On a Dollar a Day: One Couple's Unlikely Adventures in Eating in America

by Christopher Greenslate

  On the day of the grand opening, Christopher put the announcement in my purse so I wouldn’t forget to stop on my way home. As usual, my mind was racing with the million things that needed to be taken care of at school, but that morning I felt like I needed an energy boost to get through all of them. As coffee wasn’t a part of our thrifty budget, I plugged in Bon Jovi and turned up the volume. This was a ritual that started during our dollar project. One day when I was exhausted, I chose Bon Jovi for the music to play as the students came in. I sang along loudly as they filed in. Some looked at me as if I was crazy, others began to sing along. A tradition was born. We referred to these mornings as “Bon Jovi days,” and it wasn’t long before my entire first period class could sing along. Of course, their favorite song was “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which is about a young couple trying to make ends meet. My undying love for Jon Bon Jovi became a running joke, and students would find ways to work his pictures into presentations, hoping to score some points with me. But this actually served its purpose to help me feel more energized.

  After work, as I was chasing the last few debaters out of my classroom and packing up to leave, I found the flyer and remembered my mission. The store is only a few minutes from my school, and on the way home. The shopping center is typically empty, but I had to wait through two green lights before I was able to turn into the parking lot, and there was a line of cars stacking up behind me. Shopping carts and bargain hunters complicated the search for a parking spot, but I waited patiently as a car packed full of white-haired ladies slowly backed out, and I was able to pull in. Encinitas is a fairly affluent area, and I wondered if the crowds were proof that there are hidden poor in every area, or if even the middle-and upper-middle-class shoppers were feeling the pinch of the economy.

  True to the promises, the prices were some of the best I had seen, although some of the produce left something to be desired. The four-for-$1 avocados all could have fit easily into one of my hands. Still, there were bargains to be found, and I, as well as half the town, was anxious to get my share. The scene inside was not much different from the parking lot. Crowds of people gathered around the islands of produce with large shopping carts, filling them up with low-priced fruits and vegetables. I had to wait to use a scale to weigh my broccoli as people checked to make sure they were getting no more than the maximum limit for the deals.

  Reading the signs, I wondered if they weren’t a bit misleading. It seemed as if it would be easy for people to misread the signs and buy more than they needed. For example, the white onions were labeled as ten pounds for one dollar. I started to load my bag when I noticed that underneath the price in smaller print, it said “with Smart Advantage card and designated quantities.” It sounded as if it was necessary to buy ten pounds in order to get the deal. I have a college degree—I should have been able to figure this out. But as I was filling a bag full of more onions than we could use in three weeks and trying to remember if I still had my onion soup recipe, I realized that I probably didn’t have to buy the full ten pounds. I asked a clerk to clarify. He joked that I would actually have to buy twenty pounds, before telling me that I could buy any amount for ten cents per pound. Relieved, I put over half of the onions back. I smiled to myself as I pushed my cart on and overheard two women by the carrots asking each other the same question.

  Eventually I navigated through the masses to the checkout counter. Miraculously, I found a short line. Once I had loaded my goods onto the belt, I looked at the onions; I still had too many. I took three more out of the bag and ran them back to the produce department. I was proud of myself. I was hungry when I got to the store, but I didn’t wander or stray too far from my list. My only splurge was bananas. At the end of the trip, I had come home with two pounds of broccoli, four pounds of bananas, three pounds of white onions, one pound of Roma tomatoes, three pounds of carrots, and two heads of lettuce, one romaine and one green leaf, and I only spent $5.07. We celebrated by having a salad with lettuce, tomato, and carrots with our dinner, instead of the suggested half-cup of lettuce and dressing.

