Let's be clear.
I'm not here to judge what people eat. I'm fully aware that it's not easy to eat healthy when you are dealing with work/school/kids/husband/wife/life. But when Mayork of Newark, New Jersey Cory Booker announced he was planning to spend only $4 a day on food for a week (the same amount food stamp recipients get) as part of the #SNAPchallenge, I decided to one up him. MY plan was to spend $4 on food a day while ONLY eating organic food. What's more, I was going get my food at Whole Foods ($WFM)- easily one of the most expensive grocery stores in New York City. The point of me doing this wasn't to complain about not being able to drink my usual soy chai latte from Starbucks (which costs me $4.40 every morning) or worse, try and portray myself as some food martyr. Nope. I wanted to show everyone that if you had to live on only $4 a day, you could do it in a healthy way. Here's the list of items purchased:
Almond milk (Whole Foods Brand): $1.99 4 cans of Whole Foods brand tuna: $1.69 Imagine soup: 2 for $4.00 .5lbs of steel cut oats .25 lbs of quinoa 1.8 lbs of bananas at .89 cents 2.56 lbs of butternut squash @ $1.29 4 granny smith apples @ $2.99 per pound Box of shitake mushrooms Jewel yams (sweet potatoes) $1.99 per lbs .67 lbs of grass fed beef $6.69 6 cage-free eggs $2.19 2% milk @ $1.29 Andrew and Everrett Provolone cheese Wholefoods organic english muffins $2.99 Frozen edamame $2.49 Frozen organic wild blueberries $2.99 365 Whole Foods brand 2% milk
Total amount spent: $57.59 (the amount two adults living on food stamps for a week). I went over budget by 19 cents, but didn't realize being a member of the Wellness Club + using your own bag to carry groceries + giving back the glass milk bottles for deposit put our household under budget by $10. Cool, right?