How you can resist funding the government → other tax resistance strategies → frugality / simple living / self-sufficiency → frugal eating

Yesterday I praised the IRS for their useful web site. Today, I’m going to point y’all at the USDA. So don’t tell me I can’t ever find anything nice to say about government agencies.

The USDA has designed, tested, and made available a set of diet plans for different expense levels that are easily-prepared at home and that provide all the healthy, balanced, nutritious meals a family needs. The “thrifty” version of the plan would feed me for about $168 per month (according to their expense estimates, which they dutifully update monthly with fresh data). A family of four could get all of their USDA-approved recommended daily allowances of this-and-that for about $425–$500 per month (depending on the ages of the children).

The purpose of this “thrifty” plan is “to demonstrate how a nutritious diet may be achieved utilizing a modest budget or food stamp benefits.” It can be a help to people who, like me, are trying to lower their budgets but who don’t know a whole lot about nutrition.

A great deal of work went into this. And if you’ve been a taxpayer, you helped pay for it. So go download (or order) a copy of the cookbook, and the companion guide: Preparing Nutritious Meals at Minimal Cost.

Here’s an interesting follow-up to my post last Fall about the USDA-created frugal healthy diet plans:

In November Sharon Gordon posted a “food stamp challenge” in the Community Food Security listserv (comfood-L): eat for a week on a food stamp budget. We decided to do this using as much food as we could from local farmers so we expanded the challenge to show how the combination of (1) frugal supermarket shopping, (2) preparing meals from basic ingredients, (3) buying local foods, (4) gardening, (5) food storage, and (6) home preservation of food could add up to a healthy, affordable, practical, and environmentally sustainable meal plan, even though the local meats, eggs, and dairy products are typically more expensive than typical supermarket fare. And the food had to be satisfying and taste good too, otherwise, what’s the point? Call this the Slow Food for the Poor Challenge. ¶ I am happy to report that we succeeded on all accounts.

Follow the link for details and recipes. This comes from the site Better Times: Access to Sustainable, Simple & Frugal Living, which is full of useful information.

The Hello, Dollar! blog has a great Living Below Your Means section. In one post, we find out how to Brown Bag It to Half a Million dollars by eating lunch out one day of the work week instead of all five.

The Get Rich Slowly blog has a good collection of links on how to eat healthily on a small budget.

A group calling itself “Free Range Activism” has put on-line some good, practical guides on everything from using rechargeable batteries and low-energy light bulbs, to setting up bulk purchasing co-ops, to growing your own food and baking your own bread, to the legal ramifications of protesting in the United Kingdom.

I was comparing notes the other day with a friend who is trying to eat healthily and conscientiously while also being frugal and doing the careful budget accounting inspired by Your Money or Your Life.

I’m doing pretty well in the frugal dimension, but I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to things like eating locally, promoting humane farming practices, and so forth. My friend, on the other hand, is attending to those concerns but has a hard time keeping her food budget in line at the same time.

Today I found an encouraging blog: Eating Organic on a Food Stamp Budget. The author, Rebecca Blood, lives in San Francisco (as do my friend and I) and she shares her budget, her recipes, and her choices as she tries to eat conscientiously, well, and cheaply.

¢heap eats is a blog that, no surprise, is dedicated to “tips, recipes and techniques” for satisfying your appetite without draining your wallet. This site ventures more into the timely-coupons and stuff-in-boxes-and-cans area than most sites of this sort.

Thanks to Carnival of Ethics, Values, and Personal Finance for plugging The Picket Line.

Juanita Nelson’s championing of Winter Fare (a farmers’ market with a local food focus) reminded me that I’d been meaning to post something or other about The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a book I finished recently and really enjoyed.

The author, Michael Pollan, vividly describes how government intervention — both direct subsidies and regulation-based barriers to entry — in favor of corn production, petrochemicals, and mass production facilities, have artificially distorted what sort of food most of us eat.

All this time I figured that the reason “organic” “grass fed” “free range” stuff was so pricey was because it was inherently more difficult and expensive to raise and because it was marketed as a prestige boutique conspicuous consumption sort of item. (A friend of mine recently bragged about getting “a whole free range organic unionized pro-choice local lesbian chicken” at Trader Joe’s.)

