What I Learned After Taking a Homeless Mother Grocery Shopping

[one_voice]

Driving by these women, I can’t help but see my own story in theirs. I unexpectedly found myself a single mom a few years ago, so I am keenly aware that the only thing keeping my kids off the streets is … me. If I were to lose one of my precious jobs, I would be just like these women. It’s not hard to imagine. I wish I had a nest egg, a trust fund, a wealthy parent as a safety net. But I don’t. So while today I am fortunate enough to pay the bills, that all could change in an instant.

That’s why seeing these women gave me the urge to do something. I arranged to volunteer at my local homeless shelter that Sunday and met mothers as they dropped their babies off for two precious hours of playtime. One in particular stood out.

*snip*


Low-income Americans are traditionally stuck in a deeply unfortunate food cycle. With meager funds, they rely on the cheapest food sources, which are those being subsidized by the government: soy, corn, and wheat. These inexpensive crops are turned into inexpensive foods, mixed with sugars and highly processed, leading to chronic health concerns like obesity, diabetes, and cancer.

Going into this situation, I expected to see the cycle of poverty in action.

I expected to see $50 stretched, each dollar poured into inexpensive packages of processed products. Because that would be the proper thing to do, wouldn’t it? When a woman hands you $50 and tells you to go grocery shopping, you take that cash and make it stretch.

Except: That’s what this mom was always doing. So when I handed her that $50, I hadn’t handed her money for food. I handed her freedom. Fifty unbudgeted bills to spend on whatever she wanted.

*snip*

As we shopped, we talked about how she ended up at the homeless shelter. She wasn’t angry or ungrateful. She wasn’t hopeful. She wasn’t asking for handouts.

She was just a mom.

We stopped mid-aisle after 15 minutes. She looked at the contents of her cart and stated, “This is probably about $50. Should we go check out?”

*snip*

2014-07 Single Mom5SMBW
What She Bought:

Goldfish Crackers - $1.00
Quaker Instant Oatmeal, Peaches & Cream – $2.99
Marachaun Cup, Beef (x2) – $0.78
Marachaun Cup, Pork – $0.39
Cherries – $6.38
Applesauce – $2.29
Apples – $11.45
Nissin Chow Mein – $2.00
Tostitos Scoops – $2.50
Kraft Easy Mac – $3.89
Fruit Snacks – $1.49
Harmon B-T White – $1.69
Quaker Chewy Choc Chip Granola Bars – $5.00
Chef Boyardee Ravioli – $1.00
Western Family Spaghetti Rings – $0.89
Taco Bell Refried Beans – $0.69
Gold Bell Pepper – $1.79
Peaches – $1.25
Mission 10-Count Soft Tortillas – $2.99
Herdez Salsa – $2.49
GM Cocoa Puffs – $4.49
GM Bonus CTC – $2.50
Western Family Pear Slices – $0.99
Libby Vienna Sausages – $1.38
Blueberries – $3.98
http://www.babble.com/best-recipes/what-i-learned-after-taking-a-homeless-mother-grocery-shopping/

This is a really good article and worth the few minutes to read.

[UncleYoder]

1. I agree.

Definitely worth the time to read.

Now, where do we start to fix this?

[Iggo]

7. Tax the rich. Feed the poor.

[seveneyes]

17. I'd love to change the world

[calimary]

59. GREAT song!

Used to play it on my college radio show. LOVED Ten Years After! Used to put it with Thunderclap Newman afterwards.

[daleanime]

27. Amen....

[hifiguy]

30. Yep. Yesterday.

[4Q2u2]

2. Sad and Sickening

That a country richer than any other in the history of the world would ignore this, and vilify this poor woman and her children.
Tip O'Neil is rolling over in his grave as well as FDR. All that they fought for is lost.

[Louisiana1976]

38. +1 million

[stevenleser]

3. This makes me very sad.

[closeupready]

29. +1. America shouldn't be that kind of place, and doesn't have to be.

K&R

[KurtNYC]

4. Someone started a KickStarter campaign to create a cook book

for those on the tightest budgets. Their goal was $10,000 but they raised $144,000+.

