SAFER Means...

a vacuum cleaner!

While I posted Wanted messages for a vacuum cleaner several times to my local Recycle/ReUseIt online site, it never resulted in my getting one I could use: an upright cleaner that is powerful but lightweight.

Finally getting rental assistance through SAFER has meant being able to get this little gem:

I'd intended to wait to the next day to try it out, knowing the trip there and back and my early-morning housework would have done me in and caused flaring up of the pain.

Do you think I followed through on that intention?

Of course not. After friend Daisy left - she had taken me to London Drugs to get the vacuum cleaner and helped with the unpacking and assembly -, objects were moved out of the way, including a 30lb bag of kitty litter.

Vacuuming ensued. Pain soared.

Did I stop?

Of course not. Objects again were moved and the mop and floor cleaning solution came out.

Mopping ensued. Pain spiked close to level 10.

But my little place was cleaner and more shiny than it had been in a very long time. Kinda made the pain almost endurable.

No. I guess it didn't.

Misleading Advertising: Juice

I mentioned previously that my mid-morning snack is four ounces of orange juice. It's expressly for the purpose of aiding the absorption of my iron supplement.

To buy juice in cartons or jugs rather than in its frozen form is cost inefficient. You're essential paying for water and a higher price for the privilege of carting that heavier weight home.

The frozen form of juice has changed over the past few years. Now you will find in the frozen juice section three types of product:

1. punch
2. frozen (orange, grapefruit...) juice from concentrate
3. frozen concentrated (orange, grapefruit...) juice

Only the third is pure juice.

In all three cases, manufacturers' instructions call for adding three (less often four) cans of water to the frozen goop. Products one and two have water and sugar added.

Be especially wary of the difference between frozen juice from concentrate and frozen concentrated juice. Manufacturers make their packaging of these two products eerily - I submit, intentionally - similar. Only the last one is the real deal and that's the only one you should be buying.

The better, pure product is more pricey, but wait for the sales. Don't be fooled into purchasing the wrong one.

What a difference a little money makes!

Received my first SAFER payment on October 29th, which was a lump sum covering August, September and October. That same day, I walked to town pulling my little shopping cart behind me.* The plan: to buy myself at least one pair of pants or jeans to replace the ones that were literally falling off me.

When you've lived frugally - OK, admit it, CHEAPLY - for so long, it's hard to start spending again. I'd tried many times before to buy myself new, 'new', or definitely used clothing before. Ninety-nine times out of 100, I have returned home empty-handed. This time I was determined to get something, to buy NEW, to ignore the price, and to consider only the fit and whether I liked how the new duds fit and looked on me.

My first stop was Winners.

Tried on four pairs of jeans, in petite sizes. (All my clothes should be in petite, not regular sizes, which aren't designed for women under 5'3". It's not just about shortening hems; the whole styling is thrown off if an article was designed for someone several inches taller than oneself. Unfortunately, petite sizes rarely appear in thrift stores or through other means.)

Since I was shopping alone, I asked the Winners fitting room attendant to help me decide. We agreed on one pair in particular, which were in medium faded blue denim. Although these jeans had the inevitable gap (for me) at the back of the waist/hip, they still looked great on and because they fit so well, for the first time in what seemed forever, I felt good in a pair of pants. So I bought them, knowing I'd have to get a belt to deal with the gap problem. (Bought a nice belt today - 1" wide, navy blue, in a weaved leather pattern, for $2.75 at a local thrift shop.)

I left Winners with more than a pair of jeans. The fitting-room attendant had suggested I try Reitmans, said their new store had greatly expanded its petite section and most of the bottoms they sell have a wide band around the hip/waist which markedly reduces the gap. She should know. She has the same problem and buys all her bottoms there.

Next stop Reitmans, where I bought a second pair of jeans, in black and gap-free! 

Today was the first full day I'd worn either of my new jeans. (When at home, I wear the falling-apart apparel.) I chose the medium blue denims because I planned to get a belt to go with them.

It felt wonderful to walk into town and back with high quality, soft breathable fabric against my skin, without having to hitch my damn pants up all the time and to know that, as well as feeling good, I looked good. 

Today I also bought new reading glasses. I can see!!! And am sitting before a new 21.5" LG flatscreen monitor. No more fuzzy greyed-out images!!! Also made an appointment to see my doctor, something I always avoid; perhaps she can prescribe something that will help me better deal with the pain. Am also starting to think about seeing a dentist. That's not at all certain due to the likely cost, but at least am thinking about it.