Now I learn that a big part of the reason that antibiotic-flooded, pesticide-enriched, corn-fed, neoconservative, SUV-driving meat is so cheap is that a big hunk of its costs are being paid indirectly with tax dollars instead of directly by the producers and consumers. (Something like 40–50% of what a U.S. farmer gets for a corn crop, for instance, is a direct government subsidy to the farmer, according to Pollan.)

My live-on-the-cheap method of tax resistance has made me put a lot of thought into how to stretch my food dollar. Mostly this has meant preparing our own meals rather than eating out. But it also means that I look for food bargains — which, for me, has meant not asking too many questions about where that chicken came from or what its politics were.

Now I’m starting to wonder if that’s such a hot idea.

My sweetie and I are signing up for a local community-supported agriculture group that promises to haul into The City for us locally-grown organic produce & eggs, grassfed beef, and the like.

It looks to be pricier than what I’m used to, so I’ll have to double-check the budget and make sure I’m still in good shape there. But I like the idea of shifting my support to a less-government-dependent form of agriculture (and one that’s probably healthier — to consumers, farm workers, farm animals, and to the environment in general). And if the “peak oil” crowd is right, local organic food is how we’re all going to need to be eating before long, so I’m just getting the jump.

As I mentioned a while back, my sweetie and I have decided to sign up for a “Community Supported Agriculture” (CSA) program. In this program we pay a regular subscription and receive weekly deliveries of locally-grown produce at a convenient pick-up location.

Yesterday I decided to do some price comparisons to try to get a feel for how much of a premium we’re paying for CSA produce.

I picked an example box of produce containing a pound each of russet and red potatoes, a pound each of red and yellow onions, a pound of broccoli, a pound of spinach, four lemons, and a bunch of parsley. Then I compared how much the items in this box would cost if I bought them through the CSA, from a nearby big-name supermarket, and from the corner vegetable market where I usually go for things like this.

You can see the results in the chart below. Except for the lemons, which were way-overpriced at the supermarket, everything is pricer at the CSA. Without exception, everything is less expensive at the corner market.

But an apples-to-apples comparison leaves out some things:

• Each of the three choices has some produce that’s hard to find at the others. The CSA has particular varieties of produce that aren’t reliably available at markets. Supermarkets tend to very reliably have the same large variety of produce year-round, and have the largest selection of the bunch. The corner market has some specialty foods particular to the ethnic cuisine of our neck of the woods, but occasionally runs out of just the thing I’m looking for.
• There are quality differences. The CSA prides itself on high-quality, organic produce. But in my experience, the produce is smaller — which is not a quality problem exactly, but it does mean that the ratio of husk/peel/skin-to-food is greater, and so we may get less edibles for our dollar. The supermarket has produce of a very uniform and blemish-free condition, and often has “organic” alternatives (usually more expensive). At the corner market, lettuce is often wilted, the broccoli battered, the onions starting to go south… I have to examine things a little more closely there before I buy.
• There are occasionally bargains. The supermarket often has 2-for-1 deals or promotional prices that are good, so if you plan your meals around these bargains you can do better than if you go in with a pre-arranged list. The corner market sometimes sells cheap bags of produce that isn’t quite good enough to sell in the regular bins, but is still salvageable. A few things, like (this week) pink lady apples, are cheaper at the CSA than at the supermarket (they’re not available at all at the corner market).
• Then there’s the whole aspect of trying not to support government-subsidized, petrochemical, centralized, long-distance agriculture. The CSA takes the guesswork out of that and keeps me from having to play detective at the grocery store. I do wonder, though, just how much that’s worth to me. It’s hard to put a price on the worth, but I have a little better idea now of the cost.

In the meat department, there’s another story. So far, we’ve ordered two meat products from the CSA: a pound each of crosscut shank and sweet Italian sausage ($5.25 and $8.50 respectively). At the supermarket, comparable hunks of animal would run $3.99 and $4.04. But having tried the sausage, which was very good, I don’t think that the supermarket alternative would measure up quality-wise. The local, corner-store-style meat markets don’t have sweet Italian sausage, and, because none of the butchers speak English very well, and I don’t speak any Chinese languages, I’d probably give up and choose another recipe before trying to ask for a cut of meat that isn’t in their display coolers.

