I have for my husband and me a $50 week budget. There is this paper by the door of all grocery stores that is called WEEKLY ADS. You grab one take a min. circle only what’s on SALE, pay and go your mary way. Once home MENU PLAN around what you bought.

Here some tips:
-Shop at the Hispanics/Asian markets SUPER CHEAP chicken quarters for $7.00 a bag of 10lbs (or less), Ground beef $1.99lb, Pork Chops/Ribs $1.89 and more items.
Produce CENTS on the dollar I have got 3lbs. carrots ($1), onions 3lbs ($.69), red potatoes 4lbs ($.50), sweet potatoes ($.19lb), avocados 4/$1, cucumbers 8/$1, limes 10/$1, lettuce .$69ea. The list goes on and on.

-Dollar Stores boxes of pasta, cans of spaguetti sauce, half galon milk, bread, frozen fruits and veggies, cheese, eggs, oatmeal, spices, tins of sardines/tuna and more for, yup ONE DOLLAR.

-Check for clearance items, hunt for bargains, use coupons,price match, compare prices, stock up. DON’T throw things as you go into the cart (big mistake).

-Save scraps and bones to make stock.

- homemade, homemade, HOMEMADE.

- Buy GOOD quality fats, avocados, canned sardines/salmon, coconut milk, real butter, olive oil, coconut oil (this IS pricey).
Our brains are made of fat FEED it, no wonder we as society have become so dumb our brains are starving and can’t think properly. Good fats is what make the body think is FULL, and will avoid eating junk every two hours. That makes us overweight and sick.

-Stop making lame excuses , stop whining!!

*down my soap box*

First, how can you even say that people with multiple children working jobs disgust you?

The reality of it, is yes, many people have JOBS, not careers. I had a career at AT&T but it felt like a JOB because I hated working for them.

Also, some people are just not cut out for college and choose to work JOBS. Who’s going to take my order at McDonald’s if everyone is a doctor or lawyer? We need these people who work JOBS just as much as we need those who have careers. And anyway, the difference between a job and a career is perspective.

That cashier at Wal-Mart might be happy with her job and considers that her career while the executive at AT&T hates his career and views it a job – a means to make money and not very fulfilling. My sister-in-law has worked as a cashier at Lowe’s for 6 years and loves it. I worked for corporate America and hated every minute of it.

So I find you ignorant to stay that it disgusts you that people with multiple children work jobs. At least their working trying to take care of their children instead of relying solely on government benefits to help them! Or maybe those people with multiple children working JOBS had careers but was laid off!

Also, when you work, you’re not going to get that much help from the government. Some working people JOBS only receive $10 in food stamps and don’t qualify for welfare and medicaid. And the trouble you have to go through to get that isn’t it worth it half the time.

However, just because a person has multiple children working a JOB doesn’t mean they’re getting government assistance. That is a narrow-minded stereotype.

It’s not a crime to have 2, 3, 4, or 50 children. Let people have children because those same children are going to grow up and get jobs and have money cut out of their checks to fund services for YOU when you’re old, disabled, and/or retired.

And don’t you dare for one second think you’ll never end up needing services because of your RESPONSIBLE decisions.

You know where you’ve been but you don’t know where you’re going. You could walk out of your door and end up in car accident that leaves you injured and unable to work. And then when you apply for disability, they’ll deny you and tell you that you can find other work due to your educational background and while you get your lawyer and fight social security, you’ll need those food stamps to help feed you. But when your friend calls on your iPhone that got before you were disabled and the cashier gives you a disgusted look for paying for that ice cream you’ve been dying for with food stamps – remember what you posted on this website.

Cause like I said previously, you know where you’ve been but you don’t know where you’re going. You have no idea what tomorrow holds for you.

Secondly, I think you show your ignorance to judge people based on what you saw without knowing their whole story. Did you ask those people in CVS buying junk food with food stamps how they got their iPhone or why they were buying junk food or how they ended up needing food stamps in the first place or did you just automatically make an assumption?

I know a girl that receives a check once a month, lives in public housing, receives max food stamps, has $500 cell phone, wears not exactly expensive but pricey clothes, and drives a 2010 dodge charger.

And if you saw her, the first thing you’d say is she’s abusing the system; I hate my taxes go to help people like her; something needs to be done about the system to keep people like her from abusing it.

On the outside, it does look like that.

