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Kids Ain't Cheap

But They Sure Are Worth It

Where to Find Food If Your Children Are Going Hungry

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Find Food If Your Child Is Hungry

More than 10 million children a year go hungry in the United States. These hungry children have trouble focusing in school, which puts them at an academic disadvantage. In addition, summer is often a difficult time for them because they don’t get regular meals from the schools as they do during the school year. During the pandemic, more children struggled to get an adequate amount of food. If this is a problem your family is facing, several agencies can help you find food if your children are going hungry.

Where to Find Food If Your Children Are Going Hungry

Many different agencies offer programs that can help your children if you know where to look.

Local Food Bank

If you’re experiencing a temporary food shortage, consider visiting your local food bank. You should receive enough food for a week or two, which should be enough to get you by until your next paycheck. However, if you are facing long-term food scarcity, consider some of these other programs.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

The SNAP program (formerly food stamps) has rigid qualification requirements. Namely, your income cannot be more than 130% of the poverty level and your assets need to be limited. However, if you qualify, you can receive several hundred dollars a month to buy food, depending on your family size.

Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)

The WIC program provides supplemental food to pregnant and nursing women as well as their children ages five and under. To qualify for WIC, you must meet several qualifications. However, you’re automatically qualified if you already receive SNAP benefits or if you’re on Medicaid.

National School Lunch Program (NSLP)

Find Food If Your Children Are Hungry

Young woman serving lunch to school girl at canteen

There are two tiers to qualify for the NSLP. If your family income is under 130% of the poverty level, your child qualifies for free school lunches. If your family income is between 130% and 185% of the poverty level, your child qualifies for reduced-price school lunches.

Summer Food Service Program

During the summer, your children can receive free food to make up for the food they are not receiving because school isn’t in session. The summer food service program requires no documentation of eligibility. You can call, text, or contact your local food bank to find locations distributing food during the summer.

Backpack Program

The Backpack Program fills the need for food on the weekend when kids aren’t getting free school meals. This food bank locator can help connect you with a local food bank that may be participating in the Backpack Program.

Final Thoughts

No child should go hungry. These programs can help ensure your children get enough food so they can grow strong and focus on their school work. In addition, if your money is stretched tight, these programs offer a bit of leeway so you can focus on other expenses such as housing and utility expenses.

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5 Tips for Eating Well on a Budget

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eating well on a budgetI have heard many arguments that one of the main reasons obesity is such a rampant issue is because eating well is so much more expensive than buying ‘junk food’. This is something I have always argued.

Buying convenience food is substantially more expensive than buying fresh, and I live in an area where food is very expensive. There are certain things you must do if you want to eat well on a budget.

Make it a Priority

If you don’t make eating well on a budget a priority the rest of your efforts won’t make any difference. I didn’t say it was easy to eat well, especially on a budget but it will be so worth it for you and your family.

Learn to Cook

You have to learn how to cook. If you can read then you can follow simple recipes and cook. The reason people shop for convenience food is often because they’re lazy, don’t know how to cook, lack time or simply don’t care. Basic cooking skills will go a long way in stretching your budget. At the grocery store this week I noticed a single-serve frozen entree on sale for $3.00 each. Instead I made a delicious pasta dish from scratch for $6.00. Double the price but provided 8 sizable servings. It definitely pays to learn how to cook!

Make Better Choices

This week I could have bought three large bags of chips for $6.00, instead I opted to buy the two-pound container of blueberries for $7.00.  Though $7.00 seems like a lot for a single fruit it will accompany our meals for at least five days. There is often always a choice. Don’t waste your money on pop and juice, water is a healthier and cheaper option.

Canned and Frozen is Ok!

People often forget about both canned and frozen fruits and vegetables. I buy large bags of frozen fruit to make smoothies or add to yogurt at a fraction of the cost of fresh. We also stock up on canned goods when needed. Just make sure your veggies are not canned in salt and that your fruits are canned in either water or natural juices instead of syrup.

Grow Your Food

Even when I lived in a one bedroom apartment I grew some of my own food. I had a few small containers on our deck where I grew peppers, tomatoes and herbs. For a low upfront cost I was able to grow and enjoy a substantial amount of food.

Eating well is a challenge. You have to learn to meal plan and shop the sales. Putting the effort into learning or refining your cooking skills will go a long way for providing good food for you and your family. The better you eat now, the less complications you may experience long-term. Eating well may help keep your medical bills down afterall, living with obesity isn’t without its own costs. 

