Please HELP! I can never do this right!

[Peacemamalove]

So we received are foodstamps this morning !

I can never seem to make it last the whole month and this month we received twice as much.. lot and I want to make sure I spend it wisely.

We are allergic to Wheat and Gluten and I can shop at local health food stores and co-ops .

I would like to have some sort of pantry supply and I also receive the Cooking TF menu mailer so that covers dinners.

I would LOVE some help creating a list to things to buy. I am horrible at doing this and usually just end up with a bunch of groceries that can make nothing!

Please help!

[Peacemamalove]

Anyone ?

[writteninkursive]

Good luck! It takes practice, and at first, you end up with, like you said, a bunch of stuff that makes nothing.
There are plenty of websites with gluten-free recipes and other specific ingredients. You'll find a lot of them under titles for autistic kids, since they tend to pull gluten and dairy from autistic children. Here's one to start you off: http://www.gfcfdiet.com/ and there's many, many more out there. If you make lists of the ingredients and keep the recipes at hand in a box or a folder on your computer (that's what we do, and it works very well - no sticky recipe cards!), it helps out a lot.
You can also use a regular recipe book and use alternate ingredients. You just have to know what the alternatives for the things you don't want are to replace them.
It will become habitual eventually. It's just very time-consuming to read labels constantly. My first experience into a grocery store after we decided to drastically change our diet was a nightmare! I felt so lost and like nothing in the store was anything we could eat! But it gets better. It helps to start small too. If you pick an ingredient you're excluding (we started an overhaul of our dairy consumption - going from cow milk and cheap to all natural and commercial cow milk-free), it's a little less disorienting.

[Koalamom]

$700? Woot!!
But I guess that can go fast with several kiddos.

Subbing for ideas too.

[Peacemamalove]

Yes $700 is a lot! Which is why I want to spend it wisely.

[mbravebird]

Can you get things that are usually hard to fit into a monthly budget? Like Coconut oil?

Do your foodstamps have a farmer's market allowance? If so, then if you find a winter market, you could stockpile good meats in your freezer.

Have you seen the food stamp challenge on nourishingkitchen.com?

You could also stockpile canned wild salmon (you can use it as you would tuna).

If I were you, I'd be looking either for things that are hard to budget for or for things that you can get a lot of and save for the future. Nothing perishable.

[harrietsmama]

Hugs!!! I'm right with you - I'm on FS and starting GAPS diet this week. We get $350 for 4 of us and I am nervous!!! So, I'm subbing to share ideas with ya! I just found out Eastern Market in Detroit has a food stamp token program, so you go buy tokens to use at the farmer stands I'm just buying meat and vegetables for now, and dumping them in a pot to cook. I'm more worried about cravings and sneaking out for a snickers bar

[Peacemamalove]

Well so far being non perishables seems to be the best thing and hen weekly get any Fresh items that I need .

[zenquaker]

We're on food stamps too and it's hard. Mainly you have to make up for the cost in prep time. So use dried beans, make your own bread--make your own everything, if you can! Also check out www.hillbillyhousewife.com for complete menus for low budgets (I'm pretty sure she has veg options as well).