Rachel Ray thinks that eating on $30 a day is an accomplishment. I say to that....eat this:
Last year I heard about the politician that decided to try and live on the amount that the average American receives on federal funded food assistance programs. The amount he lived on for the week: $21. TWENTY-ONE DOLLARS. I can blow through $21 in a nanosecond in the right store or restaurant. As a food person and an avid diner, it's not uncommon to spend this weekly budget on a meal at lunch, much less eating out at dinnertime.
For the fiscal year of 2007, the average person that receives food assistance got bumped up to roughly a bit more than $3 a day. In this crazy and unfortunate economy, we all have taken hits in our businesses and know lots of people affected by cutbacks and layoffs. In an effort to see if I can curb my food budget and do it in a way that was healthy and nutritious, I have taken on the challenge of eating for an entire week on $30. I picked the slightly elevated figure because, well, I'm giving myself an economic stimulus package and it's a nice, rounded off number - and it sounds less scary than $21.
When I told some of my blog buddies and readers that I was taking on this challenge, the reaction was overwhelming, frankly. I didn't expect anyone else to get on board...and I was wrong. I have five other folks - all of whom have the same dining out/cooking/eating habits as me - taking on this challenge with me. We will all be blogging and Twittering about our experiences throughout the week so check back here at RWT for my progress and visit the great blogs and Twitter feeds of these other folks, too:
- Molly aka GrabMol, the author of the awesome blog Disposable Income (oh the irony!)
- Dave of the super funny blog Extraface
- Paul has created a special blog inspired by this project called The Seven Day Project
- Mike who invites you to follow his Twitter feed and his Flickr posts about the challenge. He has also started a blog especially to document this challenge, which you can see here.
- Alain, who doesn't blog but you can see his healthy Yelping here and you can email him directly about the challenge.
- Tessa, who has a faaaabulous music/socializing/everything awesome about Atlanta blog called Drive A Faster Car, was one of the first to show interest and is taking part, as well!
Image used in this post found here via Google Images.
