How to properly use your Food Stamps

How to properly use your Food Stamps 

Subtitle:  Sometimes we all need a little help and that’s ok.  But it’s not ok to waste my tax dollars, I pay too damn much of those anyway. 

Note: I am NOT against food stamps or other aide; I have known many decent and kind people on them who are using them as intended, to help get their life back together and through a time of need.  I am against morons abusing the system and screwing everyone over.  This is for those people. 

Step 1: Qualifying for the stamps.  Who qualifies for food stamps? This is a tough question that I have yet to determine exactly how people can pull this off. I am a teacher, remember? We get treated poorly and paid poorly. (Hence the reason I LOVE my bosses, because I have the BEST teaching gig ever - blatant suck up I know) and I make too much money to qualify for the stamps. But if you look at the people that I know that are getting the stamps there has to be some secret that I have yet to figure out.  There is a little prescreening tool that will help you determine if you can get the stamps: http://www.snap-step1.usda.gov/fns/ . It tells you pretty quick if you qualify for the stamps.  However, if you don’t based on this little tool there are a few ways to fix the results.  The fastest and easiest is to close all of your saving and money market account and IRA’s and blow it all in Vegas (Or Atlantic City). That way, the money is gone for good and you might leave owing some mobsters additional monies.  If you do not know what savings, money markets or IRAs are, then you are probably already prepared to click on the link above.  

Step 2: Getting your food stamps. Back in the day, you used to get literal stamps.  Yes, stamps, that is where the word came from.  They were like tiny coupons and you tore them out of a booklet at the grocery store.  The government said that they stopped them because it was embarrassing, and for the people who need and deserve help, it was and I feel for them. The real reason the government did away with them was because people were selling the stamps to get stupid and illegal things.  So they put the stamps on a card.  Looks like a debit card, works like a debit card. If you go on the stamps, you will get a card.  However, as I am about to explain, this ain’t Visa baby, so don’t even try. 

Step 3:  What to buy. Food. Healthy food. Doritos are not food.  Neither are chips, cookies, ice cream or doughnuts. You may buy those, with your money. NOT the stamps.  Why am I so opposed to those fun foods? Because they make you fat. And then you get the diabetes.  Which I have to pay for. Because if you are getting the stamps then I am probably paying for your healthcare too. And I don’t want to pay for you to do what ever the hell you want while I have to run and exercise and take care of my damn self because it costs too damn much for me to go to the hospital.  Let’s try things like fresh vegetables, whole grain wheat bread and fruits.  Yes, vegetables, you know those things right? They grow in the ground and usually green.  Try them, you might like them.  

Step 4: What not to buy. Ramen and Kraft dinners, etc.  If you are getting the stamps you can buy real food.  COOK! Make a real meal, then you might actually stay healthy. Costs aside, do you really like going to the doctor that much? Being sick that much? What else shouldn’t you buy? Beverages count as well.  Don’t buy kool-aid and regular cola, because that crap can make you fat too.  Try tea or coffee.  In fact, some states have even gone so far as to have tags in grocery stores as to what is healthy food.  Since I am paying for your food, you need to not buy things that are missing said tag.  

Step 5: B*%$h if you buy that I will slap you.  I will try to keep this list brief. 2 doughnuts and a Mountain Dew. At the 711. In fact, anything in the 711 unless emergency milk and bread run, or tylenol is a no no.  Because if I have to wait until payday to get my azz a candy bar, you are sure as hell not going to get one for not working. And don’t get me started on fast food.  Yeah, no joke people, some fast food chains are now accepting the card.  I will be damned if I am counting change from under my seat to buy off of the dollar menu while you are getting a Big Mac meal with my tax dollars.  Not happening, and don’t you let me catch you doing it. 

Side note: While researching for this entry a friend of mine found on answers.yahoo.com the question “Will they take my food stamps in another country?”  NO!  If you can afford international travel, you do not need the stamps!!! 

Step 6: What to do with money you are not spending on food. The goal of this program, instituted by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the New Deal (oh, you don’t know him, he’s the dude on the dime, wait, you don’t have a dime, that’s right, because you on the stamps....) was to assist people so they could get back on their feet.  Ergo, the money that you are not spending on food needs to be spent on things that will help you get a job so you are not on the stamps for your entire life.  Because you are not suppose to want to be on the stamps your entire life.  Use the money to buy some nice clothes, NICE clothes, that cover your body and make you look like a TV lawyer, and some college/training classes.  Do something with your life? Don’t you want to die being proud of yourself? And furthermore, there will be no driving of a Mercedes Benz while you are on the stamps.  Because my butt is sporting a Grand Caravan and I work like 50+ hours a week.  Hell no.  

Step 7:  Things that are illegal to do on the stamps. Now, the government has taken care of a lot of this by changing the stamps to the card.  People used to sell the stamps for the crack which was a big no no.  Now, people do the exchange thing, where they talk you into the Wal-mart, yes Wal-mart and buy other people things on the stamps and then you swap what you bought with your stamps for whatever you couldn’t buy with your stamps.  That is the same as selling your stamps for crack.  No.  If you cannot buy it with the stamps you need to be getting a paycheck to buy it for yourself.  Period. 

Step 8: Wait, you haven’t mentioned Michael Shanks!?!? Honestly, I have no idea if he even has an opinion on food stamps, as in Canada they do not do stamps, they do a bank where you pick up your items. What a brilliant idea!! And we make FUN of Canada??? AND I am not trying to guess what his opinion on the stamps would be, but  what I do know his opinion of hard work. Yes, in a insane attempt to keep my promise to mention my celeb crush in every post I will only say this.  And I am quoting him: "Good things come to those who.......get up everyday and bust their ass" - Couldn’t have said it better myself handsome. 

Step 9: Get off the stamps. Ok, you’re eating right, taking care of yourself and have some nice clothes.  Now, go get a job. Yes, a J-O-B.  Hell, no one likes working, I mean, I love teaching, but don’t I gripe about grading papers like every other damn entry? Working is a part of life, so unless you plan on finding yourself a suga-momma or sugar-daddy, get over yourself.  

Step 10: You may now have your wine.  That you bought.  With your OWN money because you have used the stamps properly like MANY people that I have known in my life have and turned your life around. Good for you! Enjoy that wine! Because you can’t buy wine on the stamps.