Food Stamp Challenge Wrap-up

Last night my sister asked me if I learned a lot about food stamps from the challenge. My response was not really.

The point of the challenge was to raise awareness of food stamps and to provide information to persons on food stamps, but what could I say that I learned?

I think probably the hardest part was wanting something to eat - that I knew we had on hand - but denying myself the pleasure because I hadn't purchased it for the challenge/put it into our weekly meal plan. It was my first experience with "rationing" food. This was particularly difficult the first week. It was also difficult telling Mr. X that he needed to eat something he didn't like for the sake of the challenge. Fortunately for him, we ended up having extra leftovers, and he ate those instead.

The second week of the challenge, I wasn't as careful about using items from our stockpile and accounting for them in our food stamp budget. But it also helped that I purchased a number of snack items, like chips, baby carrots, and Halloween candy.