Katy over at the Non Consumer Advocate is running a Food Stamp/SNAP Challenge to help bring awareness to growing hunger issues. This challenge really got me thinking as she made the statement that “we do not have the right to judge other’s food choices as we do not know their story” as a few started talking about the junk food they see people buying while talking on their cell phones while on food stamps.
I have also found myself making rash judgments about the overflowing carts at the most expensive store in town, with nothing but junk food in the cart as they are swiping their food stamp cards. Yet Katy is right, we do not have the right to judge other’s choices simply because they are not the choices we would make. We do not know that person’s story nor what motivates them to spend the way they do. We hardly would even glance at someone’s cart filled with the same items, knowing they seem to have the money to spend that way.
Food Stamps And My Youth
Funny, looking back to childhood, people glared at us as my mother had her overflowing cart and paid for it with food stamps. I use to think it was simply because we were poor, but looking back, I now see it had to do with what she had in the cart. We had no car so only got a ride to town 13 miles away once a month, so of course the cart was filled to the brim! While she had healthy things in the cart, it was also filled with convenience foods such as TV dinners, mac and cheese boxes and cans of pre-made stews. That was followed by junk foods such as ice creams, potato chips, chocolate covered cherries and soda pop. The highly judgmental on looking citizens had no clue to the dark disturbing story behind the food purchasing choices of a woman I always considered highly frugal.
You see, she was starving to death, literally…battling Crohn’s Disease, diagnosed in 1969, a time nothing was known about this disease. She needed convenience foods that us kids could heat up without yet having cooking skills for the days she hid in her bedroom trying to hide her agonizing pain from us. The junk foods were all for her, as her doctors desperately tried to keep her over 60 pounds! Nobody judging her food choices could have ever known this, as they went home, we were the ones living this nightmare as she fought for her life.
I heard on the news the other day that Food Stamp recipients have hit record highs with 46 million Americans now on them, a number that seems to be growing every day. Many families facing these real hunger issues and low income living now are being thrown into a life they never faced before and therefore never had the skills to start with prior to disaster striking. Minimum wage is becoming more and more common to have to raise a family on, no longer for the young just starting out in the workforce. Many of these families already had their big screen televisions or cell phone contracts before the need to apply for food stamps. Some have them because it is either required for their job, or their job pays for them to have them. Some have no cooking skills or much knowledge on proper nutrition. Some are just starting their journey on food stamp living. Some have major health issues or a family with multiple food restrictions.
Final Thots
While some things can be learned and there is a need for educating on how to stretch food stamps, the point is, we do not have the right to judge, as we truly do not know the story behind their decisions. The one thing we do know is that it is a rapidly growing problem Americans are facing. Hunger is a serious issue that really should be addressed and given attention to.
By the way, while I do not receive food stamps/SNAP, I am joining the challenge and you can follow on my Poor to Rich a Day at a Time blog! Being low income and spending very little in a month for food, I thought it would be fun to join in the challenge hoping it may be somewhat helpful to others who struggle everyday with food on the table. Just remember the next time you’re in a store and spot a person’s cart, paying for it with their food stamp card, we do not know their story and never have the right to judge another’s choices.
Carrie Hetu is not a financial expert, but has been passionate about finances since the age of 19 years old when a neighbor introduced her to taxes. From that time, she has made a point to increase her financial literacy into areas of frugal living, investing, real estate, budgeting and passive income. She currently blogs at Poor to Rich a Day at a Time and Simply Homeschooled.
I disagree. We taxpayers who actually pay a net positive sum into the treasury each year absolutely have a right to judge. We have this right only because the money is forcibly taken from us (via legal taxes) and spent in ways (like welfare and food stamps) that we have very little control or say. Regardless of the back story of whomever ended up with my money, I will continue to judge.
If the money was intentionally given (charity) then this would be an entirely different conversation. The poor wouldn’t feel as “entitled” to charitable money like they are to government handouts which would result in less waste and better choices.
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Hi Matthew, Thankyou for leaving your comment and opinion. Most people take part in and recieve government subsidies more than they are aware of, ever eat corn? Feelings of entitlements are a whole other story.
I think Americans in general have a feeling of entitlement and desire for the ability of high consumption.
I understand where you are coming from, hey I am poor ( no feelings of being owed anything here though! ) and I find myself resenting and getting angry with someone not willing to lift a finger to help themselves when I bust my butt.
But the point of this article was perhaps not to be so quick to judge a person whose story we really have no clue of.
If the system is faulty then we need to go after the system and not the people that have figured out they can use the system to either abuse it or to try to better their lives.
Big Corporations look for loop holes……..it is not different really. It is the system we need to direct our energies too and revise 🙂
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This is a tough subject for me.
I want people to be helped — I really do. But it is difficult to see money wasted, or spent on oddball stuff. And yes, the luxuries are especially hard to stomach when I can’t afford those same items on my paycheck.
I’d love to see the right to get food stamps coupled with mandatory classes on nutrition, wise food budgeting and easy ways to cook. Seems like it would solve at least some of the problems…at least it would solve the “I didn’t know how to do that” excuse!
I’ve never been on food stamps, but our income was low enough for years that we qualified for them. As well as free lunches for our daughters, who were embarrassed to take advantage of it, feeling their friends would make fun of them. We did use a program for years that let you buy a combined package of meats/vegetables/fruit for less than $25 monthly. That helped a lot.
It really is a hard one and unfortuantly there are not too many solutions. We do want those who truly need a hand to get back on their feet, and there should be nutrition, cooking skill and shopping and frugal classes to learn stretching dollars. On the other hand there needs to be a gun ho attitude for going after the fraudulant and ones abusing the system. But then from another perspective is it any different than the big corporations finding loopholes to take advantage of how not to pay taxes on large portions of income flows? One is trying to avoid paying as much taxes as possible, while the otherside has learned how take advantage of the government handouts ( the ones abusing the sytstem.
While neither is right, it is something that needs a lot of work towards trying to solve and correct but that is a whole other story 🙂
I don’t usually get political but with the growing numbers of food stamp recipients wanted to try to show a little compassion to so many in need right now.
But yes it is hard to watch those who can not afford it wasting money.
Poor to Rich a Day at a Time recently posted..Food Stamp Challenge Day 5 and 6
This IS a tough subject but it`s definitely not something that should be projected to all recipients but at the distributors of the programs. We`re definitely not placed on this earth to sit in judgment of others, especially ones who find themselves in worse conditions than we are. Any one of us could find ourselves either down on our luck or devastated by a financial crisis or worse. It takes swallowing a lot of pride to reach out for help, especially when one is a giver and not a taker.
Could it be fixed with mandatory classes, maybe…..but we need to remember that not everyone on food stamps needs them. Some are just temporarily down on their luck and who would choose the ones who needed help…or not.
I do admit that I was a recipient of food stamps and some other government programs that helped me feed my boys when I was a young single mom and was making a whopping $3800/yr. Was I embarrassed to be a recipient – yes, at the time. But it wasn’t about me…..it was about help for my boys.
Unfortunately, we cannot legislate morality and that’s where this always seems to take us. There have been people & companies taking advantage of others and programs since the beginning of time. There should be better structuring of programs and policing of recipients but we all know that’s like whistling in the wind..:-)
Agreed Mary! Very well said 🙂
Poor to Rich a Day at a Time recently posted..Food Stamp Challenge Day 5 and 6