The resulting cookbook is great! And, appropriately, it is free. PDFs available here:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/490865454/good-and-cheap

[hifiguy]

31. Wow! That is a day brightener

Fourteen times what they sought. There are still good people out there.

[questionseverything]

44. wonderful idea

very tempting recipes!!

[factsarenotfair]

5. This might be helpful:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/08/01/337141837/cheap-eats-cookbook-shows-how-to-eat-well-on-a-food-stamp-budget

[eShirl]

6. note the two most expensive items

both fresh fruits, a luxury treat

[JustAnotherGen]

9. Yes -

Something I've learned from volunteering and never coming with empty hands to the food bank - especially now that fall is coming?


Bushels of apples - stop at the farm stand. You can get a lot and they go quick at the food bank. In season food - and farm stands (decent size ones - I live in horse country in central NJ) - if you tell them what its for -

In season food in bulk goes a long way. I have one organic farmer giving their stuff that's on the verge of turning to our food bank in our community now - believe they can use it as a tax write off.

We just have to get creative and think of affordable ways to help. The worst a food store/farm stand can say is no.

Oh - and we are taking a bunch of black berries this Saturday - we didn't realize when we bought last fall that we had three huge mature blackberry bushes. We will never in a million years eat THAT many!

Check the rules of the food bank first - but ours will allow me to bring them in. And a grocery store had extra 'pint' containers for me to use.

[laundry_queen]

11. EXACTLY

As a single mom who is on a tight budget, I GET why people who are really struggling don't choose the healthy fresh stuff. It's fucking expensive. I wrote about this on another thread. Here, apples are pricey. $5 for 6 apples. So, I can get that to put in the kids' school lunches, or I can choose a box of 8 granola bars for $2. With 4 kids, you can see where more of my money goes. I still try really hard to buy the 'cheap' fresh stuff - carrots, celery, whatever-fruit-is-on-sale, but fresh foods add a SIGNIFICANT amount to my grocery bill. If we eat 'crappy' foods for a week, my bill might be $120 for 5 of us (I'm in Canada, so higher cost of food here). If we eat healthy? $250 easily. My kids can polish off a $8 bag of grapes in an hour. A $3 bag of salad is a side dish for 1 meal (and yes, I've calculated and a head of lettuce is no cheaper, unless you buy iceberg).

I'm tired of crappy, shitty cheap food being subsidized. It's time for the healthy stuff to get the same amount of money as the corn/wheat/soy lobby.

I have a garden this year, and thank god. We've eaten salad, zucchini, carrots and other random greens at every dinner thanks to my garden. I'm lucky. I have wealthy parents. They don't help out much though (they've never helped me out much, even when I was a kid) my mom seems to think a box of rice krispie squares from Costco once every 6 months is a HUGE help (they are worth well over a million and my mom makes well over 6 figures. My dad is retired). But thankfully my dad, who had a gift card for home depot, built me some cheap garden boxes and filled them with dirt for me (the dirt alone was $100, something I wouldn't have been able to work into my budget this spring) and so, I have a garden. And I have a fridge. I cannot imagine being in the mother in the article's shoes. I am seriously upset for her. Can't anyone buy the shelter a fridge? Or one of those mini fridges for every room? It just makes me SO sad.

[CrispyQ]

76. "I'm tired of crappy, shitty cheap food being subsidized."

Funny how our objections to our taxes being spent on corporate subsidies fall on deaf ears, but the fundies have the whole country listening to why they shouldn't have to pay taxes for birth control.

Like you, I cannot imagine life without a fridge or a stove, but especially a fridge.

[arcane1]

18. What do you do with the melon after day one? Where do you keep it?

[BuelahWitch]

21. Not everyone has an Aldi's in their town

I agree, it is a good place to buy fruits and vegetables. But if there isn't one nearby, that really doesn't help, does it?
I guess this poster is gone, which is good. Food prices aren't the same everywhere, or even at every store. Apples used to be one of the more inexpensive fruits to buy, but prices are crazy all round these days.

[one_voice]

37. There is an Aldi's not far from me...

I was planning on going there. Is their produce good? I've been to stores where they have awful produce & they charge an arm and a leg for it. I remember a time when we had all sorts of road side stands or little markets just for fresh produce...they haven't been around for a long time.

