In addition to thinking about how this quarter's fundraising totals show the spreading devotion of people to a real leader like Bernie, rather than a focus-grouped construction, we can also think about the thrift of the Sanders campaign, vs that of the Clinton campaign.
We can see how Bernie gets more bang for his (campaign) buck in how far he has come in the polls since the start of his campaign, compared to what he's spent. With $25m in the bank, Bernie has spent about $16m to get to where he is, way up in NH, neck-and-neck in IA, and advancing in national polls. By contrast, Hillary's got $32m in the bank, meaning she's spent about $43m to get from where she was in April to where she is today.
In honor of Bernie's thrift, and also to help adjust our own personal budget for a period of reduced income, my wife Jasmine & I have decided to take up the Food Stamp Challenge, to consume in a week only food (and drink) that would fit into a week's SNAP benefits budget, or about $58 for two people. Many celebrities have done it, eating for a week in a way that they would never seriously sustain long-run (sometimes failing) in order to illustrate that the calls for cutting or constraining SNAP funding is a Scrooge-like act of bullying the vulnerable, rather than cutting wasteful spending or attacking lavish benefits for the undeserving. We have a different goal, though, which we can aim at mainly because Jasmine is such an able, educated & informed, and multifaceted cook of nutritious and delicious foods, and already highly economical in terms of both groceries and the food we eat (I contribute nothing but a mouth and an appetite--and I make the coffee every morning).
Our goal is to discover not how "wacky" it is to try and live off of foodstamps for a week, but to recreate a SNAP-only lifestyle in the best way possible, thinking about the time, effort, knowledge & skill it takes to eat decently off of foodstamps (Jasmine's knowledge & skills--none mine: I'll be the "taker" in this undertaking). That's if it is indeed possible to eat well off of food stamps: Jasmine is a far better candidate than Cory Booker or Gwyneth Paltrow to truly put this to the test.
(Also this will be useful because we may well qualify for foodstamps as we undertake a long period of mostly unpaid labor volunteering for Bernie and writing.)
Stay tuned here for Jasmine's posts telling about our foodstamp challenge, photos & all!
This is great, but do you drink Folgers? That would be hard for me.
ReplyDeleteWe've tried different coffees, and we like Trader Joe's, which costs about $14-$15 for a 2lb-2oz container (again--to make it on a budget like this, you've got to buy in bulk). I usually eyeball the amount I grind every night for the next morning's coffee, and when I measured it and calculated it out, the cost came to about $0.70 per day (we each drink a couple of cups with breakfast). So we actually felt like we didn't have to cut down on coffee consumption that much.
DeleteYou probably want to drink coffee more for the experience than the effects, but I usually take a morning caffeine pill and it's something like $0.12 per serving.
DeleteHi Brian, Good advice. I've been on a radical coffee reduction gig since New Year, and drunk only 2 cups so far in 2016. I'm managed this by taking a caffeine pill each morning. It works, though I love the taste of coffee. I'm trying to think of it like dessert, which I have only on special occasions.
DeleteDon't forget your friend with coffee benefits. I'm here for you two.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you know I received a free pound of beans a week while earning food-stamp-qualifying wages from that "big coffee shop" that laid me off in 2009 after 10 years working there. In my early 50's then, I'd naively planned to retire in another decade or so from the "big coffee shop." By then, I'd climbed out of the bean-grinding pit & up the step stool a wee bit to take calls from disgruntled "big coffee shop" customers & help folks register for free Wifi back when mobile devices were still a novelty.
One year of unemployment & 4 years of college later, it appears I'm still quite unemployable for jobs that pay decent wages, so I'm back doing what I did 15 years ago -- working for the same "big coffee shop." After being kicked down the step stool and forced to hand over tons of underwater bean stock grants plus 5 weeks of vacation a year, I now refuse to give one retail dime to my employer -- that same big coffee shop. I take only what they give for free -- one food item & limitless beverages during shifts, health benefits (subsidized), 401K matching contribution, & a pound of beans a week. I can't take the "big coffee shop" up on their offer to pay for online college because after they laid me off, I took out loans to pay for my own Bachelor's degree. Turns out their offer to pay for for free college education only covers a Bachelor's degree, and you can't already have one. Shucks. I'd love to enroll in an MFA program.
Jasmine & Dan, I can't use up a pound of beans a week all by myself. Please tell me your favorite blend (or a single-origin variety) and gladly I'll ship some to help fuel your writing and volunteering to elect Bernie!
Dear Dan and Jas,
ReplyDeleteGoodo you you both! You know we're low on the food chain folks, and I strongly advise garbanzo beans -- low cost, high protein (poor man's meat), very flexible ingredient. Love, Tena