Amber sent me this link to a blog detailing the experiences of various congressmen and -women as they accepted the challenge of eating on $21 for a week, or $3 per day. This is the average food stamp benefit in America. I took a moment to get over the fact that this is actually 33 cents more per than my housemates and I have per day. And then I poked through the posts.
I identify with all of what I read: sometimes it feels easy, like I’m getting used to being hungry; other times, I’m sure that it’s just not possible to do, and I go spend money outside of the budget on something more complicated and expensive than I need. And the post about the spilled milk? I was just jealous that she had been able to squeeze milk into the budget! Hands down my favorite thing to have the fridge, my roommates veto milk off the grocery list every time. If I have brittle bones as an old lady, I will blame this year.
Some days, I get so angry as I walk up the hill from the bus stop to our house. I’m always hungry during this walk, and when my stomach is growling, I spend it thinking about what we’ll have for dinner. There’s no chance it’ll ever be ready by the time I get home because most of my housemates commute farther than I do. On top of that, we can’t agree on how to spend our food budget, so we don’t shop much. The selection in the fridge–especially on nights when we haven’t designated anyone to cook–is meager at best.
I don’t have nearly enough perspective to know if I’m wining or not, but I definitely feel thoroughly insecure, both in terms of food and finances. I know that I have a support network, that I have money in the bank (no matter how quickly it’s being siphoned off by my cell phone and student loan bills), but this is about solidarity, and I’m not really tapping into those resources now because that’s not the point.
Last night, our lovely community mediator reminded us that money and food are both currencies of power.
It puts a lot of our household tension and my personal feelings into perspective. I feel totally powerless. I want to buy both binders for the kid in front of me in line at Rite Aid who finds out that he only has enough money for one. I want to help the person who approaches me on the street to buy lunch. These are things that I used to do in the past; now I’m reaching for what’s left when you don’t have much money or food.
Our mediator told us to act from a place of abundance. So far, this is probably even more difficult than not having (enough?) money or food.
