Cyndee Levy
We survived the challenge
without much difficulty in terms of the quantities of food that we
purchased. Having a large family probably actually made it a bit easier
as long as we made good choices and stretched our dollar. With a total budget
of $189 we ate fairly well. The kids were fine with apples and peanut
butter sandwiches for lunch, they didn’t really miss the extra snacks that they
often have to round out the lunch. However, they came home hungry and we
didn’t have much to snack on. They finished off the breakfast cereal on
day 3 as it became the after school snack. We also discovered quickly
that portion control, which they are not used to, was an issue. We never
had leftovers and once or twice there were little grumbles from the boys.
We had an additional $60 to spend during the week, but it was used up quickly
for after school slurpes (the boys used their own money initially, I paid them
back out of the food budget), extra cereal mid-week and a few extra things for
Shabbat. There was a beautiful Kiddush lunch at Traditional so that took
care of one meal.
We learned that $31.50 per
person each week doesn’t go very far. We also talked a great deal about
how much easier it is to shop with a Costco membership (several family members
suggested that Costco shopping might be cheating), and will a nice Walmart near
buy for us to do most of our shopping. We wondered want it would have
been like to shop only at a discount food store in the city. We also
wondered what it would have been like if I was not someone that liked to
cook.
For example, one night we have
spaghetti squash, tilapia, mixed kales in a salad with roasted beets, and melon
for dinner. It was great and we actually had 2 guests that night for
dinner. If I didn’t like to cook or if I was a working mother
holding down more than 1 job, I imagine that a home cooked meal would have been
much harder to pull off.
The Levy family will go into
this season more thankful for all that we do have and a bit more sensitive
about the challenges that others face. We are planning to make a donation
of one week’s family budget to the food pantry…it seems like a great deal of
money, but we know it is only a start.
