I do believe it's our third year of participating in "hunger" week - spending one Monday-Friday week living on a "food stamp budget - and each and every year it's an eye opener.
The good news for us is, we didn't go hungry. Due to our easy access to relatively affordable and abundant food choices, we were able to stay well under budget all week long and we didn't have to live off ramen, bread and tortilla chips. We had a limit of $22 per day, and by the end of Thursday, we had a cumulative total of $38.97 under budget.
We were relatively austere again for breakfast and lunch on Friday.
Breakfast for the kids was a yogurt (40 cents apiece). CJ also had a Lara bar for a snack ($1), Annabelle had a cutie (.12). Christian had 5 oz. of grapes (.62) and a cutie(.12). I had peanut butter on toast (24 cents). We had our usual 58 cents worth of coffee. Grand total for breakfast: $3.48.
Lunch for the kids and me was a small bit of ham, 70 cents total. Christian apparently splurged and had 5 ounces of ham and three eggs, 3 ounces of mini peppers an ounce of cheese and a quarter of a green pepper. It cost $1.20 total. Lunch total: $1.90
After Friday's breakfast and lunch, that left us with $16.62 to go for the rest of the day. When you combine that $16.62 with our surplus of $38.97 for the other four days, that gave us $55.59 for dinner on Friday. So we went out - but not without a significant coupon, of course, because that's how we roll.
I'd paid $12 for a $25 coupon to Nickerson Street Cafe. So we knew we would have one entree free, in effect. The cost of our four dinners and drinks tonight was $36, less the $25 credit, which made for $11, plus the $12 cost of the gift cert, bringing it back up to $23, however, we tipped (well) on the entire amount of the bill, which brought it back up to $42,. But even though we went out for a non fast-food dinner, we still came in significantly under budget for the week ($55.59-42 =$13.59 surplus). Mission accomplished!
Reflections: Amazingly the ridiculous "I'm hungry" feeling I've had all week was gone upon upping on Friday morning. And it's not because I ate a big breakfast (which I didn't). I have no doubt the faux hunger pangs evaporated because I knew today was the last day of Hunger Action Week, and so I'm not feeling food insecure any more.
A school teacher who faced hunger as a child made an astute observation in "A Place at the Table," the documentary we watched last night. "It messes with your head," she said of food insecurity.
The hunger problem is widespread and close to home. Between June 2011 and June 2012, there were more than 8.6 million visits to food banks across Washington. That's 500,000 more visits than in the previous year. And, according Washington's Superintendent of Public Instruction, more than 40 percent of King County public school students participate in federally assisted, free or reduced-price meal programs.
To end our week, we made a donation to the United Way of King County. They do great, life changing work in the community, and we thank them for the annual opportunity to participate in Hunger Action Week.
CRAMMING: We're in week four of our physics class, and somehow we found ourselves a little behind in this week's lectures. Actually, there are more lectures and they are longer, that's why we're lagging a bit. Turns out seesaws are complicated things. ;)
We watched 90 minutes of lectures today, reviewed all of our notes for this week, read some lively discussions on the class' discussion board about this week's lectures and test and then steeled ourselves for our quiz.
I was pleasantly surprised that I actually felt GOOD (for the first time) when hitting the submit button for my test. I thought I might have actually gotten 100 percent. (In every week past, I was roughly half that confident.)
I ended up missing one of the 10, but a 90 percent? I'll take it! The kids did as well or better.
CJ celebrated his physics success by playing a little Minecraft in 3D
PRETTY THINGS: Annabelle picked me a bouquet of lovely yellow flowers this afternoon.
And yesterday, during yoga (which often includes an art element), CJ colored this pretty scene on vellum.
It looked so pretty with the sun shining through it today. It's supposed to hit 70 this weekend - w00t!
Attaboy on the physics class, MPA!!!
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