[BuelahWitch]

46. It's pretty good, better than some of the larger stores in fact

I know what you're saying though, stores charge so much for fruits & veggies and they look like hell. You really have to look them over.

Edited to add: Aldi's Ranch Dressing is fantastic, if you like that sort of thing. I highly recommend it!

[SomeGuyInEagan]

58. Speaking only for my area (southeast Twin Cities, MN)

The Aldi's we have tend to have pretty good produce, better than what I find at the mid-level supermarkets (Cub, Rainbow) and certainly better than Walmart, Target or Trader Joe's ... at a much better price that any of them.

Selection is the caveat, however. Aldi's fresh produce here tends to be main staples - apples, bananas, peppers, potatoes, broccoli, green beans, blueberries, lettuce, etc. Every once in a while, they will get a special shipment of something outside that - say, kiwi - and it will be of good quality. I can't speak to the frozen produce from there.

For fresh produce, we go with farmers' markets when we can, then buy what we can get Aldi's before trying other stores.

[frazzled]

8. It seems to me the biggest problem is

not having the stove or fridge. Nowhere to store fresh food, nowhere to cook it.

I disagree slightly with the idea that the shelf-stable products were bought entirely because they're cheaper. Although that seems true for ramen, it's not true, for example, for the Quaker oatmeal packages or Kraft Easy Mac. which are actually quite expensive. They are there because they are more easily prepared without a kitchen; but they're not cheaper than buying a box of Quaker oats to cook or making a large quantity of "real" macaroni and cheese. If all you can do is add hot water to something, this is what you will have to buy; but it's not very economical or healthy.

Maybe what someone needs to do is open some kind of "kitchen center" that provides individual fridges for people to store their food and cooking facilities that can be used. And then picnic tables for family meals. Such a kitchen central might also help other homeless moms to share their secrets, or their resources, as well as provide play groups for the kids.

I don't know what the answer is, but I am not homeless or impoverished and I still say "ouch" to $6.38 bags of cherries. I put them back when they're too expensive.

[JustAnotherGen]

10. You know this is a really good idea

Maybe what someone needs to do is open some kind of "kitchen center" that provides individual fridges for people to store their food and cooking facilities that can be used.

Hmmmm . . .

[frazzled]

13. Lots of people get rid of stoves and fridges

when they remodel or simply want an upgrade. Many appliance stores cart them away when they deliver the new ones (I don't know what they do with them). People could either donate directly to such a center or the center could contract with appliance stores.

At any rate, it would take some doing: a large enough space with an upgraded electrical setup to handle, say, a half dozen stoves and a dozen fridges. Some smart organization could figure it out!

Eating together as a family is so important. Eating ramen out of a cup with hot water from the public bathroom ... I can't imagine that.

[Phentex]

15. I think of the dorm fridges that get discarded every year

when someone can't take them back on a plane. Stuff just gets trashed!

[JustAnotherGen]

19. The one in our kitchen

We remodeled when we moved in was in good condition so we held onto it - we were going to ask around to see if someone needs it - an electric stove.

This is a really good idea and concept. I'm looking for something to energize me now .. . Food bank assistance is not enough - until we get a jobs program that pays real living wages -

We are going to have these problems.

Even with that - we will still have people falling through the cracks.

[niyad]

66. I was watching one of the hgtv shows last night--cousins something or other. they were redoing

a teacher's home, including giving her brand new appliances. because she does so much volunteer work at the local soup kitchen, it occurred to the cousins to donate her used appliances to the kitchen. glad that it finally occurred to these rehabbers.

[lumberjack_jeff]

26. Figure out who is responsible for cleaning and getting rid of spoiled items, and perhaps. n/t

[RobertEarl]

12. We see the disconnect in this thread

The lady is homeless. She lives in a temporary shelter with fridges and appliances. She and her children are fed there. What this story is about is the lady buying what she considers as delicacies. Some of us at our $20 steak meal with a bottle of $6 beer can only look down and be bemused at the purchases?