  I figured that this produce would help to carry us to the end of our project. With only about twenty dollars left and food remaining in the pantry, it seemed as if we could make it through with no problem. But, as I reached for an onion to make another dish of the saucy beef noodles, one of the few dishes that we both enjoyed, I found that all of the remaining onions had mold growing on them. Having gotten over some of my squeamishness about spoiled food during our dollar project, I pulled a knife out of the block and began cutting the bad spots away, throwing them into the tray for the compost bin. I put the rest of the onions in a container for the fridge, hoping to preserve them a little longer.

  MOTHER’S DAY FELL on the coming Sunday. Lynda, Christopher’s mom, wanted us to meet her for coffee that morning, along with Christopher’s sister. Secretly concerned about being able to afford treating her to coffee, I tried to make excuses and convince her that maybe we could go out the following week. But she was persistent, and I can’t say that it wasn’t appealing to get out of the house. Just as we had in September, we were spending quite a bit of time alone at home that month. I did want to go, but the problem was that I had to tell her, “Lynda, we’d love to take you out for coffee, but we can’t afford to right now.” Part of Christopher’s stubbornness comes from his mother, and on Mother’s Day, we found ourselves at a local coffee shop. Lynda treated me to coffee, and Christopher to hot chocolate. She was good-natured and knew we were trying to be “Thrifty,” but she couldn’t resist teasing us about trying to dodge her. When she and I went up to the counter to order, she told the cashier, “It’s Mother’s Day and I’m taking out my kids.” The girl behind the counter smiled. I wanted to explain to her that it was just that we couldn’t afford it right then, and that if we had waited a week, it would have been okay. Instead, I thanked her for the coffee and sat down. Typical of Lynda, she was concerned about our health, but was glad to see that we were doing just fine.

  But that Mother’s Day was not our best in terms of health choices. Our friend Stacy, who had brought us donuts from Las Vegas, also likes to bake. When Stacy, who is also vegan, bakes, we benefit from it. Every once in a while, we get a phone call from her or her husband to find out if they can stop by to drop off treats. On that day, it was an assortment of homemade vegan cookies, donuts, and cupcakes. We sampled one of everything throughout the course of the day. They were delicious, but topped off with fried zucchini and mashed potatoes for dinner, it was a bad day for nutrition.

  In general, we were still attempting to prepare as many of the meals from the two-week plan as we could, but to make the money last, we were using up all of our leftover ingredients to make as many of the dishes as possible. This led to repeats and reheats of the same meals, and some odd dinner combinations.

  Our last shopping trip was carefully planned out. We spent time again looking over the menus and pantry shelves, and calculated and recalculated how much we had left to spend. One of the menu items that we had not yet tried was the recipe for baked chicken nuggets. Like the crispy chicken that we had enjoyed, it was chicken coated in cornflakes. We were out of cornflakes, so in order to make the meal, we would need to get some, as well as a chicken substitute. At the store, after several minutes comparing prices, we found that it was less expensive to get the processed vegetarian chicken nuggets than to purchase the items needed to make our own. We didn’t take the time to consider the health benefits of making our own nuggets versus eating prepackaged ones. Instead, we noted how much easier it would be to throw these into the microwave or oven, not to mention that it saved us a few extra cents. At the register, we came within a couple of dollars of our limit for the month. We considered buying a pack of gum or running back for an extra can of tomato sauce to make it an even total, but decided against it. That turned out to be a good decision.

  With only a few days left on the Thrifty Food Plan, I came home from work to find Christopher in a bad mood. He h
adn’t slept well the night before, and then had had a rough day at work. He was frustrated and upset by a situation that had been escalating for a few weeks. Christopher’s social justice students were trying to complete their projects and felt that their efforts were being unfairly stalled or halted by another teacher. Christopher was doing everything he could, but ultimately felt alone in his efforts to help them. We talked through it for a while, but it did little to alleviate his stress. I told him to go take a nap while I made dinner; it might help if he was rested. Then I had an idea. The night before we started this project, we had purchased a chocolate bar, with the intentions of eating it that night. However, we’d had a big dinner, and the chocolate bar had been put in the fridge until the end of the month. I knew we had a couple dollars left. I walked into the living room, where he was lying on the couch.