But guess what? This girl has boyfriend who bought her the cell phone by adding her to his plan – and guess what? They received the cell phone free for adding a new line to his account. The car – it belongs to her boyfriend. If they break up, she no longer has transportation. The clothes – he keeps her looking nice. Of course, he has a volatile temper and will hit her when he gets angry. And the one time she called me to come get her, he had locked her in the house beat her until she almost died. And it’s not easy to get out of abusive relationships because of FEAR and LOW SELF-ESTEEM.

Just makes you sick to your stomach to see how great her life is, doesn’t it, spending your hard earn money on a bag chips?

Not only that – but the girl is certifiably crazy. She was raped by her own father at the age of 16 and kicked out of the house when she told her own MOTHER. Her mother believed her husband over her own child. And this girl was eating out trash cans and sleeping on park benches until someone finally took her in.

To make matters worse, the girl got pregnant by her father (currently in prison now) and the baby was taken into DHR custody because the girl suffers from post traumatic stress. And she goes through hell and back dealing with DHR because they want to give her back her child but they don’t know if she can handle taking care of the baby. One minute she wants the child and the next she can’t stand to look at the girl and breaks down into tears. And yeah, she thought abortion, but reputable clinics show you videos about what happens when they give you an abortion and it freaked my friend out and she decided to just have the baby.

So yeah, that check she gets once a month – she deserves it. She can’t hold a steady job, is always jumping into bad relationships, and takes crazy pills. And maybe she could do better but she can’t. Not everyone has that kind of strength or even that great of a support system.

No, she’s not abusing the system. She needs that check to come to her once a month and it’s really not much. And she needs those food stamps to help her buy food. And she needs those social services they offer to help her get our that bad relationship she’s in even though this guy does take care of her.

But if you just looked at her from the outside without truly knowing her situation, you’d think she was just abusing the system and making irresponsible choices.

You need to quit looking at people who have government assistance just because you see them do something YOU don’t approve because in reality, you have no idea how many of these people may go home and cry their eyes out at night – just like the girl I told you about.

So who really cares if they want some damn coffee and gummi bears with their food stamps? Let them have their comfort. It may be the only comfort they do have. To assume you know what these people go through based on what they buy with their food stamps or what they wear or what they own is plain ignorance.

And to assume that just because you can do it, everyone else can is again ignorance. If everyone was just like you, there’d be no need for psychologists, yeah?

And to those who complain about how their paychecks are being heavily cut to fund services like food stamps, think realistically for moment. If these services didn’t exist, do you really think the government would let all that unused tax money go to you?

Of course not. They’d find some other reason to take just as much money from your hard earned paycheck to give you something else to b*tch about.

There are two things in life that are certain: death and taxes. We’ve been dying and paying taxes since of the beginning of time. And it’s not likely to change any time soon even with stricter policy regulations for social services or even just cutting out social services altogether.

So just sit back. Work hard. Pay your taxes. And thank God you don’t need or have to rely on social services to make it instead of looking down on people without truly knowing how they got there in the first place.

My rant is now over.

I worked in retail all through college. Let it be known, while in college, I paid all my own bills on a tiny income. It frustrates me that in order to “make something” of myself, I had to go hungry a lot of the time. But I did it because it was MY CHOICE to only work 20 hours a week at low pay. However, when I was at that job (retail pharmacy store CVS) I saw SO much abuse of the system. I saw people come in and use a LoneStar (Texas ebt) card to buy $2.99 coffee drinks, sodas, gummy worms, chips, and candy. I was appalled that people living on tax dollars were able to buy these nutritionally bankrupt foods (some while talking on an iPhone). Tax dollars are not there to subsadize junk food or help budget a fancy phone. So, the anti-SNAP attitudes may come from limited and negative experiences with it. Do I think all people on SNAP are lazy, lazy-good-for-nothing, cheats who abuse the system? Of course not! But I think there are some poorly written policies in the program that allow a few bad apples to ruin my sympathies for SNAP recipients. Not being ugly, just giving a point of refernence for the root of some bad perceptions.

I am also not so quick to feel sorry for families of four, five, or fifty. It disgusts me that people with JOBS not careers have multiple children. I am a 25 year old women. I do not have children. Guess what, I am not on SNAP benefits. I have planned to have A child (one, uno, singular) only when I have $20,000 in the bank. I’m a teacher so it will be another 3 to 4 years for me to do that. I made good choices by getting educated, working my whole life, and controlling irresponsible child bearing. It disgusts me that people don’t take responsibility for their irresponsible choices. But I guess even irresponsible people need food.

And rant over.