Thank you so much for continuing to work in your field. If it wasn’t for strong, clever, dedicated people (particularly women) like you, my son with ASD wouldn’t be as high-functioning or well-adjusted as he is. While I do my part to defend my son’s rights and push for the best education he can get (sometimes against…

Yeah, poor Peanut indeed. I felt really bad for her and seeing her so badly off was enough to overcome my fear of needles somewhat to fix her up. She of course still hates my guts and will only deign to come near me to beg for food off my plate. Otherwise she adores my fiance and wants nothing to do with anyone else…

I read your daughter’s exclamation in my nine-year-old son’s overly-enunciated voice. This could definitely happen in my life.

You probably just cleaned it up in a blackout. I wish I could do all the gross things I have to do (like chores) during a time when I don’t remember doing them. That would be awesome.

Oh man. I almost vomited in sympathy from the imagined sight/smell. UGH.

You’re killing me! This is exactly it! You can kind of hear it internally as everything just ... detaches and runs away.

Considering the price of ground beef with a lower fat content, you could probably save money if you bought sale cuts and ground the meat at home. I have trouble wrapping my head around that idea because as a kid, we ate ground beef a lot more often than roast or steak.

HAHAHA Your uterus is barfing. That’s exactly right! You /feel/ it happening too, and it’s just so damned weird. I could NOT believe my body was ruining a trip to Magic Mountain like that, of all places. Good thing I wasn’t too attached to those sneakers, I guess.

It just boggles me. Hamburger Helper was a “poor people food” when I was a kid. Your info about the drought puts a lot in perspective, but it kind of blows my mind that in 2015 we’re so at the mercy of the weather when it comes to our food supply.

I’m with you. Also, I’d rather be idealistic than cynical. The world’s hard enough as it is without expecting the worst of everyone around you.

Oh man. I had something similar happen to me, only I was like 20 and I had taken my baby sister (14 at the time) to Six Flags for her birthday. As we were parking the car I feel this hard cramp and then a FLOOD in my shorts, so we parked and I bought sweat shorts first thing in the park, threw out my jeans, and…

My fiance’s cat did this to us shortly after he moved in with me. Only instead of vomit, it was diarrhea. Woke up to a terrible stench, and our bed was COVERED in poo and panicked Burmese cat. We wound up taking her to the vet the next day and I had to learn how to give her subcutaneous fluids so she wouldn’t die. (My…

I grew up the same way. We didn’t get food from soup kitchens, but we were on a very limited budget and I learned from my parents how to stretch that money till it squeaked. Even though I’m better off now, I still use those same habits. Our pantry has a lot of staples in it and I have to keep from going overboard and…

We buy rice, flour, sugar, and stuff like that in bulk (as well as proteins for the freezer), because it makes sense. Thank goodness we have a Costco membership, that helps a lot for staples. We make a LOT of soup and stew in our household too, because you can throw all kinds of random stuff in there to use it up!

The program already disallows these categories as well as paper products, toiletries, and baby items. Seems like a pointless question.

Right? I’d like to get tips from these super-savvy shoppers that are eating so well, based on the average monthly SNAP amount.

Agreed. If a person budgets their SNAP benefits for steak once a week and noodles and canned sauce the other six days, that’s no different for their benefits than if they bought a mega-pack of chicken thighs and ate the same meal every day. Hell, if a person doesn’t use their entire allotment in a month, that can roll…

Side note: yesterday I bought 3 lbs of “cheap” hamburger, in a chub pack, and it was FOURTEEN DOLLARS. I don’t buy ground beef too often, and the price of it shocked me. If it wasn’t for a specific request for Hamburger Helper in our house, I would have spent that on a ton of chicken instead. When did ground beef get…

I dunno. You want poor people to eat possible future Republican voters? Seems short-sighted to me.

Even if you were to run to the local convenience store and buy your chips and salsa at their markup, who cares? It’s your budget, and you know how to make that money last. Food assistance does not mean you need to live a life of joy-deprivation. The way we shame people on assistance in this country is just so wrong.