Could You Pass the Poverty Test?

One week of voluntary poverty might change your life

Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

Back in 1989 – I remember exactly because I was pregnant with my daughter at the time – an anti-poverty organization invited a bunch of us in the local media to come to a grocery store and choose a week’s worth of groceries that met all nutritional needs without exceeding the amount we’d receive from food stamps.

This was easy for me because my food budget was lower than the amount I’d have received if I’d qualified for benefits, but most of the participants failed the test.

If you’ve ever truly been poor, you are excused from this exercise. But if you’ve always had a reasonably secure life, I invite you to look up how much you’d receive from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, and hold yourself to that limit for a period of time.

My husband’s sister, Tiny (pronounced “Teeny”) is a social worker in Belgium. She and my husband’s brother, Huub, visited us last week. Tiny told me she had just participated in a similar campaign. In her case, she agreed to spend just 80 euros per week. This was to cover all food, gas and spending money – it wasn’t meant to replace one’s rent or mortgage payment. (See video below, in which she tells me about it while sitting on my deck).

At first, she thought this would be fairly easy, but what she found was that the constant worrying and counting was harder than she expected. She gave up after a few days – with a new respect for what families in poverty face. 

Poverty stress

It’s one thing to experiment with an extreme budget for a week or so, knowing you can stop the experiment anytime you feel like it. It’s another thing not to be able to get off the poverty train at will. The stress can harm your health and even reduce cognition. Growing up in poverty harms children’s brains. 

In the U.S., highly negative attitudes about people receiving any form of welfare benefit are common. I’ve heard of people in crisis driving to a town where they don’t know anyone to use their SNAP benefits. There’s a wide-spread and completely false belief that armies of single mothers are making bank by having many children, each with a different father, and collecting scads of welfare riches.

The truth is more nuanced. Rich or poor, few of us get exactly the lives we deserve. In my recent novel, The Trailer Park Rules, each person living in a trailer park lands there for completely different reasons. In life, things happen, and luck plays its part. Vilify the poor at your peril; many Americans are just a few lost paychecks away from homelessness.

Poor decisions

Some poor people know how to make the most of their meager resources, while some rich people let a fortune slip through their fingers. I have known people who managed to support themselves on minimum wage, and I’ve known people with extremely high incomes who maxed out their credit cards buying fripperies.

A New York Times story of March 20, 2020, made a great impression on me and on the many people who left heartfelt comments after it. It told the story about a mother who skipped meals to feed her children, but she did so by sipping Monster energy drinks. 

Without losing compassion for that family’s struggles, I also knew that energy drinks are a darned expensive grocery item, and that by foregoing them, she could instead have purchased inexpensive staples like oatmeal, dried beans, peanut butter or potatoes. Those are the kind of staples I often plan my meals around. 

One of my husband’s favorite meals is a bean loaf – a vegetarian meatloaf, essentially. I usually serve it with mashed potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts. 

Years of living on a tight budget taught me how to prepare nutritious meals cheaply. I’m thankful that my writing is earning enough money to put a bit more breathing room in my household budget these days, but knowing how to make the most out of a grocery budget is still a good skill to have.

How much would you get?

In my state, Illinois, a two-person household can get a maximum of $535 in SNAP benefits; the maximum for a family of four is $973. You can experiment with this SNAP eligibility calculator. 

Go ahead, see how your grocery costs compare. Don’t forget to include the times you hit the store mid-week for a gallon of milk or loaf of bread. (Hint: Save more by baking your own sourdough. That’s what I do!)

I’ll get you started with one of my own recipes: 

Black Bean Loaf

One onion, chopped

Two cans of black beans, drained – or use cooked dried beans to save even more

1 egg (or use ground flax if vegan)

1 cooked medium-sized sweet potato, peeled

Seasoning (I usually use taco-style blend)

Oatmeal

Mash beans and sweet potato roughly with potato masher. Add other ingredients and mix. Stir in enough oatmeal to give the mixture the consistency of meatloaf. Form into a loaf and place in a casserole dish or loaf pan. If desired, top with a glaze – your basic ketchup-brown sugar mixture works. Bake at 350F until done – about 45 minutes to an hour.

Serve with mashed potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts (this recipe is pretty close to what I do, except I use cheap olive oil and basic table salt) or whatever vegetable is in season. Leftovers are great the next day crumbled onto a flour tortilla with a bit of cheese and salsa.

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here or on Medium. My new book is The Trailer Park Rules. Tips accepted here.