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Wrapping Up The 2009 Hunger Challenge

Today is the last day of The Hunger Challenge. I want to leave you with a round-up of some thoughts and resources.

I wrote my second post for BlogHer about the challenge yesterday.  I focused on taking action after the challenge is done. One action doing the challenge this year reminded me of is to find ways in which to get spices, oils and cooking utensils into the hands of those who are dealing with very limited food budgets. Buying them may amortize over time but it must be hard to justify the upfront hit to your budget. But olive oil, spices and a variety of pots, pans, knives, utensils and appliances can make transforming inexpensive staples into a variety of tasty dishes easier and slightly less overwhelming.

But it's still overwhelming. Sierra Filucci, writing in The East Bay Express, shares her experience with trying to cook healthy meals for her family from scratch with local and organic ingredients. The title of the piece is Back to the Microwave.

I had some leftover green onions and one inexpensive dish I could make would be fried rice with green onion and peas. To make: heat one minced clove garlic in oil, add chopped green onion (white and green parts), add day-old cooked brown rice (from bulk bin - here are some cooking ideas), add in frozen green peas (I heat them in the microwave first but you can add them frozen - I just find they are a bit drier that way), crack an egg into the center of the rice and scramble into the rice mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste.

With my copious quantities of pasta I made macaroni and cheese because I was able to get cheese inexpensively with a Safeway coupon. In addition to the regular $1.49 for 18 eggs deal, Safeway has some kind of super deal I can take advantage of every week. The catch is that you have to spend $20 minimum to get the coupon deals. But that's how I ended up with 6 boxes of pasta for $0.69 each. This spaghetti casserole dish looks like it could be a good, inexpensive family (kid) crowd-pleaser

Another great cheap use would be pasta e fagioli soup. I like this recipe but would use the gluten pasta since the gluten-free kind is expensive. And, yeah, how do you manage chronic illnesses that require a specialized diet like gluten free on a food stamp budget? For me, I would guess polenta and rice from the bulk bins would replace pasta. Surprisingly I forgot about polenta and rice this week though both are staples for me.

Another inexpensive eating deal I recently discovered is chicken leg quarters. Grocery stores regularly feature them for less than $1.00 a pound and sometimes under $0.50 a pound if you buy a 10 pound frozen bag.

Abi Jones at Heat Eat Review reminds of the inexpensive but filling usefulness of potatoes and eggs. Another recent Safeway coupon netted me 10 pounds of potatoes for $0.99 so ideas for potatoes and eggs are very welcome in my home.  Spanish tortillas are another great recipe option but I need some practice since my first effort was an unmitigated disaster.

The couple behind The One Dollar Diet Project have a wealth of not only extremely inexpensive ways to eat but vegan to boot. The are also write thoughtfully about the issue of hunger. I highly recommend it.

One last thought I'll leave you with is this: At what income level do people qualify for food stamps where you live? Think about how much your rent or mortgage is, how much your utilities are, what your transportation costs are and how much time you spend on cooking and shopping for food. Now imagine trying to do it on the amount of income people who qualify for food stamps are doing all that on. Where you live. Around you. And remember record numbers of people are qualifying for food stamps assistance and are using food bank services.

When you are done thinking and imagining take some action. Whatever you can do will help.

Cheating on The Hunger Challenge - Again!

Last year during the hunger challenge I attended a lunch event. Oops I did it again. Today I attended an event during lunch. Eating the lunch provided is not in the spirit of the challenge.

When Congressional Representatives did their food stamp challenge, they brought their own budgeted food with them to events. Since I'm not a congressional rep with a media crew following me, just a blogger who would have stood out like a freak if I brought my own food on the BART train to a restaurant, I chose to "cheat." I also cheated by having dinner at Starbucks with a gift card I received at another event. I'm working away from home much of the time right now and I'm dealing with contingencies.

I suspect though that those who are sufficiently poor to qualify for food stamps aren't likely to be in my position and spend time networking and thus getting invited to events and getting free lunch in nice restaurants or gift card giveaways.

One thing I'm finding this time around, cheating aside, is that having gone through the challenge once, it is easier to manage this time around. I'm better tuned into spotting and recognizing bargains. If I were getting supplemental food from a food bank, I would have more ideas about how to work it into my food plans. The temporary extra $1 a day makes a huge difference.