The argument is that 99% of our food welfare capital expenditures via the government benefit children. Children who have no skin in our games but whose skin is on the line. To refuse these children while we gobble down our steaks is a sign of insanity that runs deep across our land.

But then I see that it is mainly the crazy leftists who realize such things.

[frazzled]

16. No, she specifically said there was no stove or fridge at the shelter

“Here’s the thing,” she explained. “We can’t have anything perishable in the shelter. So, the girls never get enough fruits or vegetables. We don’t have a stove or a fridge. I don’t want you to think I’m buying bad things. I just don’t have a way to keep the good things.”

Not all of us crazy leftists are naive or stupid: we actually read!

[RobertEarl]

22. How do they feed the residents?

Last edited Thu Aug 7, 2014, 03:54 PM - Edit history (1)

You seem to have this all figured out so details should be easy to come by?

While you are at it detail the shelter and its funding and management.

In the meantime we can, while we munch on dead cow, just imagine that the shelter is about broke, has many limitations on just what the residents can do, what facilities they can use at what times and for what duration.

The gist of the story is that the homeless lady considers her purchases as delicacies given the constraints upon her and her family.

[frazzled]

43. I don't have anything figured out: this is simply what I read in the article

I don't know a damned thing more about the shelter than you do. But she said there was no refrigerator or stove there, and that is why she wanted to buy the fresh fruit and vegetables for her children.

PS: Why do you think we are all munching on dead cow and having two-martini lunches?

[RobertEarl]

45. That's what I thought

If she had a stove and refrigerator it would imply she had a house and then wouldn't be homeless, eh?

What do you imagine about homeless shelters? That they have shared facilities for everyone?

I see some on this thread saying: Hey, all they need is a warehouse full of mini-fridges and stoves!! Then they can feast!!

[frazzled]

47. Go back to your steak.

Your snarkiness is uncalled for. I, for one, have volunteered at homeless shelters, homes for the developmentally disabled, and soup kitchens. I've cleaned the mold and stench out of the storage rooms and walk-in fridges at such a soup kitchen, where the donated food rots before it is prepared and eaten. Next time you've picked your way through green mold on bread and scraped oozing raspberries off of a refrigerated shelf, get back to me.

You imagine we are all eating steak as we pontificate, while you offer no solutions to this homeless woman's admission that the shelter has no way for her to store fresh foods for her kids.

Whatever you thought, I think worse of what you are writing. End of useless discussion.

[laundry_queen]

49. No one said that

It would HELP, sure. No one is saying that's all they need. What a load of crap. Obviously there's a bigger problem here, but to change society takes a long time. To bring a few used mini fridges to the local homeless shelter is something that could be done in a short amount of time and make a big difference. I don't understand your irate posts. Of course, not all homeless shelters are the same, but I've seen a few on a documentary and some of them for women and children specifically (the longer term kind) have separate rooms for everyone, and shared bathrooms and kitchens. I'm guessing some don't have fridges and stoves...well, then, let's get those things into those shelters - better nutrition for the children is a need NOW. They can't wait for society to change and solve the problem.

[RobertEarl]

50. My solution?

Find homes for them. Homes with cabinets and refrigerators and a level of some dignity.

But then i do have the vision of long range. Of course, right now, we could take the military budget and do just that in a matter of days. We should have done it years ago.

Can i get an argument from that?

[laundry_queen]

53. I don't remember asking you for your solution.

Of course we all know what the solution is. Has the gov't implemented it yet? No. Will it? No. it will take a huge change in society for it to happen. That's what I was getting at. Governments are CORRUPT and it will take time to change that, if it even ever happens. They love them some wars to make more money.

In the meantime, homeless kids are growing up on crappy food. It's not wrong to try to focus on making their day to day life easier until a large, driven population forces the government to decide wars are stupid (if that ever, ever happens) and letting people go poor is a abhorrent. I believe in a minimum income and housing for all. No one should go hungry or without shelter these days. Don't know why you are fighting the very people who are on your side here, is it because you disagree with where the focus is?

[RobertEarl]

55. Well, excuse me!!

Gosh, i express a liberal opinion around here and get blasted?

Isn't that special?

