In 2007, my husband made the decision to change careers and go back to school. We were a family of five living on student loans for almost 3 years with our only income being me doing periodic contract work when available with my old company. When he started school, our children were 5 (kindergarten), 4 (preschool) and 10 months old. With 3 kids needing care, it would’ve cost more to pay for care than I could make in a place where I had no connections and was living temporarily while my husband was attending school. It wasn’t feasible for me to start a true career with those circumstances.
We had no income so we were able to qualify for the children to have insurance through the federal government on the Medicaid program. My husband and I didn’t qualify, but it was more important that the children did. We were able to get great medical and dental coverage for them at no expense, which was incredibly helpful. At the time, a friend asked me if I felt bad that I was taking advantage of the system in that way. I thought about that a lot when she asked because growing up, we just figured things out and made it work without asking for handouts. I then came to terms that we were actually exactly what the system was designed for. A family in temporary need that had paid into the system previously and would again when the financial crisis is over. Even though there was some pride in it, I chose to make the best financial decision in the circumstance we were in.
Florida is a very friendly state for those who are struggling financially with no or little income. Because of our home that we owned back in Georgia, my husband and I couldn’t qualify for any help, but I’m glad that for the children, they only went on current income. You have to check what the current standards are in your state, but in Florida at that time we qualified for Medicaid. Florida Healthy Kids is also an amazing program for those that are working, but don’t have a hefty income. This is great for those parents or families that don’t get insurance at their place of employment and can’t afford private insurance. If someone is struggling to make ends meet, you may be able to qualify for some similar program in your state.
In addition to the children getting dental and medical through Medicaid, with a child under 5, we were also able to qualify for the WIC (women, infants, children) program. I cannot say enough fantastic things about this program. I had monthly meetings and training that was required to stay in the program. There were classes on healthy eating, whole grains, making good food choices, etc. Very helpful if someone did not have that information. Each month, we got a month’s worth of checks that we could use weekly for items such as yogurt, bread, eggs, peanut butter, cereal, cheese, and formula. If you look around the grocery store next time you’re shopping, you’ll see the WIC signs on various food items. I’m not sure if they still use the physical checks or not that I received, but confirm with your state to see what the current method of distribution is.
Something VERY IMPORTANT to understand about this program is that you can use coupons, BOGO’s, and other deals in conjunction with the WIC checks. Living in South Florida, we had a grocery store that was right outside the neighborhood where we were renting, so we walked there every time we needed something. A local Publix (an amazing grocery store prevalent all over Florida) was our store of choice due to the location. **Great wedding tip—check Publix for wedding cakes. They are beautiful, taste amazing, and are very reasonably priced. We got our own wedding cake there. It is true that Publix is considered a high-end grocery store and they may have higher prices on their non-sale items on a daily basis as compared to stores like Kroger, Food Lion, etc. However, they do know how to do amazing sales. Their BOGO’s are plentiful. I will talk in more detail on another blog post about couponing, but let’s discuss using deals in relation to the WIC program.
Let’s look at an example to make it more real. I have a check from WIC for cereal. I first look for a WIC approved cereal. My cereal of choice back in the day was Special K (they don’t allow sugar cereals). Lucky for me and others on the WIC program, Publix offers BOGO’s on cereal very frequently. So, I would use the WIC check for free cereal. With it, I would buy a box of Special K, but was able to get two boxes with the Publix BOGO offer. I then used coupons from the Sunday paper (now you can find many online and put on your grocery card or print) to add to the transaction. That means with a WIC check for 1 box of cereal, I would get 2 boxes of cereal and have an amount (for example $1) to be credited to the other items, like meat, that I needed to purchase, but didn’t have a WIC check for. I was able to do this with most of the WIC items that were offered. It is not uncommon for almost all of the WIC items to be BOGO at Publix periodically. Some examples include, bread, peanut butter, cheese, and of course, cereal.
I’m not sure if it’s the same way now or not, but we had checks that would be good for a specified period of time. I would try to hold the checks as long as possible waiting for a BOGO deal to come up at Publix on that specific item to maximize my return on the checks. The government didn’t have to pay any more for me utilizing this hack as compared to someone buying just one box of cereal. I just used Publix’s own deals to maximum our family savings on items that we needed and were going to purchase anyway. If you think your family can’t go through that much cheese or bread before it goes bad, both can be frozen so you don’t have to worry about wasting food.
We will talk about grocery shopping in greater detail on another post, but it’s important to note that BOGO deals should be used to stock up on the common items that you always buy. Things like ketchup, salad dressing, macaroni & cheese, etc. Have a goal of not purchasing anything unless it’s on sale.
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