Stigler, George. 1945. The Cost of Subsistence." Journal of Farm Economics, 27 (May): pp. 303-14.
He estimates the minimum cost of an annual diet to be less than $40 in 1939 and less than $60 in 1944. His diet consists of wheat flour, evaporated milk cabbage, spinach, navy beans, pan cake flour and pork liver.
On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 08:06:54AM -0800, DSR wrote:
>
> --- Dennis Redmond <dredmond at efn.org> wrote:
>
> > > "Earlier this year, I tried living on $141/month from food
> > stamps. It
> > > can't be done."
>
> Well, it can be done, but it's butt ugly and hardly healthy. It's
> called the mac&cheese / ramen soup diet plan.
>
> > It's simple math: $141 divided by 31 days equals $4.55 per day, or
> > $2.27
> > per meal. What happens is, you get through two weeks, and then
> > there's
> > nothing left.
>
> I grew up in the grocery industry - dad was a supervisor for a large
> chain in the pre-Walmart days - and I used to bet my undergrad
> roomies and buds $25 that I could trim their grocery budgets by 50%
> if they'd let me show them the tricks of the trade. Earned a lot of
> beer money that way. Heh.
>
> Here's a grocery list for $150 / month - 1 person, prices based on a
> typical Kroger-chain (not even Walmart) in the Southwest US:
>
> Ramen noodles - 8 paks for $1.00 x 32 days = $4.00
> (Some days, use the noodles only for "pasta" with a cheap canned
> sauce and then drink the broth for lunch, separately.)
>
> Cheap large cans of tomato sauce, like Hunts or DelMonte -
> 10 cans x $1.00 = $10.00
>
> Uncooked beans - pinto, navy or red - 5 lbs, $5.00
>
> Generic brand mac and cheese in a box - 3 boxes for $1.00
> 30 boxes for $10.00
>
> Generic canned vegetables - 2 for $1.00 x 30 days = $15.00
>
> Large bag of rice - $3.00
>
> Eggs - 3 dozen - $4.00 (or less)
>
> Bread - Generic, store brand.75 x 4 weeks $3.00
>
> Milk - cheapest brand - $3-4 a gallon, x 2 - $8.00
>
> Margarine - cheapest - 2 packs of 4 sticks x 2 = $2.00
>
> Bag of Apples - $3.00
>
> Bag of onions - $3.00
>
> Important -- Bottle of multi-vitamins - $15.00
>
> Total: $85.00
>
> That gives you $65.00 with which to pick and spend on cheap
> hamburger, cheap sausage, canned tuna (not albacore) on sale for
> 2/$1.00, really cheap bacon, ugly cheap weiners, bagged generic
> cereals, and assorted fruits/veges or condiments.
>
> Don't know if food stamps cover frozen foods, but Banquet TV dinners
> (oh yum! ~~~barf) run betwen .90 and $1.00; Frozen pot pies anywhere
> from .33 each to 2.50.
>
> Bottom line: It's do-able. But it is not pretty. The
> multi-vitamins are a must-have, and that's probably not covered by
> food stamp programs, but it's a necessary investment.
>
> - Deborah
>
>
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-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu