I never made more than $25000/yr. working full time as an elementary teacher. That's the average in the area where I lived. And how many months a year we work is irrelevant, as in my district we got PAID twelve months out of the year, not just during the months we worked.

Why the other months off was relevant is that you can work at another job during that time.

Again, you are pointing out another choice. 

I understand that you have totally reasoned with yourself that you used food stamps as they were intended.  But, you have to understand that *many* people do not agree.  Food stamps are there to keep people from starving. 

You say that your husband was working for $5.00 an hour.  What prevented him from getting a different job?  You say that 2 of your kids were from a previous marriage, did you not receive child support for them?

Oh, and Janders, your post is right on with my thinking.

No offense but welcome to the real world. I mean, this is something the rest of us have to face every day. It doesn't mean teachers should somehow get paid even more.

Just so that we're clear: I don't think you're bad or immoral or anything like that. I just don't think welfare programs should be used in the way you used them. They are supposed to be a temporary safety net while you get on your feet.  Using them as a means to pay for college is not what I think most people had in mind. If everyone did as you did, our economy would come to a screeching halt. 

You made decisions based on the existence of welfare. That's the problem. Rather than acting like a safety net, you used welfare as a springboard.  I'd have no problem if there were government programs designed to help people go to school or whatever.

Wisefawn: Yes, PoetMom's example discredits your arguments very effectively. Why? Because you claimed how we're not doing enough for the poor. And yet here you have a clear cut example of people who could have avoided being on food stamps if they had made different choices. Her husband did not need to stay at a $5 per hour job. I mean, for crying out loud, *I* made $8 per hour back in high school driving a van around for the bank and that was probably around the same time. Two people working full time should be able to pay for 3 children.  But listen to what PoetMom has said: They need $600 per month just in food. Come on, that's ridiculous. No attempt at going without there. 

The welfare programs are currently so lax and so flexible that people can be on them, go to school for FOUR years while still spending $600 per month just on food. That's precisely why I'm against spending more on these programs. If there's so much money to go around as-is that this scenario occurs -- on that you, Wisefawn, applaud, then I can only imagine what would happen if we threw even more money at it.

Those of us who struggled our way through college ON OUR OWN tend to resent the idea that we did so that we coudl later bear the burden of people who wanted mother government to pay for other people to use welfare and food stamps to subsidize someone else's eventual rise to being a college professor.  Professor of what btw? It better not be philosophy or political science or history where he's espousing his political views to his students.

At the end of the day, the question is this: Without welfare, would PoetMom's family have starved? No. They would have just had to make different choices. Therefore, they shouldn't have gotten welfare. It's not supposed to be used that way.

never heard of the "bubble and squeak" but I may have to try it (I love potatoes...)  It's funny, you sound like your household runs the same as mine.  I love the meal plan on the fridge.  My mother in law thinks I'm insane for doing it.  But, it really keeps my shopping to a minimum and I hardly ever have to throw out food.  Simplifies the shopping process, too, and I hate shopping so that makes me happy!

Home made soup is so much better for you.  Just read the sodium content on canned soup.  Ack...it's high blood pressure in a can.

I was looking at what I've eaten today.

Breakfast: Oat meal, grape fruice, orange juice. Total cost: ~$.35

Lunch: 2 Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches: ~$.20

Dinner: Left over chicken, salad: ~$1.00

That's pretty typical for me.  Let's say though I got that up to $2 per day to take care of unusual days. That would be $60 per month.  I don't have to life taht way, I can afford more and we often do get other goodies like fresh fruits, wine, roast. But there's no way we'd get up to $600 per month with 5 people.

If you don't eat out, food is dirt cheap.

What pains me is that I actually do support having a social safety net. But I want that safety net distinctly defined: No American should go hungry or have no shelter. We're a rich nation.  But if you're going hungry in the United States, it's probably a failure of common sense, not a failure in the system.

I also support very generous grants for schooling. It should come in the form of tuition grants for those who are a) needy and keep a very high grade point average while in school (i.e. 3.0 or better).

But there should be limits on many of these things. 4 years collecting food stamps (as poetmom mentioned) seems to me to be way too long.