* Reminder to self: Check out alternatives to the shopping cart. Pulling it, especially when laden with groceries, is further straining the back. For flat walking, a walker would be good and would also solve the problem of standing in line-ups. But would I be able to pull a walker up three flights of stairs, as I do presently with my little cart?

On Liberals' Proposed National Food Policy

Don't be fooled by the big numbers. Here's what the Liberals propose to be included in their national food policy as reported by the CBC:

* $50 million to improve food inspections and ensure imported foods meet domestic standards
* $80 million to promote farmers markets and local food
* $40 million to help 250,000 low-income children get healthy food (my emphasis)

Let's look at that last one, shall we?

Any program has administrative costs, so it's not clear that the entire $40 million would go to 250,000 children. However, let's assume it does.

The numbers reduce to this: $160 per year per child, or $13.33 per month, or 44 cents per day.

Wow.

Food costs are higher where people of low income live. Most of us haven't the means - a vehicle or bus fare - to get to where the bargains are. We must walk everywhere or transport ourselves in a four-wheeled scooter (if we're so fortunate to have one and live in a building that provides plug-in facilities). If we've a scooter, then accessibility to, from and in stores becomes a further barrier.

How much do you suppose someone can buy for 44 cents in a neighbourhood where there's only one grocery store and accessibility for people with disabilities is an issue?

Here's another bone to pick. Children under a certain age don't have income. Their parents or guardians do.

You can bet that hungry children have even hungrier parents. Parents will deprive themselves of food before they'll let their children starve.

Politicians and poverty activists should stop the "child poverty" crap. Because you can't lift a child out of poverty unless you treat the whole family - hell, unless you treat the whole community.

Incidentally, by the time the Liberal plan would come into being, inflation would have eaten up all or a good chunk of that 44 cents.

Feeding Yourself on a Dollar a Day

Two teachers in the USA set about doing an experiment to see if they could eat on less than $1.00 per day for 30 days. Then they published a book about it.

They needn't have bothered.

This is old news for anyone who lives in my peer group of income. I live like that all the time and have detailed on this blog the struggle to eat nutritional food and still stay healthy. What differentiates those in true poverty from those merely experimenting are certain assumptions:

• that one has a car for toodling around to get the best deals, usually in bulk; 
• that one has a fully equipped kitchen; 
• that one has a garden or balcony or other area from which one can grow one's own food and the tools with which to do it.

In Canada, income in the lowest decile category demands no more than a $1.00 day spent on food.

Let no one suppose there is no poverty in this country. It is all around us.

Bargains Scarce in High Poverty Areas

It's a well-known phenomenon, driven by market savvy (and corporate greed), that areas of high poverty have the least access to low prices for necessary goods, including food. More often than not the places where the deals are require more than mere foot travel. In some cases, not even public transportation goes to these places. And when it does, there's still the problem of being able to carry back enough of sale-priced goods to justify paying the bus fare.

In essence, the people of lowest income, those with the least choices, are a trapped market. (Whatever would corporations do without us? Maintaining an underclass appears essential to the single bottom line: profit.)

It's also the case that unless you've a car, you can't properly capitalize on bulk deals.

All of which further limits choice for people who are already desperate.

Previously I'd written about how our food bank culture limits choice. One example I gave was the discontinued practice of local grocers to sell day-old bread; hence, their reducing the choices for bread from three to two for people of low income: either go to the food bank, or go without.

In response to that post, I received an offer from a friend of Daphne's.

Teri wrote that she regularly gets day-old bread at a Cobble Hill bakery that produces fantastic organic, multi-grain breads. The day-olds usually sell for $0.50 each, but sometimes even for less.

I can't get to Cobble Hill, of course, but Teri can and that's what she was writing about. She said that when she goes to buy bread for herself, she'd be happy to pick up some loaves for me too. She'd put them in the freezer, then next time she's in Duncan, drop them off.

Now that's a choice I prefer than the two I'd been left with.

Teri contacted me a few days later to say she'd picked up TWENTY loaves of bread, some for herself, some for others and as many as eight for me, subject to room in my freezer. The price: $0.25 per loaf.

