Eating on $30 A Week: A Non-Profit Leader's Dose of Reality
Barbara Levin of Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland is trying to eat like her clients do--on $30 a week.
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During any normal week, Barbara Levin wouldn’t think twice about joining her co-workers to purchase lunch. Or, if she were cooking at home and burned dinner, she would simply run to the store for more.
Not this week.
Beginning on Monday, Levin, the client services director at Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland, joined 160 other students, legislators and state leaders in the Food Stamp Challenge, pledging to use just $30—the average weekly Maryland food stamp benefit—to pay for her food costs this week, ending Sunday.
Levin is hoping to gain a better understanding of what her clients go through on a daily basis, while helping to raise awareness about the daily strain many Marylanders face in counting every penny at the grocery store to avoid hunger.
More than 680,000 people in Maryland receive Food Supplement Program benefits—a number that has increased 17 percent since last year.
“I am realizing that I am very, very fortunate,” said Levin, a Middle-River resident and Philadelphia native. “The ability to go to the market and buy what I want, when I want, is a huge deal.
"It’s a huge deal to know that if something goes wrong, I can get it. I will admit to often burning things or forgetting things at home. Normally I’d be annoyed at myself. Now, it’s a tragedy if it happens.”
Making inexpensive choices at the supermarket and effectively rationing food has been taxing, she said. She said she is experiencing the physical effects of regularly eating less, including hunger and feeling less sharp at work.
Eliminated from her diet are the high-protein meats and fresh fruits and vegetables that she would normally consume.
Restaurant-prepared meals? Forget it.
Instead, Levin has relied on a cereal-based breakfast to start each morning, and lunch has featured a lot of canned tuna.
While her fellow board members forked over $8 for a takeout lunch, Levin—knowing she wouldn’t be able to afford it—brought a small mixture of tuna, macaroni and sliced cheese, with a side of sliced apples.
For dinner she got a little fancier with her own adaptation of pasta fagioli. But in lieu of the prosciutto ham and cannellini beans was a small portion of hamburger meat and kidney beans along with pasta, celery and carrots.
She bought all of her food at a discount grocery.
“She’s putting herself in a degree of discomfort for one week,” said Meals on Wheels grants manager Toni Gianforte. “She’s got to eat within that $30 a week when most of us are used to five, ten dollars sometimes for lunch.
"We are all talking about the items that you can purchase at $30 a week that are the high-carb, sugary products. They’ll get your motor running, but it’s unhealthy.”
Gianforte said Levin is helping to bring to life the hardships of what many, including a large proportion of senior citizens, deal with daily.
“I think first of all she’s really engaged in the community so I’m not surprised she’s doing this," she said. "As director of client services she is putting herself forward and it’s going to have a big impact, I hope.
“The whole issue of senior hunger isn’t swept under the rug, but it’s not visible. You have soup kitchens and groups like the Maryland Food Bank, but our clients are essentially hidden from public view. Because that’s so, we are the ones that have to profile them and paint the picture of who they are…and that’s what she’s doing.”
While many of the 160 individuals taking part in the experiment will help publicize the challenge through their friends, families and media recognition, Levin has taken to the blogosphere to record her experiences and let others read about them.
“I really hope that we are raising awareness and reforming public policy,” Levin said. “Folks see what we are doing and I hope it makes them a little more compassionate and understanding.
"When I have to turn somebody down because there aren’t enough slots here, they panic. We have people who are crying on the phone. I may not be able to fix it, but I should at least be able to understand.”
Bob
9:44 pm on Thursday, September 22, 2011
lets stop giving away stuff to people who don't need it so there is more for the people who actually do need it. do a better job filtering out the frauds and you will have more to give the true needy
Mark
1:01 pm on Friday, September 23, 2011
CRAZY!!!
$30 a week = $4.28 a day
breakfast 2 egg ommlete egg 28c ham 16c cheese 10c= 54c
lunch 1/4# cheese burger meat 60c roll 12c cheese 10c= 82c
that leaves $2.92 for dinner EASY EASY EASY
I am a single dad of four, yeah woke up with four in diapers 17 years ago and I have easily fed myself and each of my children for less than $4.28 a day!!! I shop at Sam's and my everyother month bill is $600 to $700 and I by produce at the local market for less than $100 a month. I have always packed my children's lunches and have never been a public charge. Yes, I bake my own bread and cook from scratch.