  I rubbed his temples and said, “If you want, we can have that chocolate bar for dessert.” Given Christopher’s love for anything chocolate, I thought he might appreciate the treat.

  He looked up at me sheepishly and admitted, “I ate that weeks ago.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  While I could forgive him for the cookies, I was shocked that he would sneak the chocolate bar behind my back and never tell me, especially since he had the perfect opportunity when we were confessing our earlier indiscretions. On top of that, we had to add in another $2.55, which took us within a few cents of our total, and I didn’t even get one piece.

  “I can’t believe you’d do that. We have to count that now, and you didn’t share,” I said as I turned to stomp out of the room.

  “Sorry,” he said, smiling now, “I just couldn’t resist.”

  “Well, I hope you feel good about yourself!” I shouted from the kitchen as I pulled out dishes to start on dinner. “I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

  With four days left on our Thrifty Food Plan, we found ourselves in a situation not much different from the one before we started our dollar project. We had no money left to spend, so a trip to the store was out of the question. We had only lemonade, popcorn, spaghetti, one can of kidney beans, flour, and hamburger buns left. There were a few remaining chicken nuggets and a small container of leftovers. The other food in the house was the beans and cornmeal in bulk that were left over from September. However, we hadn’t charged ourselves for those during our thrifty diet, so we couldn’t eat them.

  When we started this project, we did not outline rules as strict as we had with the dollar-diet project. We didn’t plan to survive for three days on plain noodles, kidney beans, and popcorn; we had done that in September. We had talked before about what we would do at this point, but never come to an agreement.

  Christopher argued that since our goal was to see how far we could make our money go, we should stop once we ran out, something he had been asserting since the beginning of the project. My argument was that people in this situation do not have the opportunity to “stop” when they run out, as people receiving SNAP benefits often run out before the month is over. Although our experience was nothing like that of people with limited means, we were trying to gain some perspective about the issue, and we learned firsthand that the money really does run out, even with careful planning. Because of our tight budget, we were no longer following the menu recommendations as closely as we had originally, and due to the leftovers and odd combinations, we were certain that we weren’t eating according to the food pyramid.

  We came to a compromise: We would finish that day, a Thursday, and go through lunch the following day. We would eat the leftovers for dinner that night, and the remainder would go into my lunch for Friday. Christopher would take the last few chicken nuggets. After that, we would stop. While I was a little disappointed that we didn’t make it all the way through, I was glad to be finished.

  12

  Peanut Butter Cheesecake

  Christopher

  The week following the conclusion of living on the Thrifty Food Plan was a whirlwind. The pressure of ending the school year continued to wind us up pretty tightly, but Kerri’s birthday was only a few days away, which gave us something to look forward to. Moving away from the USDA’s menu gave us both a much-needed sense of relief. We now had one less thing to worry about and could more intensely focus on work. After having been restricted to a limited budget and a plan that relied heavily on white rice, white bread, white flour, and other processed foods like cornflakes and pasta, we were overjoyed to go our own way. Once again we could enjoy foods that we had seen little of while following the plan: burritos from Rico’s and chocolate soy milk shakes from Nature’s Express (our vegan fast-food drive-through). Our lunches would be free from the banality of milky potato soup, and our dinners filling enough without some type of cabbage worked in.

  However, the transition away from the plan was anything but smooth. The excitement over our culinary autonomy blinded us, and we failed to plan our meals adequately. We reverted back to the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants dining, which was not only more expensive than a dutifully planned menu, but nutritionally scattered, as well. There were some good elements of our new habits that persisted in the days following the plan. I continued to drink a cup of orange juice every morning, and a cup of soymilk with dinner each night. I even continued to measure my cereal out in the morning, and made sure to pack our lunches with some type of protein source and a fruit or vegetable. There were a couple of nights that week when I recommended one of the meal options that I enjoyed from the menu, like the turkey chili over macaroni, the crispy chicken, or the saucy beef pasta, but Kerri wasn’t interested; the revulsion was written in her face.