Not only do I think it will be devastating to families when the temporary increase in their food budget is taken away, the benefits to the economy will stop. In terms of stimulating the economy, increased food stamp benefits give the biggest bang for the buck.

I was telling someone at the event today about the hunger challenge and she posed an important question: what do we do after the challenge ends?

There are so many intertwined political issues in the issues of hunger, it is important that beyond donating money to food banks to help meet immediate needs, we need to pay attention to the broader structural issues and educate ourselves and let our representatives know our concerns.

The Hunger Challenge - New Ideas and Old Memories

Much as last year, my tummy is rebelling from the change in diet and lack of fiber relative to what I usually eat. I'm also having flashbacks to this time last year when my dog Gracie was in the process of dying and wouldn't/couldn't eat anything I made for her.

This year my new frustration is my limited connectivity making it hard for me to properly blog the challenge. I've eaten English Muffins with either peanut butter or eggs for protein along with a bit of orange juice and coffee. Lunch has been ramen with a hard boiled egg and green onion. Dinner has been a piece of fish - relatively inexpensive Basa Swai simply pan fried and last night accompanied with a bit of Rice-a-Roni that I got on sale. Most of all I am reminded that food planning with this little money is like having a second job and I totally get why people, especially those feeding families, would get tired and just make what they could and run out of food before the end of the month and go hungry.

I have boatloads of pasta that I got for $0.69 a box that I'll likely use at some point. But for now I'm having soup. Even though it is the middle of a heat wave, I planned for soup and so I'm having soup. Soup is a great choice for inexpensive eating because it is flexible and can be made with whatever you can purchase inexpensively or perhaps get in a food bank package.

Start with an aromatic base - mirepoix which is a mix of celery, carrot and onion is a classic - which can be root veggies, garlic or some mix of spices. Next add liquid like broth, water or cream. Then add the main ingredients such as vegetables like potatoes, broccoli or asparagus; beans; meat or seafood. The soup I made is bean and vegetable and I made it for about $1.25 a bowl.

I used this recipe for Hearty White Bean and Kale Soup. The only substitution I made was using black pepper instead of white. I used canned beans though dry beans from a bulk bin would be cheaper. And my cheap spice resource is the legendary Rockridge Long's Drugstore which I hope will continue to be a source of everything even as it transitions to a CVS.

Onion:         $0.36
Carrots:      $0.40
Celery:        $0.20
Olive Oil:    $0.40
Garlic:         $0.05
Rosemary: $0.05
Thyme:        $0.05
Bay Leaf:    $0.01
Beans:           $1.25
Kale:             $1.54
Total:            $4.31

Assuming 4 servings that is ~$1.08/bowl which with 1 Tablespoon of grated parmesan at $0.16 comes in at $1.24 a bowl which fits into the $4.00 a day budget especially since I can get breakfast and lunch in at under a dollar each. The change I would use for a piece of fruit and one day this week I got an apple for free and had an orange for $0.50.

It's Hunger Challenge Week

And, of course, Mercury Retrograde happens and I have limited internet access. Sigh. But I will do my best to keep up with blogging the challenge.

First a bit of good news. Tyson Foods is repeating their social media support program. Comment on their blog or tweet a hunger fact with the hash tag #HChal and Tyson will donate food to Bay Area food banks. Last year that was five truckloads. The Social Media Club is supporting Tyson's social media efforts and Kristie Wells is asking everyone to up the support by donating $5 if they can this month to feeding the hungry.

On a personal note, I learned a great deal from how I did the challenge last year. This year I'm modifying my approach. Last year I purchased $21 worth of groceries and ate only that for the week. This year I recognize that I would likely buy bargains as they became available and freeze or store items to take advantage of savings. So my meals will be at the $4 a day limit for this year but using some ingredients on hand. Many of my staple items will return, however.

Staples like peanut butter which I had on an English muffin this morning for breakfast. It was a way to get some cheap protein in to start the day. Eggs on a regular coupon special at Safeway cost $1.49 for 18 so they will also appear on the menu most days. I also wisely snapped up a canister of Folger's coffee for $3.00 so I can maintain my caffeine addiction. And, of course, the return of doctored-up ramen in my life.

