Food Stamps

Pasta is a food that most people cannot say no to. If you’re not much of a rice eater, then you might prefer to use pasta instead. Pasta is easily a food that can be stretched throughout the week if you need something to feed your family, especially if you have different types of pasta available at your home. Since pasta is fairly cheap, it’s a good idea to occasionally stock up so that you have multiple options to choose from.

One obvious way you can make pasta stretch is to use different sauces. Red sauce, cream sauce, olive oil; there are many different ways you can dress your pasta. You can eat it hot or cold. It can be incorporated into basic broths and soups to add more substance to them. You can also add a variety of different vegetables and meat to make your pasta dishes more unique. Even better, children tend to love pasta because of the different shapes and colors, so it’s a food that’s fairly easy to get them to eat.

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.