Just got my first delivery: six loaves of wholesome bread for a total cost of $1.50. I tried to give Teri $1.50 more, to help pay for the gas expense in getting to my place, but she wouldn't accept it.

A Day in the Life: Visiting the Food Bank

A week ago, I described one of the ways in which the food bank culture limits choice.

Almost two years ago, in a post on Challenging the Commonplace, I wondered how much thinner I could slice my bread. Since then, of course, bread prices have shot up even further, as have the prices of flour, yeast, molasses, honey and oil - all ingredients for making whole wheat bread in a bread-making machine.

I acquired one of those machines not long after writing that post, thanks to friend Daphne. And for almost a year I did make my own bread. Then those prices went up and up and up and I couldn't do that anymore either.

All of which is a roundabout way of telling you why I visited the food bank today. It was to get bread.

It was my third visit in as many months. Only to get bread, you understand, not to stop for a meal or to sign up for a hamper once a month. I don't do well in social situations and asking for help is a non-starter, so I would go in, get my bread, and quickly exit.

Each time I've been to the food bank, I couldn't help but notice the brightly-coloured food laid out on the table directly behind me, opposite the bread shelves; with plates and utensils alongside, inviting anyone who wanted to, to sit down and dig in.

So, yes, today I went to the food bank, to do my grab-bread-and-run errand.

But it was not quite run. It was more like a slow inch-by-inch exit with eyeballs glued in the opposite direction to that of my body.

Having exited, I headed off to Sears to pick up two camisoles I'd purchased on a gift card - thanks to the reward points I'd earned from having made wise use of my credit card. All the while I thought of those cold salad dishes at the food bank: wild rice mixed with tomato and what looked like currants, seeds and onion and a great bowl of mixed leafy greens. There was more, but those were the two dishes I'd had my eyes on.

Still thinking of the food, from Sears I went to the pet store to get some canned stuff for Kiltie, who needs a special diet. She eats better than the human, natch.

I returned home by way of the street that has the food bank. And walked into the building. Went directly to that table, grabbed a small plate and fork, put a scoop of wild rice mix and another of greens on the plate, sat down and ate.

Oh. My. Goodness. It felt like my damn veins were flowing like a spring river, the food was that good; and I hadn't realized how much I'd missed the different textures either.

We are fortunate in the Cowichan Valley. Over the past two years or so, our local community gardens have set aside a place for growing food for the food bank. That explains why the spreads at the no-longer-just-soup kitchen include fresh fruit and veggies over our long growing season. But how our food bank is managing it in the off-season I don't know. Regardless, this is one very grateful recipient.

Today was my first meal at the food bank. I may eat some more meals there.

Thank you to the people who run the Cowichan Valley Basket Society, including Dave the cook, and the driving force that is Betty Anne Devitt. Thank you to the grocers and the people of the Valley who make such nutritious food available.

Frugal Food Budget

In my last post I wrote about WHAT I eat on a daily basis but left out the cost factor. Here it is:

To start, I keep a spread sheet to track exactly where my money goes. Last month, my total bill for food was $107.93. A further $8.98 was spent on other items that I must have.

The most important of the non-food items is the $3.99 I expend on cat food. Unfortunately, it is the cheapest brand the stores have to offer. Fortunately, my precious feline resident doesn't seem to mind, bless her furry little heart.

The other is toilet paper costing $4.99 per month. Imagine having to find an alternative for that! I have contemplated cutting up worn out flannel pillowcases and sewing piles of hankie-sized 'sheets'. However, after considering the extra laundry soap and electricity to operate the washer that would be consumed, not to mention the yuck factor, I opted to buy the bathroom tissue. And I refuse to entertain the idea of scrunching up bits of unprinted newspaper....

The largest portion paid out is for produce at $83.71. Nuts and seeds are $15.91. Finally the three food 'have-to-haves' that don't fit in the first two categories are tea at $3.99, nutritional yeast at $2.72 and spices at $1.60.

A Day in the Life: Lunch and Snacks

I tend toward grazing.

Am also a recently lapsed vegan. A few weeks ago, I developed a strong craving for eggs and old cheddar cheese. The craving became all-consuming. Since a small child, whenever I've been sick I've craved those foods. Didn't matter that I might get sick after eating them; I craved those flavours and textures. Since my body might be trying to tell me something, two weeks ago I relented and bought a dozen eggs. The cheese will follow when it's next on sale.