Breakfast thus costs out at:

Coffee:                     $0.10
OJ:                             $0.31
Peanut butter:      $0.14
English muffin:     $0.25

Total:  $0.80 and at less than $1.00 for one meal, well within my $4.00/day budget.

In my next post I'll cost out and give some ideas for soup which is a great, flexible option.

On the political front, eating this cheaply means losing the opportunity to support practices I would normally with my consumer dollars such as a more chicken-like existence for egg-laying hens (buying eggs at the farmers market where I can learn how the chickens are raised and treated) or fair trade, organic, shade-grown coffee. Beyond the challenge of feeding poor people, how can we do it in a way that is humane, respects the health and economic well being of those who grow and harvest our food and doesn't destroy the planet along the way?

Slashing the Safety Net Not Enough For Schwarzenegger

Apparently the Governor previously vetoed a law with the result being that it is now harder for people to land jobs if they have difficult financial circumstances, which possibly will be exacerbated by the slashing of services championed by Arnold.

Digging out of debt keeps getting harder for the unemployed as more companies use detailed credit checks to screen job prospects....

“There’s no relationship between being a personal trainer making $12 an hour” and having a good credit history, said Janet L. Newcomb, a career counselor in Huntington Beach, Calif. “People are being turned down for jobs on the basis of things that really have nothing to do with qualifications.”

That is the complaint of Kevin Palmer, 49, who for months lived at the same homeless shelter in Santa Ana, Calif., as Mr. Ochoa. After an interview that seemed to go well one day in June at a property management company, a manager walked him around the office the next day, introduced him to other employees and showed him an available desk.

A credit check later, the offer vanished.

It was “a glorified clerk’s job, taking homeowners’ complaints,” Mr. Palmer said of the opportunity, which paid about $39,000 and could have gotten him back on his feet after losing his condominium to foreclosure and filing for bankruptcy....

Last month, lawmakers in Hawaii approved a measure that generally allows an employer to review a credit history only after making an offer and requires the credit check to be “directly related” to job qualifications. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar law.

Thank You, Recession

Interesting lessons from the Argentinian economic crisis earlier this decade. Plus thoughts on ways in which we can ride out the recession through community.

Small Business Recession Realities

As a small businessperson, I am appreciative of President Obama's announcement of our "bailout" however I'm not terribly optimistic for what it will do for me.

The focus is on increasing lending and unsticking the frozen credit markets. There is evidence of thawing as some large businesses have informed the government that they will not need loans because they've been able, finally, to secure them in the commercial market. And there are many small businesses who will be helped by credit availability like those who buy equipment, parts, "ingredients" (e.g. seeds for farmers) and have to have cash upfront with revenues coming much later when the product is finished and sold.

For many of us though what we need is customers not debt. Loans to clothing manufacturers or coffeehouse owners so they can buy fabric and beans will do them no good if they cannot sell clothes and lattes because consumers have no jobs and no money with which to purchase what are now luxury items in this economy. And debt, as far as I can see, is useless for those of us in service businesses, like me. The only way the SBA loans and tax breaks will benefit me is if the businesses of potential clients grow and they can purchase the marketing services I sell.

What is really going to put entrepreneurs like me out of business is the cost of health insurance. I started my business at the beginning of 2005. It grew steadily until the recession hit full force last year in 2008. From the end of 2007 (my best year though not yet sufficiently profitable and steady enough to create jobs and hire employees as I'd like to be able to do) to the start of 2009 my revenues declined and my health insurance premiums increased. My premiums went up an anstronomical 62% in one year which translates to thousands of dollars annually. I have to increase my revenue by large double digits just in order to get back to 2007 levels so taking on and servicing additional debt does not seem like the smartest approach at this time. Read this awesome guest post by Karoli Kuns at Francine Hardaway's Huffington Post blog for more about how devastating health care costs are to small and large businesses and the economy in general.

Thus I am in the same boat as many American whether they are small business owners, employees, or among the rapidly growing ranks of the unemployed (and, oh by the way, my state, California, has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country - several of my family members included) - waiting for health care reform and for a tide to lift us all up.

