PB and Pekara is good - The peanut butter sandwich for lunch was delish and filling. Even Bo only used one slice of honey wheat bread from Pekara because it's pretty large and dense (4.59 for a loaf). I may be sold on bulk peanut butter from the Co-op too ($4.49 a lb).
Living without the frills is the biggest challenge - Poor Bozie managed to survive without his free Starbucks coffee from work, which has apparently become a staple for him over the past couple months. He was also bummed to have to turn down homemade baked goods that coworker brought to the office and as well as candy on someone's desk. I had the same issue with the candy. It kinda helped that it was Dove chocolate, and I could not rationalize how someone on SNAP would have free access to that. At dinner, I also skipped on the freshly grated REAL parmigiano reeggiano that usually makes my pasta look like a blizzard swept over it. THAT was hard.
I know we definitely broke the bank - The apples we got cost about 70 cents each. Yikes! But it fairly satisfied the sweet craving that hit me in late afternoon. In general, my philosophy is that if it's healthy, especially local and organic, it shouldn't matter what it costs, just get it into my body or the kids' bodies. It's also important to us that we expose our kids to a variety of foods like mangoes, plantains, and kiwis. True story, last week when Bo took care of the boys while I had an evening meeting, they all went on a special trip to the grocery store and picked out coconuts to bust a hole in, drink the milk, then whack open and eat the flesh. This is their daddy-son bonding activity, but costs over $2 per coconut. Wouldn't you rather our kids being doing this than snacking on unhealthy food? It's too bad that some healthy food, even a simple apple, can be a luxury.
All of a sudden that box of Jello that has been gathering dust in my pantry for 4 years looks good - That afternoon sweet craving lasted into the evening. So I made Jello. Not my preference, but it was the cheapest option we had on hand. I'm looking forward to Saturday because also in my pantry are 2 Reuben's chocolates. At $1.60 a pop, they are totally not doable on a SNAP budget.
We're not really doing it with the kids, but kinda - They still have their Kashi cereal each morning (to the tune of almost $4 a box and their whole milk from Kilgus farm to the tune of $4.49/gallon). This is their thing, so we left it alone, but I did skimp on them. They get food at school, so that we don't count. At dinner they each had an egg, while they usually have 2. I might have caved and gave them more, but that was all we had in the fridge. 1/2 slice of Pekara honey wheat bread was good for Monkey, but Bean asked for another 1/2 after his first 1/2, so I obliged. They also had a banana and yogurt smoothie. No veggies, but we'll make up for it tonight with squash soup. They weren't hungry after dinner, I don't think, but I know they usually eat more. Each of them can eat 3 slices of pizza and it's not because they're big boys. They're only 2 and 4 years old and each of them are in he 30th percentiles for their heights and weights. I can't imagine only being able to spend $4.50 a day on a teenage sons!
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