Three meals a day has never worked for me; four or five is more like it. The following is a full day of meals and snacks:

1. Breakfast: Between 7:30 and 8:30 a.m. Oatmeal, unless there's a problem as described in link.
2. Snack: Between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. Four ounces or 120 ml of orange juice.
   The orange juice is made from concentrate. Why cart home water? That's what you do when you buy orange juice in bottles or cartons. Add water from your own tap instead. Directions call for 3 cans of water to 1 can of concentrate. I use 4 cans of water, so get almost two quarts or litres of OJ. Lasts me over two weeks.
3. Lunch: 1:30 to 2 p.m. One boiled egg OR one-half slice of whole wheat bread spread with homemade hummus OR one-half slice of whole wheat bread with one ounce of old cheddar cheese. My hummus has more water in it than usually called for in recipes. The bread I've recently started getting at the food bank. I try to have a dark leafy green vegetable on hand. If available, I eat some of that too, wrapped around the cheese, hummus bread or egg, or on its own.
4. Supper: 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. My lentil concoction.
5. Snack: Before 8:00 p.m. Eight to 12 almonds OR one apple. The number of almonds depends on their price. A typical sale price is $0.99/100 grams or $9.90/kg from the bulk bin. Regular price has been as high as $18.90/kg. I won't pay that. I buy 1/2kg at a time and store the almonds in the freezer (as I do the bread). I love a good crunchy apple but can't manage to have them all the time. If the price works out to 20 cents per apple or less, then I may buy a large bag of them.

Recently I won some free coffee, so my days start with that now, suitably diluted. A great treat.

Am very sensitive to caffeine, so the rest of the day I drink rooibos tea (a naturally decaffeinated tisane) which I buy in bulk from Upton Tea Imports in the US. Would love to buy my rooibos locally but prices are more than double here, even with the exchange rate and shipping costs factored in. For a total of $40.00 I get enough rooibos to last up to 14 months.

In the late afternoon and evening, I start adding soy milk to my tea. Totals to about 1/2 cup or 125ml per day.

ETA: I try to follow the above but, like today, it seems like a lot to eat. And I get distracted with my unpaid activist writing and miss one, sometimes two, of those meals or snacks. Usually it's the evening snack I skip; more rarely, it's lunch. I NEVER skip breakfast or snack #2, the orange juice.

ETA March 20, 2010: Well, that was a short experiment. Have resumed my vegan diet. So no more eggs, no more cheddar cheese. Didn't like their results.

Food Bank Culture Limits Choice

I used to buy day-old bread, buns and rolls; over-ripe produce; and non-food products whose packaging was damaged, e.g., toilet paper, cleaning supplies and personal hygiene products such as toothpaste and toothbrushes. All these would be substantially marked down in price.

That option no longer exists in my community, except at the local corner store whose prices are already marked well above supermarket levels.

For the past several years, all my local supermarkets have sent such items to the food bank. Which means people of low income must go to the food bank, go without those products, or pay a regular price for them. I understand a similar phenomenon has happened in other communities.

There are those of us who don't appreciate the choice the new food bank culture has forced on us, that of going to our local food bank or going without. There used to be a third, dignity-preserving alternative for those who could still manage it.

For some, visiting the food bank isn't an option. In the words of one WISE storyteller, Sheree:

I just can’t. It’s begging to me. I can’t beg my family for anything, I can’t beg society. I did all kinds of begging when I was growing up: Please don’t hit me, please love me, please look at me as a person. Now I won’t beg anybody for anything. Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health, p109.

Anytime I say to someone that I can't go to the food bank, I get back comments loaded with judgement: that I should 'swallow my pride', that 'the food bank is there to help', that 'there's nothing wrong with it'. On and on it goes.

Well, pride is one of the few things I've left, I don't want help, and that solution isn't right for me given issues they know nothing about.

I'm sick of people expecting a justification for this or any other decision I make. Those who do this should think carefully about the position of privilege from which they make their judgements. I include other people in poverty; there's class consciousness at work at all levels.

Why is it that the more financially destitute a person is, and the more of themselves or their independence they try to hang onto (think of homeless people who refuse to go to shelters), the more they are judged as inadequate or somehow deficient?

ETA: A reader sent a link to this. There's a "gleaming new food centre" for the Greater Boston Food bank.