Related Reading:

Melissa at MOMocrats: Is Health Care Reform Possible?

Massachusetts' struggle with cost containment to sustain their universal health care coverage program:

“Frankly, it’s very hard for the average consumer, or frankly the average governor, to understand how some of these companies can have the margins they do and the annual increases in premiums that they do,” Mr. Patrick said in an interview. “At some level, you’ve just got to say, ‘Look, that’s just not acceptable, and more to the point, it’s not sustainable.’ ”

Important and Urgent Health Insurance Information

First, if you have not had employer health insurance for the past three months or longer and you have children, investigate the California Healthy Families Children's Health Insurance Program and put in an application.  Due to budget cuts the program will start putting families on a waiting list later this week (December 18th). 

Unfortunately, this will not be available for the many people who've just lost their jobs and insurance.  If you are a recent victim of the economy, if you can at all swing it, sign up for COBRA coverage.  If you are in California you can have federal COBRA for 18 months, then California COBRA for another 18 months and then you can get a HIPAA plan.  All insurers that sell in a state have to offer their 2 most popular plans under this option.  It's all expensive but it's the only way you can maintain guaranteed access as you get with group, employer plans.

And, I was going to share with you my favorite source of information on health insurance policy in each state but unfortunately they are also victims of the economy and have lost their funding.  Sigh.

Check your individual states health insurance department.  California's is here.  You must do the work to educate yourself and be persistent with the insurance companies who will, in my experience, give you bad information and the run around.  Sadly, even if you can get individual insurance on the open market (difficult unless you are a skinny, non-smoking 25 year old dude who has never seen a doctor as an adult), you don't have much protection from losing that insurance if the company decides you are not profitable enough.

Getting Sold on the Credit Crisis

I've been whiplashing (or, more gently, cycling) through my reactions to the credit crisis...

Is there really such a dire situation that a bailout is required?  And, if a bailout is necessary is this troublesome bill the right approach?

I've vacillated on the first question.  I've not heard anything from any politician (Obama included) beyond "trust me, it's bad."  I've tried to read economists and analysts whom I respect to see if I could get a better handle on the situation but the most persuasive, detailed arguments were that it was being spun in the corporate interest.  So I was inclined to think that the bailout was just a banking money grab during a window of opportunity.  However, I wasn't completely swayed and it kept nagging at me and I kept reading and now I am persuaded that the crisis is real. 

This article detailing many of the events that went into creating the crisis is good.  One thing jumped out at me that I hadn't heard before and that is some large money market funds breaking the buck.  The LIBOR rate spike.  Problems in the municipal bond market.  Add all that to the anecdotal evidence of small business owners losing access to credit.  As a small business person myself who has had to use bridge loans to cover cash flow when clients pay late, I don't want to be in a position to borrow against receivables which is far more expensive.  If I had payroll to meet I can imagine how panicked I might feel right now.

I think the bill as it stands now is bad.  Especially with the added "sweeteners."  (Though some are appropriate such as lifting the FDIC cap to $250,000 others such as extending for another year AMT relief should be addressed separately though I'm happy to have it for now).  It is clear that it is not sufficient.  Future action will have to be taken.  And it does nothing to address the root causes.

I'd like to see much greater regulation but that will take much longer than a few days to figure out how to overhaul that system.  But with 3 banks now holding as much as 50% of deposit-taking retail bank activity, we will be setting ourselves up for a world of hurt if it doesn't get done.  I'd like to see a HOLC type of program implemented (as Chris Dodd and Barney Frank have been working on for months).  Loan workouts that keep people in their homes not only are far less costly but have broad ripple effects.  Everybody loses when communities become ghost towns, boarded up houses cause neighbors to lose property value, tax bases erode and crime increases.  And, yes, some people who don't deserve to be rewarded will be but far more who do need the help will get it and there's plenty of moral hazard to go around.  Nobody's hands are clean in this mess.

I do think the equity taking positions could be much stronger and oversight/enforcement much tighter and that could be done now.  Unfortunately that's not what the focus of the holdouts will be.

Most of all, I am waiting for someone to step up to the plate and not fear monger but figure out how to explain this all to the American people in clear, understandable language.  I am very disappointed that nobody in public life seems capable.