Can you eat on 3 bucks a day?

I make no secret of being poor. To me it really doesn't mean anything to me except that I have to work a little harder to get my bills paid and crap like that. I buy alot of stuff second hand and people are always giving me and my kids things. Like last week some nice lady from
Wisconsin gave each of us a comforter, 5 comforters in all and she has no idea how much easier she made it for us. I don't ask for things, I never do. I know people who say "Can you help us out, we are poor." I hate that.
But I don't look at being poor as a status or a class issue.
I just think that in this life here on Earth some people have everything and some people go without....not everyone cn be rich. Besides, to me money is for paying bills, buying neccisties like shampoo, pine sol, laundry soap etc. All the little things you need in life that sometimes we have to go without for a week or two. But it's ok because there are so many people that have it worse, like my neighbors behind me who live in a trailer without electricity and they have a wood stove to give them light at night and keep them warm. They grill outside and sometimes I make them soup...usually at the end of the month when I am running low on groceries, they will bring their rations over and I make soup and we all share. That is what being a neighbor is, looking out for one another.
I don't get a monthly government check, not in South Dakota. I would rather make my beadwork and not have to worry about the million and one hoops they put out for welfare recipients to jump through.
I never recieved child support because honestly they make it too hard to abtain that. I don't know if anyone ever filled out that questionaire form but its about a book long and it asks all kinds of personal questions about the mother's (moi) sex life. And PLEASE, that is my business. I always think somewhere in those state child support offices some pervo's getting off on all those questionaire's of the babies mamas sex lives.
So I never went that route. I think they should do the same for the fathers.
I wouldn't know if they did.
I do however get food stamps. Which never last the whole month...we are lucky if they last over half the month. What I hate about getting food stamps is that all the stores around here put the same bullshit for sale when food stamps come out and everything else goes sky high. I study prices, I watch like a hawk.
The only grocery store we have on the reservation will have some good slaes until food stamps come out and then the only things on sale are bread, bologna, ramen noodles, and generic chips. No wonder the diabetes rate around here is some ghastly number like 500% higher than the rest of the nation.
Also the store we have on the reservation is owned by a corparate from California. They also own store in nearby off reservation towns, one of them being PoDunk. What gets me is the price gouging I see happening at all three stores. For example: a bottle of soy sauce here in PoDunk is $1.69 but on te reservation it is $2.05. Same brand, the generic store brand but .36 cents higher on the reservation. Or when I was up here in PoDunk this summer I bought a bottle of laundry soap on sale with a special "on sale" label that said $3.99. I go back to the reservation, have to buy the same soap (Era) and it has the same on sale label, but when I get closer I notice it is $4.99.
Anyways, I am getting off track here...
So when people ask me "How do you run out of food stamps when you get so much?" I just laugh and say "You try feeding these kids." But for real, I feed 3 boys and one girl. Tow of my boys are teenagers, but the youngest one Stephon we call Snack Attack...he has no control and we have to ration snacks and hide stuff. He is the only known member of my extended family that can eat two indian tacos in a row.
So I was kind of pleased when I opened the newspaper *The Rapid City Journal* and seen this article. "Food Banks Issue Challenge: Can You Survive For a Week on $3 a Day?"
That is the amount each person recieves per day for 30 days per month. So when people think that someone who gets food stamps should stretch it, I will tell you this...you can stretch it more than Rosie O' Donnel stretches her panites...it don't last. No matter how much you budget it still doesn't last. When I read the article I laughed at the end because they share some "affordable recipes" I laughed because there is no way in hell I will eat carrot raisin salad as a meal. I can budget one chicken into two suppers for my kids, but we still run out.
I was happy to see the challenge because I would like to see someone do it, and no cheating and eating Ramen for a week...lol.
They (South Dakota Social Services) said they issued the challenge becaus ethey are tired of seeing their programs getting bad raps.
Well, you know me, I always give (them) a bad rap...but I would like to see someone take this challenge and I will also be watching on the challenge blog here. www.sdchallenge.blogspot.com
So do you think you can eat on three bucks a day?