Jen's Blog

Sean and I decided to try the Food Stamp Challenge this week. It actually started off just trying to challenge ourselves to severely limit our spending on food. Then we did some research and found out that it’s a big thing a lot of different groups and individuals do. There was no real consensus on amount to do per week. We had originally said $50 (which still sounded terrifying to me). Sean talked me down to $40/ week/ per person. 

Sean was the main motivator behind this. I didn’t want to give up my frozen meals for lunch and occasional mid-week eating out during lunch. But not one to turn down a challenge, I agreed to go along with him. He spent some time planning out our menu for the week. He budgeted about what all the ingredients would cost before we went to the grocery store as a gut check. The challenge was finding things that we could use for multiple meals. The worst part of cooking is when you buy something (a loaf of bread for instance) and use a small portion of it. This also cuts down on price if you can share between meals. 

Here’s our meal schedule for the week: 

We have a grocery list below but I didn’t include it here. Also you’ll notice Wednesday it says dine out. Unfortunately I had a work event I couldn’t change that happens on Wednesday. This week worked since we were both in town the whole week, so we’re cheating on Wednesday night. 

I’ve had some people ask me the motivation behind this challenge. It wasn’t really for health reasons (except I’m trying hard to make sure all the meals are still healthy!). It also doesn’t really have to do with money (Sean and I have agreed to donate some of the money we save to a hunger organization). I think the motivation is really to prove to ourselves that we can do this. 

Stay tuned for the shopping trip….