And with grass-fed beef, or so I hear, one can avoid contributing to a bunch of additional problems regarding the ethical treatment of animals, overuse of antibiotics, and such — and, chances are, end up with a healthier and tastier slice of animal on your plate.

In each year of my experiment with tax resistance I have, for one month, carried around a pen and a little notebook and have made note of every time I have spent money. I’ve then combined this with a record of my bill-paying from home and of any yearly expenses that didn’t come directly to my attention during the month in order to create an estimate of my budget.

In the Picket Line archives, you can see my results for 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.

What I found this year is that, based on what I wrote down in my notebook in August, I have to earn about $34.27 in potentially-taxable income each day in order to maintain my lifestyle:

Here’s how this compares to years past (I’ve had to rejuggle the numbers a bit so that the categories remain the same from year to year):

Not included in any of the above totals were any business expenses (since I write these off against my business income), my health insurance premium (which, as a self-employed person, I can also write off), or any medical expenses that I can pay for from my pre-tax Health Savings Account.

The trouble with doing this accounting for only a single month and then trying to extrapolate to the whole year is that no month is a typical month. There are always some months in which big expenses come up, and other months in which garden harvests or freecycle booty or unexpected gifts reduce expenses. Some months, it seems like everything in the pantry needs re-stocking, other months I can coast on what we’ve got. Some months I brew a lot of beer, other months I drink a lot of beer I’ve already brewed. In July I had a big veterinarian bill; this month no cat-related expenses at all (for this reason the “cat stuff” total I gave above is an estimate based on typical yearly expenses, not based on this month’s expenses).

My big-ticket discretionary spending items this month included a trip across the bay to see Ubu For President, a whitewater rafting trip (mostly paid for in a previous month, but some travel and meals expenses fell in this month), a pitcher of beer at Zeitgeist to help welcome a good friend back into town, a trip down the peninsula for a barbecue, snacks & a beer at a Giants game (we got the tickets free), having a couple of friends over for dinner, and a donation to support the next as-of-yet-unspecified project by the Yes Men. Big spender, eh? I splurged for more memory for my laptop, too, but that only came to a buck plus shipping on eBay.

Other than that, living was cheap. As I mentioned earlier this year, my sweetie & I have signed up for one of those “Community-Supported Agriculture” programs, as part of that whole locavore less-petroleum-based agriculture craze. I also mentioned that this makes for a much more expensive bag of food than what I’d been used to getting from neighborhood markets. However, at the end of August, I see that my food bill hasn’t been dramatically bigger than usual. I was expecting more of a bump, since not only have we decided to shell out more money for our fancy local organic stuff, but food prices in general have been going up. It may be that our weekly flood of produce — supplemented this month in particular by our back-yard garden harvest — has encouraged me to cook less meat-centered meals, which are usually less-costly as well.

From the looks of things, I’m still living well within my means at a federal income tax-free income level (to do that with my current method I need to keep my non-deductible expenses under $16,000 per year). And I’ve got enough slack that I can consider things like, oh, some fancy cheeses to picnic with at the upcoming “Shakespeare in the Park,” or another south-of-the-border vacation.

Of course, that’s assuming I actually go out and earn that $16,000. I’ve been so busy working on my book projects this year that I haven’t managed to find a gig that pays the rent yet… and here it is, September already.

Some notes from here and there:

I’ve since learned that the International Conference mentioned below will be held from Friday, July 2^nd through Sunday, July 4^th. — ♇

