The Rules

1. Twenty-six bucks a week, cash or equivalent.  As per the Welfare Food Challenge, this applies to anything purchased for consumption, including groceries or extras like beer and coffee.
2. Start with an empty cupboard. The aim of this challenge is to live week-to-week on $26.  Pantry stocks would be hard to develop at this rate.  No food and no spices in my pantry or fridge from before the challenge are to be brought forward into week one (unless it’s value has been appropriately subtracted from the budget).
3. Non-timber Forest Products, past-dated foods and the like are considered free for the taking.  The authorities may disagree with me that wild harvesting and dumpster diving are unanimously “okay”.  However, part of the learning, and frankly part of the excitement, is in tapping into unlikely resources.
4. Food bank hampers are for those with a real need, not I.  My budget is artificial.  Food banks are for those without the luxury of choice.  Should I be in need, true need, of more food than I can acquire with $26 bucks, I can choose to purchase the same hamper contents with my own money.
5. A gift is a gift.  A few examples to illustrate.  I returned from the coast with a small selection of my mother’s preserves.  A recent housesitting favour was rewarded with restaurant gift certificates.  I’m in possession of a few fermentation cultures that have been generously given to me over the years.  No matter a person’s source or magnitude of income, they still have mothers, friends, acquaintances who lovingly give on occasion.  Gifts are in. This, however, brings me to Rule #3…
6. No IOUs.  Gifts are one thing, “getchanexttimes” another.  Under no circumstance are any costs to be deferred to the future.
7. Proceed with potlucks as normal.  While it would be reasonable to avoid involvement in pantry-depleting social engagements for a single week, this seclusion would be too costly to my emotional health in the long term.  I will attend and contribute to such happy gatherings as normal, hoping that everyone likes daal.
8. Supplementary pocket cash can be put towards the budget, within reason.  Bottles and cans, please clap your hands.  Other than bottle returns, I can’t think of other ways that I would acquire a few extra bucks for more groceries, but they’ll be considered as opportunities arise.
9. No food rules.  Restrictions will happen organically.
10. This challenge is over when I say it’s over.  Unless I’m putting myself at risk to starvation, I don’t want to end this before the sign of my first paycheck (approximately a month away).  But essentially, I’ll determine an end when I have answered enough questions for myself.

-S