What do you do to eat well on a budget?

How to Save Money on Food

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fresh foodOther than housing, food is probably the second largest component in a family’s budget. With food prices only rising, it is important to save as much money as possible without compromising the integrity of your family’s healthy diet.

Eating well and cheap is possible but requires effort and planning. When just starting, expect to set aside at least an hour every week if you plan on getting serious about saving money on food for your family.

Here are some tips for how to save money on food and still eat well:

  • Meal plan. This is the easiest way to save money on food. With a meal plan, you can shop for the items you need for the whole week ensuring not only that you have all required ingredients, but also that you don’t end up back in the grocery store. When you make multiple trips to the store unnecessary costs will likely occur.
  • Shop with a list! If you don’t have a list you’ll navigate the store aimlessly and put more things in your cart than required, as well miss items you may need.
  • Always shop the parameter first. Grocery stores are designed to have all the fresh and frozen items on the exterior of the store. Non-perishables are found on the interior. Fill you cart with the health items first then move to the interior aisles.
  • Shop late at night. Shopping late at night may mean you score daily mark-downs. At the end of a normal day (usually around 7-8pm) a lot of grocery stores will start marking down things like their meats in preparation for the next day. They need to make room for the fresh product and will start marking down older or near expired items. I have found this to be particularly true for meat and bread.
  • Coupon. I don’t have a lot of advice to offer on couponing since there are many restrictions on coupon use here in Canada, but I know if done correctly, you’ll be able to save a lot of money and even score free product.
  • Keep a price book. For items that you frequently buy, keep a log of the different grocery store prices. Compare frequently and watch for sales. This will help establish a budget for your weekly spending.
  • Freezer cook. Freezer cooking involves preparing multiple meals at once, freezing them and using them as required. I recently partook in a ”Big Cook” where we prepared over 30 meals at once, froze them and had dinners for over a month. Most freezer cooking meals can adapted for crock pot or oven. Thaw the night before, put in slow cooker in the morning and have dinner cooked!
  • Take advantage of your farmer’s market. Utilizing your local farmer’s market is an easy way to save money on food and get a great product.
  • Buy seasonally and freeze. We have a large blueberry season where I live so in the summer we’ll go to a local u-pick lot and pick berries to freeze. We eat some fresh then freeze them to use throughout the year for things like baking and smoothies. This is much cheaper than buying them frozen throughout the year.

With a little planning and preparation you’ll be able to save money on groceries for your family and still eat well. It will soon become a routine and take no time at all.

How do you save money on food for your family?

Is Junk Food Tax the Answer to Childhood Obesity?

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Junk FoodI re-joined Weight Watchers this weekend (bye-bye baby weight!). At the meeting there was a 18-year-old girl who was a returning lifetime member trying to lose the 50lbs that has found her over the past three years. The first time she joined she was just 11 years old. This post isn’t about Weight Watchers or whether or not I agree with young children doing a structured diet program, I’m looking into WHY an 11-year-old would need such a program.



The Rise of Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is no secret. It is completely plaguing the developed world. There has been a lot of discussion in our local news about whether or not a ‘junk food’ or ‘fat’ tax is the answer to helping this growing problem. The logic being that parents will be forced to make different, ideally smarter, food choices for their family’s diet. Foods singled out are pop (soda), oils, cheeses, candy, chips, basically anything is highly processed or saturated fat-laden.

Do we really need this? Isn’t a tax just a way for the government to capitalize on our, albeit bad,  food choices? Shouldn’t we be forcing more education instead of punishing?

Thoughts on a Junk Food Tax

These are the types of questions that are running through my head. Instead of punishing a family’s food choices, why don’t we start at the very beginning and encourage affordable healthy eating habits in elementary school? Start the education when they’re young and don’t stop! If we drill it into our kids heads and explain the choices they have to make there could be an entire generational change. I know things in this area are improving but we’re not there yet. We need to educate our kids as well as their families. Some families may be reluctant to initiate the changes required or ask the required questions. If help was available in the form of things like healthy family nights, held at your child’s school, where a nutritionist could come in and do presentations aimed at the specific demographic, the framework for better decision making could be laid down.

Life is about choices, junk food included. We need to teach our children how to make good food choices through our knowledge and counter balance the not-so-good ones. We need to get this junk food tax idea out of our minds. It won’t work, mark my words.

What are your thoughts on a junk food tax?