Card
I used my food stamp card this morning. It's called the Lone Star Card here in Texas. You can only buy food with it. Items to clean up the mess from the results from eating the food or cleaning up after cooking the food can't go on the card. Glad I subscribe to the local newspaper. It might come in handy. Don't know if it covers coffee or tea, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't cover soft drinks so I guess I'll be drinking a lot of iced tea. I had $34, a prorated amount, on the card this time. It took me back to the days when I paid cash for my groceries. I'd have a certain amount of cash in my pocket and that's all I'd spend. I kept a running total on a note pad as I picked each item and when I got close, I'd stop picking. I noticed it saved me at least $20 a week. So, this morning, I took my very short list and went down the aisles. Luckily I had had about $85 left on my unemployment card last week and had loaded up a little. I kept a running total, saying no to some items on the list, celery and bell peppers, and asking if I really needed milk and if it would be cheaper to buy the store brand pizza or my favorite, Tombstone. Tombstone won out because 2 of the store brand would be needed because they are smaller and the difference in price would be only a few cents. I get 2 meals out of a pizza and is my treat for the week. Bought another box of store brand oatmeal although I hadn't opened the one from last week. Another bag of pintos went in the basket. At 86 cents, it makes a lot of meals, especially when you can get wieners for a dollar a package and wieners and beans make a good meal. Cornbread makes them go farther, too. Four Ramen noodles went in. I have about a dozen or more packages, now and at 15 cents a package and 2 packages a meal, it good cheap eating. A $1.18 package of vanilla cookies(I'd rather have chocolate, but I couldn't share them with Foxy.) makes for a cheap desert. Well, at the end of the picking, I found I could afford the stalk of celery and the bell pepper. My bill came to a little over $25! I did buy for some cleaning supplies for my lower end, and cooking, and a treat for Foxy with some cash I had. The $51 dollars a month will help, so I'm glad I've got it for now. It will go away when I retire, I guess.
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