• I’ve just received word that the 13^th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns will be held in 2010 (early April? early July? the announcement was unclear) in Sandefjord, Norway.
• Siobhan Phillips tries an experiment: “My husband and I would eat conscientiously for a month, not just on our regular grocery allotment but on the government-defined, food-stamp minimum: $248 for two people in our hometown of New Haven, Conn. We would choose the SOLE-est products available — that is, the sustainable, organic, local or ethical alternative. We would start from a bare pantry, shop only at places that took food stamps and could be reached on foot, and use only basic appliances.” Follow the link to read how it turned out.
• If you tell someone that they’re a good person, will that make them more likely to do good things? Maybe just the opposite. “Primed to think about what a good person you are, your most likely reaction is to think you’ve paid your morality dues and go on about your business.” In other news: the United States is the is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. Perhaps you’ve heard.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• The radical personal finance podcast has been broadcasting some very interesting material lately, including
  • an extensive interview with Jacob Lund Fisker of Early Retirement Extreme
  • what can we learn about finance from dumpster divers, freegans, vagabonds, and hobos?
• Leanne Brown has published Good and Cheap: A SNAP Cookbook — a handsome guide to cooking tasty, nutritious meals on a budget — that’s available for free on-line.
• Contrepoints has an interesting recap of the original bonnets rouges of Brittany, from 1675 (in French).
• Cindy Sheehan puts in another good word for war tax resistance at her blog: “Petitions, Marches, and Rallies, Oh My!” — “I had a showdown with the IRS and the IRS was the one that blinked. I am not a legal expert or expert on WTR, but it’s lucky that I know some people who are and I also know that they would be happy to answer any questions you have. I think the time has long passed that we just give lip service, or shoe leather to what we believe in. It’s time to take a stand. If you oppose war, why do you pay for it?”
• At his Forbes blog, Peter J. Reilly reminds people to consider whether their heirs have tax debts before designating them as beneficiaries (“Don’t Leave Money To Children Buried Under IRS Liens”).
• American conservative radio show host Jason Lewis walked off the air a few days back after announcing that he would be “going Galt” to avoid paying taxes (or, I suspect, mostly to publicize his new project: galt.io).

Some recent tax resistance news of note:

• The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress have been looking for coins under the couch cushions that might help them pay for some of their expensive ambitions. One plan they came up with was to require banks, credit unions, and other such financial institutions to make annual reports to the IRS of all accounts that had more than $600 of combined deposits or withdrawals over the course of the year. The theory was that the IRS could match this information with the declared income of the account owners, and, if there was a significant discrepancy, could launch an audit to investigate — thereby making it a bit more difficult for people to earn and spend undeclared income, and so increasing the tax base.

  Republicans seized on this proposal as a good wedge with which to spoil the Democrats’ plans, and painted it as an Orwellian nightmare of the government peering into everybody’s private business. At first, the Democrats doubled down, but as anticipated, they have now pared back the proposal such that it will only apply to accounts with at least $10,000 of combined deposits and withdrawals, and exempting certain deposits (such as direct deposit paychecks or social security checks) and withdrawals (such as for the purchase of a home). Exemptions like those may make the proposal easier to sell on the talk shows, but they would make it considerably more complex for banks to comply, and so this is unlikely to dampen their increasingly loud and organized opposition. And the Republican kvetching, which had predictably floated free from the actual facts about the legislation almost immediately anyway, isn’t likely to get any quieter. It remains to be seen whether the proposal will survive its further journey through the legislative meat grinder.

  Why this matters for American tax resisters is this: One of the easiest and most common ways for the IRS to take money, from a resister who refuses to pay voluntarily, is to seize it from their bank account. For the agency to make such a seizure, though, they must first become aware of the bank account. The usual way they discover such an account is when the bank sends an annual 1099 report to the IRS indicating how much interest income was earned by the account. But in recent years, with interest rates so low, banks and credit unions have often offered accounts that do not generate any interest (they use other sorts of perks to entice customers instead). Such accounts therefore do not generate 1099s and so do not create a paper trail for the IRS to follow. So resisters have been able to use accounts like this to protect their money from IRS seizures. Under the new proposals, such accounts would be reported to the IRS if they had a sufficient amount of deposits and/or withdrawals, and so this protection would be diminished or eliminated.

• If you’re a low-income/simple-living tax resister, or just a frugal sort of person, you may be interested in this new guide to healthy eating on an affordable budget.
• Federal tax revenues are sharply up this year, largely thanks to booming fortunes of corporations and the wealthy. This appears to be more than just a rebound from the economic challenges of the pandemic, as the numbers are also way up from the pre-pandemic 2019 fiscal year.
• The global human ragtag guerrilla defense against the traffic ticket robot hordes continues. A robot collaborator lost his cool while being thwarted by a parked car in England, while French rebels have found spray paint to be a quick and easy way of blinding and disabling the machines there.