I don't live like the rest of America

The New York Times just did an article that has gotten me thinking, "Clipping Coupons to Put Food on the Table." This woman, Vita Ciullo, used to spend about $90 a week to feed a family of 5. Now it's edging up on $130, and she's getting worried. That's incredible. I can spend a couple of hundred dollars to feed 8-12 people for one meal. Granted, I don't do that so often these days, but the annual New Year's party is coming up, and I already know there's going to be at least a hundred Kumamoto oysters and a foie gras terrine.

Reading the comments is highly illuminating too. People talk about not taking a vacation and not spending more than $1.50 for any one meal. Maybe it has something to do with living in Manhattan, but if I forget to get a soda from the vending machine (still 50 cents) before I hit up the Jamaican cart for some jerk chicken, a Coke can be $2. And the chicken and rice runs around around $6 for the mini, which is really filling and more than sufficient for lunch, but it certainly isn't $1.50 for a home-cooked gourmet meal.

The not taking vacation is illuminating too. This year I've already been to Belize and Oahu. I've gone back to San Francisco maybe three times and will round out the year with probably four trips cross country to home.

It's ridiculous. I like to think of myself as one of those people who actually are concerned about those in the lower middle class and their ability to pay their bills, but clearly I have no conception how hard it is to feed a family. It really goes to show you how far removed the extremely wealthy in this country (heck this town, heck this neighborhood, heck my building) are from the plights of average Americans. Maybe this is what Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were arguing about when they were each trying to one up each other on who really understood what it was like to sit at the kitchen table and try to figure out how you were going to send the kids to college.

And college is ridiculously expensive. I've been thinking about potentially more graduate school, and for the programs I'm targeting, it would run about $75,000 a year. It's incredible. I don't understand how the middle class American family is supposed to swing even a decent state college education for their children. And this is America. How are we the country that is able to spend more on research and development than any nation, have the world's most superior military power, donate tons and tons of foods to starving nations around the globe (after we've spent millions shipping it from the heartland across the Pacific and Atlantic to its destination) and we've got hard working Americans who watch their pennies, pay their bills, and are criticizing each other in the comments because Vita chooses to buy paper towels, pop tarts and boneless chicken breasts?

This is America people. Vita can buy whatever the heck she wants. She shouldn't have to treat paper towels and a bag of M&Ms as a luxury that you are supposed to tsk tsk about. But the fact of the matter is, there are enough cash-strapped Americans out there that the nickles and dimes you save from deboning your own chicken and using a sponge actually add up and make a difference, which is why the commentators feel compelled to tsk tsk in the first place.

This woman claims on her blog that she can feed her family inexpensively on the farmer's market for $40 every two weeks, supplemented by a CSA box (community supported agriculture) for $25 every other week, plus a little Costco and Whole Foods shopping once a month. She doesn't break down her actual expenditures per week, so it's hard to know what she's able to feed her family for. I'm not sure it beats the commentator who can make a meal for $1.50 a person. Anyways, in my experience, the farmer's market is expensive. And it's supposed to be because the whole point is to be able to provide a living wage and financial encouragement to farmers who have to employ more expensive methods to produce more environmentally sustainable food.

No wonder voters are so suspect of politicians. The way Obama and McCain throw around all the things they want to fund, it has got to sound preposterous to someone who shops for the winter in spring and the summer in fall, or someone who gets her DVD and general entertainment fix by walking to the library and avoiding buying a car, because these people know you've got to cut something that you want to get what you need.

I really don't know what the solution is. I feel deeply for these families who are working so hard to make ends meet. I suspect Vita's lack of a college education impairs her ability to find higher paying work, but clearly she's got a sharp mind, and I get the sense she'd be an excellent project manager if she had the credentials and experience to obtain the position.

All I know is that things in this country need to improve because it doesn't seem right that the most powerful nation on the planet has citizens who are doing this complicated dance just to put food on the table.