People have gotten lazy... the giverment cannot save the LAZY!!!! Why should my tax payers money help those who refuse to help themselves!!! Enough with the handouts.
tbw
2:59 pm on Friday, September 23, 2011
Your $600 bimonthly equals $300 per month. Throw in your $75 for produce at the local market and you're at $375 per month. Divide that by 31 days to err on the side of caution and you're spending $12 per day, multiplied by 7 days, or $84 per week, or $16.80 for each of the five members in your family, per day. Using your $700 mothly Sam's bill and your $100 produce figure, you can up everything to 20.32 per person, per day.
A far cry from the $4.28 per day you claim is CRAZY!!! Let's blame everything on the LAZY folks and all the handout they receive. Especially those dreaded, LAZY seniors.
Mark
3:22 pm on Friday, September 23, 2011
No my total sam's bill for five is 600-700 dollars and includes detergent toilet paper and other sundry stuffs! The same with my $100 to the local market for produce, that is for a family of five!!!
Even in these times as produce and meat have double in price in the last three years I am easily able to feed per person for under #30 a week... infact my cost is $21.43 per person per week!!! This is not crazy!!!
I don't live like this because I have to... I live like this because I want to. I and my children are all very healthy. 25 pounds of flour and 10 pounds of rice go a long way. I do not by prepared meals made of complex carbs and a lot of corn syrup.
People need to get out of the self distructive behavior. How often do you see people buying food with goverment money and smoking... and buying lottery tickets!!!
People need to want to help themselves and not look to the tax payers to support their distructive behavior!!!
Mark
3:29 pm on Friday, September 23, 2011
you might want to blame your problem on your bad math???
tbw
6:01 pm on Friday, September 23, 2011
My only problem is having to read comments by folks that clearly didn't read the article, or did read it and can't understand what is written.
From Meals on Wheels Mission Statement:
Our Vision is to end senior hunger by 2020.
Our Mission is to provide national leadership to end senior hunger.
Do you understand the definition of a "Senior"? You know who they are, those LAZY, food-buying, smoking, lottery-ticket-buying elderly folks that have the audacity to want to stay in their own homes as long as possible.
Think about that the next time you drive on a government-maintained street, or use subsidized public transportation, use the interent or make a telephone call or utilize anything paid for or funded by tax dollars.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Bob
9:43 pm on Saturday, September 24, 2011
to tbw, the problem is that we can't help the elderly unless we stop spending money needlessly on people who do not need it. Why are you angry at Mark? You are hiding under a rock if you don't realize funds are misappropriated and mismanaged. i know a lady who gets meals on wheels free while her family spends her money on themselves.
Bob
9:47 pm on Saturday, September 24, 2011
I forgot to note....How many times is the word senior or elderly used in this article? Approximately ONCE! Shame on YOU!
CAW21227
7:39 am on Monday, September 26, 2011
First of all Meals on Wheels serves the elderly and those who are housebound, not food stamp recipients. I am sure that MOW buys their food in bulk and therefore is not spending nearly as much as those who are shopping in a supermarket on a weekly basis so I don't see the point of this story.
Now to the food stamp recipients... I know for sure of a parent and child who receives $134.50 per month. That amount is for food only. You cannot buy toilet paper, detergent etc with food stamps. Yes, if you are given $134.50 at the beginning of the month and you spend it wisely, you can feed yourself & a child for $4.48 per day. Hint: buy only sale items at local grocery stores, stay out of BJ's and Sam's club because when you take the time to figure it out, their products are not that cheap. Another hint: shop at Aldi's, they have good quality food at very reasonable (cheap) prices. I am not on food stamps and I shop there because I can't really afford the other grocery stores.
Third hint: when you are eating on someone else's dime you should not be eating in fast food places, eating shrimp & steak or any other high priced food the taxpayer cannot afford because he had to give so much of his paycheck to the government so they could give it to you to keep you alive. Not only are food stamp recipients getting money on a monthly basis, but their children get free or reduced lunches and breakfasts at school so in reality they are only feeding their school age child one meal a day.