Feeding Your Family When SNAP Disappears

Part 2 of my "How to be Poor and Still a Baddie" series.

I’m a working adult. I have a job, a side gig, and mouths to feed. I use food pantries, and I qualify for SNAP.

That last sentence used to make me squirm, and even now I don't love saying it because along the way, I absorbed the message that people who need assistance are lazy or shameful, even when I know I'm neither.

🍽️ Why I’m Saying This Now

With the essentials, I run out of money before I run out of month, every single month. Now, SNAP benefits are due to disappear this week if the government shutdown drags on. That means no grocery money for forty-two million Americans.

That's 600 sold-out NFL stadiums filled with people wondering how to buy groceries.

Stand us shoulder to shoulder, and the line wraps around two thirds of the planet.

If I said one name per second, I'd be reading for 486 days just to list the Americans who need help with dinner.

Forty-two million of us—working parents, seniors, college students, heads of households, and single adults doing everything right (or at least trying our ding dang best).

💳 Why I Need SNAP

It’s not really anyone’s business, but since so many Americans seem confused about what poverty looks like nowadays, let me spell it out.

Math is awesome!

I need SNAP because I work, but the math doesn’t.

Because I’m raising teenagers in an economy where eggs and heat and rent compete for priority.

Because kids don’t stop eating when politicians stop governing.

Because I’m doing the best I can, and it still isn’t enough.

And because asking for help is necessary for my survival.

🧂 When the Benefits Stop, Here’s My Plan

Here’s what I’m doing for dinner; maybe it helps someone else too.

1. Inventory the pantry. I’m keeping ten essentials, plus good-to-haves and flavor or nutrient boosters stocked as best I can.

   • Essentials: rice, beans, pasta, potatoes, onions, garlic, eggs, oil, salt, pepper. That’s the backbone.

   • Good to Have: oats, peanut butter, broth cubes, frozen veggies, tortillas — the comfort tier.

   • Flavor & Nutrient Boosters: cumin, vinegar, chili flakes, nutritional yeast, lemon — the “hope has flavor” tier.

     
     

2. Hit the pantry before the panic. Demand will spike if benefits vanish. It’s okay to go early — that’s planning.

   
   

3. Build a “shutdown stash.” A few shelf-stable meals: rice and beans, pasta and tomato, oats and peanut butter. Stuff that won’t rot or require perfection.

   
   

4. Feed creatively. Soups, stir-fries, casseroles — one pot, big flavor, low energy.

   
   

5. Tell the truth. To my care team, to my kids, to myself: the system is unstable. We plan, we adjust, we survive.

   
   

🌶️ The Heart of It

I didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did you. Needing food is not a failure of character. It’s biology, economics, and the brutal math of inequality.

When the government says there’s no money left to feed its citizens, that’s not my shame. That’s theirs.

If the benefits stop, I will still make soup out of onions and hope.

I will still sing in the kitchen while the radio hums bad news between songs.

Because I don't give up.

Because I'm still here.

🥣 Tonight’s Dinner: Pantry-Hero Lentil Vegetable Soup

Warm, filling, and made entirely from food pantry staples.

I built this recipe entirely from stuff in the cupboard that I got from my local food pantry. I didn’t have to buy a single thing! Pantry Lentil Vegetable Soup, the crockpot version is literally cooking on my counter, and my house smells wonderful! (I ended up adding a splash of unsweetened coconut milk at the end. Yum.)

It’s humble, but it’s real food, full of color and flavor. And it’s proof that even when the system falters, we feed our people.