Food Stamps

Perhaps one of the most easily stretchable meals that you can create from a variety of ingredients that you have left over in your home is soup. You can make soup from some basic ingredients, honestly. If you don’t have broth available, you can make your own. This can be done by taking water, seasonings, and either meat or vegetables (or both) and then bringing them to a boil in a large pot. Obviously soup works great when you’re trying to stretch your meals because you can always add more water and seasoning if you need to.

Of course, broth on its own doesn’t have much nutritional value. For this reason, you will want to add various ingredients in. Experiment with different vegetables, meat, rice, pasta, cheese, and other ingredients that you may have available in your home. Crackers can be used to add texture when you serve the soup. Even if you don’t have a lot of ingredients, you can add a little bit of everything to your soup base to help create a quick meal.

Why Is Making The Most Of Food Stamps Important?

The 2009 Recovery Act had provided additional founding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That funding will expire on November 1 unless congressional action occurs, which many people now believe is unlikely to happen. As a result, $11 billion in funding for food stamps will be cut by the end of the government’s 2016 fiscal year based on information from Stacy Dean, the vice president for the food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Learning how to make the most of your benefits now will make it easier to budget if cuts occur in the future.

Getting The Family Involved

A lot of people who are on food stamps often cite that they feel overwhelmed with trying to handle meal preparation associated with living on a food stamp budget because they handle these responsibilities on their own. A great way to overcome this issue is to work on getting your family involved with the meal ideas and food preparation at home. This can be as simple as getting someone interested in cooking with you or creating unique meals together. Another focus should be getting children interested in eating healthier based on what’s typically available in your home.

Additional Resources

If you want more resources and ideas for meals that you can use to make the most of your food stamp benefits, there are many resources available online. A lot of the state sites for the departments associated with food stamps have their own recipes and meal suggestions that can be helpful. Another option is to get involved on a message board or a Facebook group and share different options and ideas with other people. You will find that many of the people who are facing the same challenges will be more than willing to help you out by sharing some of the options that have worked well for them.