[laundry_queen]

62. Who knew

that attacking fellow DUers for no reason was a liberal opinion. Huh. Learn something new everyday.

[chervilant]

65. Wow!

It's way past time to put you back on my IL...

Your comments in this thread are rude and condescending. You might read the linked article a bit more carefully, and apologize to the DUers you snarked, but I doubt it.

[Regrell]

71. I made this account to say something you can't as it would cost you a hide.

Fuck that guy, seriously FUCK him. Thank you for your spot-on posts in this thread, and just ignore that particular flavor of sanctimonious blow-harding.

The idea of community kitchens is a great one, one that someone tried to institute in our city. They were shut down by NIMBYs who didn't want crowds of homeless people milling around, so they got the facility -- which served hot meals and offered cooking facilities -- cited for nitpicky sanitation violations that cost the organizers their lease.

They then moved out the edges of town, where they are more difficult to reach and can serve fewer people. They also need someone licensed in food prep on premises at all times, and other such insults. I'm not arguing we shouldn't have sanitation standards, we most certainly do... but corporations like Sysco commit much more severe crimes, while some NIMBY yuppie can get inspectors to demand shelters follow standards which would never be asked of anyone in their private kitchens.

Apparently homeless people can't be trusted to fry a couple eggs.

[Aristus]

20. I bristle with anger whenever anyone implies that poor people shouldn't have an occasional treat.

As if poverty wasn't difficult enough...

[BuelahWitch]

23. Me too

Subsisting isn't living.

[Louisiana1976]

42. I agree 100%.

[Scuba]

40. +1

[kentauros]

64. I've started calling it "Conditional Compassion"

That is, "You can have my money, but only if you buy what I think is healthy. Nothing else allowed!"

Every time threads like this are posted around here, you see examples of this conditional compassion from so-called Liberals. It's the personal choice of anyone for what constitutes the food they want and/or need. Let them make their own choices!

(Not you, Aristus, just those that want to control others.)

[caraher]

77. So true

The damage of poverty is more about being made to feel less than it is about privation.

I remember seeing a guy get really angry that his food assistance would not cover "energy drinks." Personally I think those drinks are awful, but what's worse is the perhaps well-intentioned paternalism that removes the power to make these personal choices.

[Rex]

24. I can buy a huge amount of groceries with just $70 a week.

Once I learned to budget my money, it was far easier to stock up on food and other groceries.

[AuntPatsy]

32. I cannot even imagine 70?

[Rex]

35. It was twice that until I learned to budget my grocery money.

Yeah over the years I've carved away at grocery money. Hard not to with a gallon of milk and a gallon a OJ 5 and 6 dollars per!

[Phentex]

36. Do you keep it in a canvas cart?

like the lady in the story?

I hate buying orange juice. It's very expensive for what it is and it doesn't go very far. I would never buy it if it was up to me but my family likes it on the weekends.

[Rex]

39. No I am lucky enough to have a fridge.

I was thinking how sad it is that sodas are dirt cheap, but milk and OJ are outrageous in price. Candy bars are cheap, but fruits are expensive. Something wrong with that imo.

[Phentex]

54. It's very wrong. I'm in GA...

aren't there orange groves one state below?

[d_r]

60. There used to be

most of them are covered by stucco homes for retired people now

[kcass1954]

63. Orange juice from Florida oranges is $4 for 59 ounces - more expensive than milk.

I bought a bottle last week only because I had a coupon to get $2 off if I bought 2 boxes of Cheerios Protein, which was b1g1 and I also had coupons for.

A homeless person wouldn't be able to save or print coupons to get the savings I got, or have a place to store the extra box of cereal.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. What? No champagne and truffles? Did her chauffeur have the day off?

According to the compassionate conservatives we all know that "welfare queens" make a fortune from food stamps.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

28. I took someone shopping and the first thing they did was fill a cart with bottled water.

[Maedhros]

41. Whatever happened to the Safe Drinking Water Act?

I guess it was bad for the bottled water business.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

48. Some people have ZERO sales resistance.

[KitSileya]

70. Well, considering West Virginia, the Great Lakes...

...Detroit shutting off water to those behind on utilities bills, the spill of hydrochloric acid wherever that was...And those are just the stories I remember off the top of my head right now.

