Food Stamp Challenge (Day 4)

Now we are half way through this challenge. Most days of this challenge are just like any other day at our home. We eat the way I describe in this post on a regular basis. I didn’t change our menu to adapt to the challenge but I thought it would be fun to see how well we would cope on a budget that is the equivalent to food stamps.

Today we were out of the house most of the day so I packed the kids a snack and lunch. Eating out is not really an option for those on food stamps as you can’t purchase hot food on food stamps. So stopping at the drive-thru was not going to be an option for us. About 1 pm when we still were not home I had wished I had packed me a snack too. But I did wait until getting home to eat my lunch.

So this is how our meals went today,

Breakfast

Kids, toast with peanut butter and jam, eggs and oatmeal $.32 each or $.74 for both
My husband and myself had the same breakfast of toast with peanut butter and jam with water $.42 for both of us.

Total for breakfast $1.16

Lunch

Kids had a sandwich, dried peaches, potato chips and a cookies $.54 each or $1.08 for both
Husband’s lunch, sandwich, tortilla chips, pear and cookies and a granola bar for snack $.72
Myself, a freezer mac and cheese, watermelon and granola bar $.67

Total for our Lunches $2.47

Dinner

For our dinner tonight I made a homemade chicken vegetable soup. Since I have been making all of our own soups for a while now the only store-bought soup we like is tomato. I kept the soup really easy. I make what I call soup kits when I make a roasted whole chicken I also make broth for soup. I make the whole chicken for our first meal in the crock pot then I take all the bones out of the bird and place them back in the crock pot with a bunch of water and cook overnight, the next morning I have a wonderful chicken broth. Then I take some of the leftover chicken place it into a quart sized freezer container and then I add in the cooled broth and freeze. Instant chicken soup kit, just add vegetables and you have soup.

So to my chicken soup kit I added in half a quart of water and some potatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and a few tomatoes. I just let it simmer for about a half an hour and we had soup. I also made some butter dip breadsticks and added some watermelon we had left from the other night.

The cost for this meals for the four of us was $2.82 

Our snacks for the day

Kids snacks were the usual $.72

After dinner snacks

Cereal with milk for each of us, a cheese stick, and some dried peaches $1.12

Total for snacks $1.84

So the grand total for today’s meals was $8.29 or $2.07 a person. 

This time of year I really like to make soup. Fall is such a great time of year for soup and making soup can be so inexpensive too.

What is your favorite inexpensive meal?
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Other posts in this series

Food Stamp Challenge
Food Stamp Challenge Day 1
Food Stamp Challenge Day 2
Food Stamp Challenge Day 3