 grocery budget for the entire week, well until Friday. I went to Walmart Sunday and spent about 2 hrs shopping around for cheap foods and planning food to help me get through the week.
Here is what I bought:
1 frozen pizza
1 lb of spaghetti Pasta
1 lb of ground beef
1 can of Huntz spaghetti sauce
2 nacho lunchables
1 can of spaghetti o's
1 package of hotdogs
1 lb of rice
1 can of corn
1 can of baked beans
2 cantaloupes
In general, a lot of the healthier food was more expensive but you can see that in some of the pictures I have below. At the end of the week I will have a part 2 explaining how my week went.
Sherill, this is awesome! I so love that you're doing this experiment to bring awareness to the reality of many Americans who have to have such a restricted budget. It's a very good point that healthy food is what is most expensive, so lower income families have few options when it comes to eating healthy. Many times, they must make the choice between eating healthy and having enough food period, so healthy eating takes a back seat to survival. When I was interning at the food pantry this summer, volunteers and other community members with gardens would bring in produce from their personal gardens, so some days we had fresh produce that families could take, but like A Place at the Table pointed out, food pantries are more of a bandaid on a huge problem that needs to be solved with government intervention.
ReplyDeleteThis is great! What a brilliant idea! I'm impressed with the things you found to match the budget! I like Aubrey's comment about making the choice between having enough food and having healthy food. People who are unaware of food insecurities don't take this sort of thing into consideration. An activity like this would be great for education purposes and teaching people how some who may be food insecure may have to make choices when doing their shopping. An activity like this could also help eliminate some stigmas that are conceived about food insecure families!
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome!! I totally should have read this before my blog post because it is very similar!!! Sorry that it seems like I copied you! Did not intend for it to be that way! Anyway, you go girl! You're living off of less money than what I'm doing! So you go girl!!! I support you all the way! If you need any support, I'll be going through the same thing so I can be there for you! It's day one and I've had one poptart.
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