A Day in the Life: Supper

As food and rent prices continue to rise and your income remains the same; as you cut back on everything else and still there's no room, you're left with only one choice: Cut down your food expenses or lose your shelter.

As with breakfast, supper for me is - with rare exception - the same everyday: a lentil soupy concoction with rice or pasta.

I make a batch of it in a pot and it provides me with meals for eight to ten days.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dry green lentils. The local grocer sells them in bulk at $0.21/100 grams or $2.10/kg. I buy one kilogram at a time. (Red lentils are sold at twice the price.)
• 1 small can tomato paste. I buy the NoName brand sold at the local Canadian Superstore. Regular price is $0.54; sometimes it's on sale for $0.50. I used to use a large can of tomatoes but that became too pricey. Tomato paste delivers the same nutrition and flavour; it's just minus the chewy pulp.
• 3-4 cups cooked rice or pasta. Rice is cheaper, even with the price having gone up so much, and I understand it's better nutritionally. If you can manage it, use brown rice instead of white. Beware of false economy. I buy Basmati rice. While an expensive variety, it absorbs much more water than regular rice does. If you've pasta, you can substitute that in place of rice.
• Juice of 1/2 lemon or lime, including the pulp. Use the real fruit, not juice extract. Realemon or Realime are more water than juice.
• Optional: 2 cups of frozen veggies. The dish has a nicer consistency, adds important nutrients, and fills your belly more if you can add this. I buy frozen veggies only if they're substantially reduced in price, however. It's a great treat when my budget can manage it.
• Optional: 1 tsp. tumeric, if you have it. Check out the bulk bins. It might be cheaper than in the little bottles, but be careful to comparison shop. Food sold in bulk bins is often higher priced than when sold pre-packaged.
• Optional: 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne, if you have it. Same advice re purchasing in bulk.

Method:

Pour lentils into a container of cold water and soak for 24 hours. Drain. Sprout the lentils for two days. (You can skip the sprouting and just cook the lentils, but that's less nutritional.)

To sprout the lentils,

1. Line a colander with a clean cotton cloth. I use an old handkerchief.
2. Pour the drained lentils into the colander.
3. Rinse the lentils thoroughly under a cold tap.
4. Fold the corners of the cloth over the lentils. Pour cold water over cloth to soak it.
5. Let water drain through the colander. Put aside for 24 hours.
6. Uncover the lentils and repeat steps 3 through 5.
7. Do one final rinse of the sprouts.

Once your lentils are sprouted, pour 1-1/2 litres, or quarts, of water into a saucepan. (Less water, say 1 litre, will thicken the consistency, but the dish won't last as long.) Add the tomato paste and optional tumeric and cayenne. Heat to boiling.

If you're using frozen veggies, add to boiling water, reduce heat to simmer, and cook covered for ten minutes.

Remove from heat.

Add the sprouted lentils and stir.

Add the cooked rice or pasta. Add lemon or lime juice - don't skip this step; the juice is a natural preservative. Mix well.

Store refrigerated.

Bulk Bin and Checkout Prices

Beware those bulk bins in your grocery store.

One would suppose that products sold in bulk, sans packaging, would be less pricey than the same goods sold in boxes, cello-bags and vacuum cartons, or in boxes of individually-wrapped single servings. But one would be wrong.

In just about every case, unless the bulk bin product is on sale, the price is HIGHER, oftentimes MUCH higher. Even with sale prices, be very wary.

Take oatmeal, for example. (I've a particular interest in oatmeal of late.) My local grocer sells quick oats in the bulk bin for $0.29 per 100 grams. That's $2.90 per kilogram. The current regular price of a 3kg cello bag of Robin Hood Quick Oats is $6.99. The same weight purchased from the bulk bin is $8.70. The bulk price is 25 percent higher.

The situation is worse for tea bags. Not long ago, I did a comparison at another store, between the bulk bin price for regular orange pekoe tea bags and the price of a 144-bag box of a lesser brand (read, 'cheapest') of the same tea.

Don't recall the exact prices but have never been able to forget this: the bulk bin price for tea bags was double the regular price of the 144-bag box.

Also be aware, before you go to the checkout, of the price of everything you buy. Include an approximate calculation for items that must be weighed - use the scales in the produce or bulk section of the store to check the weight of the food you're buying.

Then keep your eyes glued to the checkout screen to make sure the prices match. More often than not, a purchase will include an item whose price is higher than advertised.