More on poor

[kengr]

Last night's local news had a story on Food Stamps. They had one guy complaining that $200/month food stamps wasn't enough to get thru the month.

I beg to differ. It's doable. But you have to be careful, and you can't be a lot of "normal" stuff.
You'll buy bulk rice, bulk beans and so on. And learn how to cook the dried beams.Canned stuff and most packaged foods are luxuries.

You'll buy at place like Winco, because they sell the cheap "meat (like Bar-S sausage) at half the price places like Safeway and Albertsons do.
And so on and on.

Oh yeah, oif you live someplace that lets you have a garden plot, you don't plant flowers. You plant veggies (I'm currently faced with huge numbers of tomatoes. Trying to figure out what to combine them with)

Romney and his ilk can't *conceive* of what it's like living at or below the poverty level. They barely have a clue about the "middle class".

And they are *so* sure that "hard work" will get you out of poverty. Sorry, it's pure luck. There aren't enough opportunities, and as noted in Scalzi's post I linked to in the previous post, far too often, you can't do it because it takes money you don't have and can't get.

Comments

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you can adapt this recipe to your budget and diet, but it's one way to use tomatoes:

Make meatballs (~1/2 inch diameter) with 1/4 cup bread crumbs, 1 egg, and 1 pound ground meat. (Usually a ground beef/bulk sausage mix, but in my experience, anything you can make into meatballs will do.)

Brown the meatballs in 3 tablespoons of oil, and set aside. (Olive oil if you have it.)

Simmer 2 pounds chopped tomatoes, 1 chopped small onion, and 1 tablespoon of seasoning (I just use Italian seasoning, but I'm experimenting with other things) for ten minutes.

Return meatballs to the pan, stir, and cook on low heat for 45-60 minutes. Serve with your preferred carbohydrate.

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And you're right; they don't know what it means to be middle class. And they probably haven't read anything that would explain it to them. I just read Nickel and Dimed, and I was reminded how lucky I am not to have fallen below the line.

[kengr]

Oh, my situation has been worse that that at times in the past. Right now it's better.