I wouldn't be surprised if their tap water was undrinkable. Oregon has good drinking water, but yasureyabetcha I buy bottled water whenever I travel around the US. Food and water safety in the US is a big laugh, considering companies can do whatever they want with impunity, and they do, to improve already insane profit margins.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

72. This was in California before the drought. The cart must have weighed 100 pounds....

Seemed like a total waste of VERY limited funds.

[lumberjack_jeff]

33. Food assistance is tailored to economic logic, not nutritional.

It's not surprising, because that's the way we americans roll.

If the point of food assistance is nutrition, then perhaps we should do it differently; something analogous to MRE's tailored for the nutritional needs of the recipients.

"You can either choose $300 in food assistance with which you can do whatever you want, or $100 cash plus 60 MRE's per family member."

Or we can fight malnutrition with more money. Perhaps doubling the amount of top ramen and kraft dinners will cure it.

[littlewolf]

34. I was watching the chew on ABC

and Mario (a professional chief ) tried to live on what the
state of NY gave for food (this is assuming the person is not
in a shelter and has a stove and fridge.)
he did it, but just. and he is a pro.

[jwirr]

51. She was doing what I do. I buy for my great grandchildren.

[Shandris]

52. What's funny (not funny) is that most of the time we mention these things, people tell us how...

...wrong we are. "OH no Shandris, it's not really cheaper to buy processed items than fresh fruits, you just don't know how to shop!" Naturally, spoken by someone with far more to spend every week than I do in a month more often than not. I mean sure, if you have all the 'right stuff' like a deep freeze, a good functioning freezer, a crisper that actually does its job, and a goodly bit of time then I'll bet you could do better with a long-term bulk purchase and large amounts of perishables. But it's a big assumption that everyone automagically has those things and the time to make them count. They don't. Not to say there aren't shortcuts and other tricks to making money last, but those are often more localized whereas everyone has the 'shopping experience'.

It's good to see an author 'get it' and the article is very relatable imo. Good find!

[d_r]

61. I once saw a talk by a nutrition professor

discussing increasing fruit and vegetable intake among low-income African-American men, that this was important because of the health benefits and so fruits and vegetables needed to be introduced in ways that basically "snuck" them in so that they would develop a taste for them. That if you eat something seven times you will develop a taste for it. And I said "its because it is so much cheaper to buy processed stuff" and she said "oh, no, not really, fresh fruits and vegetables are not expensive." And I thought yeah, maybe if you are living in a college town with a farmers market and not in the middle of a city but I didn't want to push it because she was sort of taken aback me saying it in the first place.

[Warpy]

56. Looks about right to me

When poverty moves in like a disreputable, mooching relative with nowhere else to go, the one thing I always miss the most is fruit.

It sounds like this mom is in exactly the same place.

A lot of what she bought can be eaten cold, out of the can or unwrapped and eaten with no more preparation. She bought her usual staples and then--oh, the glory!--some fresh fruit and some applesauce to dole out when it was all gone.

[colsohlibgal]

57. The Super Wealthy Are The Leeches On Our Economy

Nothing makes one feel better than selflessly helping those less fortunate, those who are ground down by the plutocracy.

I love it how raising taxes on the rich is class warfare but cutting their taxes is not, quite the double standard.

[YoungDemCA]

75. B-b-but tax cuts stimulate the economy!!!

And the money trickles down!

[Liberal_in_LA]

67. kick

[progressoid]

68. But the TV told me that poor people buy lobster with food stamps.

I'm so confused.

[Uncle Joe]

69. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, one_voice.

[DeSwiss]

73. K&R!

Rethink Homelessness

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[CrispyQ]

74. Produce, the healthiest department in the grocery store, is the most expensive!

If $11 of apples equals two snacks but $3 in Ramen will feed her entire family for dinner, how can she possibly pick apples with her limited food stamp budget? And how will she ever afford to fill half of every mealtime plate with fruits and veggies, the amount recommended by the same government that issued her food stamps?

Excellent article. People judge what people on food stamps buy & never think about if they are homeless & have access to appliances that most of us take for granted.