Am I the only one that pays for my groceries?

[Vedubin01]

I wouldn't want to deny anybody the opportunity to eat pizza, but I noticed a local Papa Murphy's has a sign displayed on the front window that says "EBT Cards now accepted"

It just seems so wrong.

Pizza is a luxury. EBT is meant to purchase food to survive not a luxury food or to help pay for a service other than basic food essentials.

http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/food-stamps-used-to-buy-lobsters-and-steaks/

Again Bullshit!

[Sagaris]

and how to deal with loans and buy a house,money management etc. they don't teach you any of this shit

Totally. When I was 17 I was lucky enough to work with someone in his 30's who told me how important it was for me to establish my credit via. getting a credit card and so forth. My parents eventually suggested it also, but I met a lot of people in college who still didn't have any sort of credit history and have had problems getting car loans, even after graduating and securing a job.

I felt like I was up to par on my understanding of how money/credit/interest worked until 5 years ago when discussing how interest works with mortages and credit cards with a finance/banking background. I realized I didn't have a clue!

Learning about loans would be beneficial for sure. I have student loans, have had car loans, and a mortgage and still don't know everything I should about them.

[Sagaris]

Pizza is a luxury. EBT is meant to purchase food to survive not a luxury food or to help pay for a service other than basic food essentials.

http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/food-stamps-used-to-buy-lobsters-and-steaks/

Again Bullshit!

But pizza sauce is a serving of vegetables! :p

[e30e]

It's a very fucked up world.

I wonder what the ratio of tax money spent on welfare vs tax money spent on education is?

My girlfriend and I qualify for food stamps, and probably some other stuff, however we manage to scrape by without it. We both go to school full time and work full time, we live with my parents because we cannot afford to move out with all our bills, but that is not a necessity. We have inexpensive phones and use the very cheapest of phone plans, we don't have new cars (of course we wouldn't if we had the money too either), we buy all our own food and don't eat junk-food, in fact mostly whole foods and almost always cook at home, we pay taxes, we pay car insurance, we buy our own food, gas, and everything else life throws at you, and we still enjoy fancy things once in a while.

I don't understand how people can be so lazy?

Through each semester I don't have one day off for 4-5 months at a time, it's beyond hard, but come on, that's life. Is this global or just in slob-town America?

I mean if you aren't completely disabled it's really not hard to get a job and work, and fuck the whole loss of jobs thing! There are SO many jobs available right now, all it takes is will. Back in January I wanted to test the whole job shortage thing because I felt like it was just a bunch of complaining. In one week I applied at 30 different places, retail, food, tech, manual labor and some other random ones. I did a normal follow-up by calling back a day or two after applying. Just on my follow-up calls I had 17 of the 30 places ask for me to come in for interview, and by the next week 26 of 30 had asked me to come in for interviews, and on top of that one had offered me a job just after talking to me on the phone. I was in disbelief so I scheduled interviews at 10 of the jobs which I decided I would be ok with working at. 9 of 10 offered a job during the interview, and the other called the next day offering a job. On top of that 6 of the jobs I had turned down interviews for made a follow up call to me, asking if I was sure I didn't want to come in and talk.

So I said what the fuck? I don't have any spectacular resume, at all. Some retail work, food service work, and that's all I put on my applications, I have a GED after dropping out of high school, and no other certified skills. It leaves two things clear.

People are lazy as fuck and don't want to work, but love to whine.

People are dumb as fuck and have no clue how to go about getting a job.

I've been working at Jimmy Johns over the past two and a half years because it is a perfect job while I'm in school. I've thought about leaving a few times, especially with all those job offers earlier this year, however none of them could offer equal pay to Jimmy Johns. Delivery driving I get paid on average 15$-20$ an hour to drive my car and listen to music (two of my favourite things). Anyhow I've watched hundreds of people apply in this time, at locations across Tucson, AZ, which sees a whole range of different people.

less then 1 in 10 people who come in and apply dress/talk like they want a job. I don't care who you are when you aren't applying for a job, if you want a job, you dress in at least clean clothing, and not gangster/raver/sloppy/whatever clothes. Even worse, more then 2 in 10 people who apply only come in and apply so they can get a signature on their sheet showing they applied so they can keep their welfare/food stamps, yet they come in obviously NOT looking for a job, looking like trash, talking like the idiots they are with no intention of getting a job. Lastly, the very few people who come in dressed at the very least ok, and by that I mean jeans, and even just a t-shirt for god's sake, and don't talk like an idiot, get hired! It's crazy how easy it is to get a job, yet depressing how many people DON'T want to work.

end rant....

