Flibbertigibbet

Life on Welfare

I am VERY excited to see how The Serious Food Economy Challenge turns out.

Basically, Ari Armstrong and his wife are going to live off of $3 each per day for food for six months. !!!

* Any advocate of spending more tax dollars on food stamps may promise money to help fund the challenge. The minimum promise per contributor is $100; a maximum at or above that amount should be specified by the contributor. The Armstrongs will accept the challenge once a minimum total of $2,000 in promised contributions has been received. All promises of contributions must be received on or by July 10, 2007. Promissory notes should be mailed to Ari Armstrong, 9975 Wadsworth Pkwy. #K2-111, Westminster, CO 80021.

* Following the six-month period, if the Armstrongs have spent less than $1,080 on food, those who agreed to fund the challenge must contribute $10 to the nonprofit of the Armstrongs' choice for every $1 that the Armstrongs have saved out of the total budget. If more than that amount has been promised, the total contribution will be split among all those who have promised a contribution, in proportion to the maximum contributions specified. The contributors must then send a check directly to the nonprofit specified no later than February 29, 2008.

Hat Tip: Noodlefood

As I commented over on Diana's site, I just did some quick calculations from my Fresh Direct purchase history and found that I spend about $10 a day on food excluding any eating out I do. (I eat out perhaps once a week or so.) And that $10 covers a lot of pre-packaged/processed food and the Fresh Direct mark-up.

So, I think $3 a day is an attainable goal, although I think I would have to work very hard to maintain it.

So, anyway, I'm excited to see how it turns out.