Recently this year the 4th annual welfare food challenge took place with mostly new participants. As you all remember, last year I did it where the stipulation was you only had $21 for the week to spend on food and I ended up with $2.32 left still.
http://al6400.com/blog/bc-welfare-food-challenge-21-week-part-one/
I personally did not starve as an example. I guess it showed that my lifestyle of finding the best deals and such pays off where even at the worst of times I could easily get by.
http://al6400.com/blog/bc-welfare-food-challenge-21-week-part-seven-final-day/
As I mentioned too, obviously not everyone has the same circumstance or skill-set to manage such a thing so my experience isn’t exactly a blanket statement where if I can easily do it then everyone else should be able to. But that got me curious this year to see what the new challengers were going to do and whether or not they would be implementing any of the strategies that people like myself have documented.
From the ones I read, it seemed like most people simply went in based on their existing habits as opposed to learning from others. Therefore, I guess the challenge is more can someone with their existing habits and knowledge about money manage to live on $21 a week? That makes it more interesting for research purposes I suppose.
I was a little disappointing though that I was still hearing how many people felt it is impossible to live healthy with that budget even though a person like myself proved that you can. Example, this week I saw that one of the big supermarkets was selling 5 lbs of carrots for $1.99. That is the kind of stuff I would have probably got if I was taking the challenge again. Or at the same time, why are people buying items like canned beans when the packaged ones make more sense on every level?
It does make you think how there is so much practical financial advice and money saving tips out there but many times we just don’t opt to use it for whatever reason. Again, granted everyone’s personal situation us different. When money is tight though, you kind of have to go into a frugal mentality.
If you wish, you can revisit all my old posts about this challenge:
http://al6400.com/blog/?s=bc+welfare+food+challenge