I went through a very similar experience when I went to U of A, the hard work will pay off. I'm sure you've made me a BLT at a point in time. Love Jimmy Johns, keep up the hard work.

[Sagaris]

I went through a very similar experience when I went to U of A, the hard work will pay off. I'm sure you've made me a BLT at a point in time. Love Jimmy Johns, keep up the hard work.

Nice encouraging words!

Living within my means and working hard in college has certainly paid off for myself. What you learn while maintaining self-sufficiency in college will help the money you make in your future career go even further.

[BoostinEuros]

I worked at a grocery store for 2 1/2 years in a low income area as my first job.

I cannot stress to you enough how much this system is abused.

One particular instance was a woman who could not speak English, but was able to buy $700 worth of food all on her EBT card. This equated to nearly 4 shopping carts full of junk food and fine dining such as steaks and seafood.

Another example of abuse: I've seen people who own gas stations purchase things to stock their stores with EBT food stamps. Say 60 bottles of 2 liter coke products and number of candies and breads to put on their shelves, all compliments of the tax payer.

There was one guy who could come into the store, buy $250 or so worth of steaks and meat, and then cook and sell them in a local park and in parking lots. He would do this every other week.

I have seen people with over $2,000 worth of available funds on their EBT card. You do the math.

The only thing I support are programs such as WIC which supports young children and their mothers. The WIC system gives vouchers for only healthy food product and baby food.

However, I've seen people who had WIC vouchers not even care to use them because they were utterly too lazy to select the proper item or just didn't want anything with nutritional value.

It's disgusting really.

[BoostinEuros]

I have number of stories like that. I could go on for hours :tsk:

[Sagaris]

....
Another example of abuse: I've seen people who own gas stations purchase things to stock their stores with EBT food stamps. Say 60 bottles of 2 liter coke products and number of candies and breads to put on their shelves, all compliments of the tax payer.
.

:shock: I would have never thought about that, wow

Thanks for sharing your experiences, that is just insane!

[Joe G]

I couldn't agree more. People who take advantage of those who work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules is downright wrong. I just went to the grocery store the other day and now I'm making a list to go back, despite being pretty hard up for cash, and seeking work I still find a way to get by on my own doing odd jobs, avoiding unnecessary expenses, and selling crap I don't need to generate income.

[Pac1373]

It does sounds much easier to be poor in the US than it does here.
strange days indeed.

[joshh]

All you have to do is have several conversations with those who are on welfare/food stamps/etc, you'll get a very clear idea that they think they deserve it.
One example is I challenged a woman (on Facebook) that was buying ice cream for her and her kids (4 fucking kids btw). Her justification was that ice cream is part of American children's growing up. So it should covered.
If you're being supported by Government (the rest of us that pay taxes) you should be living on healthy foods only. No cigs, no soda, no ice cream, no candy bars etc.

[Sagaris]

All you have to do is have several conversations with those who are on welfare/food stamps/etc, you'll get a very clear idea that they think they deserve it.
One example is I challenged a woman (on Facebook) that was buying ice cream for her and her kids (4 fucking kids btw). Her justification was that ice cream is part of American children's growing up. So it should covered.
If you're being supported by Government (the rest of us that pay taxes) you should be living on healthy foods only. No cigs, no soda, no ice cream, no candy bars etc.

^Which would help out with all the bypass surgeries being covered by gov't healthcare.

[gwb72tii]

Well something like 1 in 6 are on food stamps in this country.

Part of the reason I've started shopping at whole foods is because of the typical crowd in the grocery stores/Wal-Mart.

Yes and its a political strategy by obama. Get more people relying on the govt so they vote for those who support it

Historically the only way to get people back to work once the economy has bottomed is to cut off assistance

[joshh]

^Which would help out with all the bypass surgeries being covered by gov't healthcare.

Great point. I hadn't looked that far ahead on the issue.

[bmwstephen]

We should just designate a socialist state in thia country and ship those fucks off so they dont compromise the rest of us hardworkers. Then they will really see how good they had it...

-Blame my typos on my fat fingers & Droid Charge