  We generally don’t eat some type of meat substitute or dairy several times a day, and the Thrifty Food Plan makes those options some of the most visited foods on the menu. While I rather enjoy the taste of meaty options—not unusual for a vegan—Kerri doesn’t get as excited about them as I do, and she was longing for something different. She yearned for a big salad, beans and rice, and other simple foods. This is part of what made it so hard for her to follow the Thrifty Food Plan, even with the alterations we made as we worked our way through the month. Although her personal tastes were far from accommodated, this distaste for the foods in the plan wasn’t the only challenge we faced with what the USDA has set out as a guide for low-income families.

  We recognize that the task undertaken by the USDA of planning a single menu to help guide the general public on how to eat is beyond difficult, especially when everyone’s lives, tastes, family sizes, cultural values, income levels, and nutritional needs are incredibly diverse. But when considering how to build a menu for people to use while planning meals, the USDA needs to reconsider many of its assumptions. For example, it assumes that people on the plan are receiving the average SNAP benefit, that they have a family of four, and that they are able to spend up to 30 percent of their income in addition to using food stamps. Kerri and I, as working adults without children who earn a middle-class income and have debt levels close to the national average, don’t represent that target family.

  Without a traditional culinary heritage per se, we are pretty average. We like good-tasting, filling food with prep time that fits within our schedules. We like to feel that our meals are healthy, and we don’t mind spending time to plan weekly menus. We are vegan, so we don’t eat animal products; and we also try not to buy, for instance, produce picked by migrant workers where the labor practices are questionable.

  That being said, we let go of most of our political identity to try to follow this plan. We only bought organic when it was the same price, nothing we bought for the plan was local or fair trade, and we shopped mostly at traditional chain supermarkets. Replacing animal protein with comparable plant-based sources wasn’t a problem.

  Our main challenges stemmed from the fact that the plan is designed for four people, and that the prep time for many of the meals was beyond what we could manage with full-time jobs. In addition, the nutritional value of the meals seemed lack
ing, and when we looked up the nutritional facts about these foods, we found that we were correct. One example would be the plan’s use of orange juice for a serving of fruit, instead of just telling people to eat an orange, which has more vitamins and nutrients. While the foods suggested in the Thrifty Food Plan may fall within the traditional food pyramid, the focus on eating foods made from white flour, meat, and dairy, and only using vegetables and fruits as supplemental (such as a piece of fruit for a snack) flies in the face of what we know about eating. Our diets should be mostly made up of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, of which there were little in this plan. There were many times when purchasing a larger size in order to get the best value was impossible, given the amount of money we had to shop with. These concerns matter even more because we are privileged in that we have time to spend hours planning and shopping around for bargains. We take eating seriously, we have money, we have transportation—and still it was a struggle to follow the Thrifty Food Plan.

  At its core, this program is supposed to be designed so that those receiving the maximum food stamp allotment can feed their families a nutritionally balanced menu, based on the food pyramid. As our budget for this project was based on the average benefit distributed to SNAP recipients, it was almost a given that we would run out of money, since most people on SNAP do. This is why we also supplemented the benefits with the average income that people living on food stamps are expected to contribute. The average amount of SNAP benefits has typically been close to three dollars a day per person, but it is different for each individual based on a variety of factors, including how many people live in your household. The maximum allotment, which is what the plan is based on, is at least $2.50 more per person, per day. If it’s just one person, the maximum amount is more than double the average. Instead of around three dollars, the recipient is given $6.67 per day, which is close to the average spent by most people in the United States each day on food. If someone is actually getting the maximum allotment, then this plan is more than reasonable, but to design a plan that is only affordable to those people receiving the maximum benefit makes little sense. The plan should be designed for the average recipient, therefore making it useful to the largest number of people possible.