I first looked at the stores in my area in San Francisco to see which ones accepted SNAP. There were mostly Walgreens, Target, and Safeway stores. I chose Target and Safeway because I was familiar with those two after a study we did on the cheapest items at grocery stores.
I set a few ground rules for myself. One was to not factor in seasoning in my budget and to just use what I have at home. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford a new bottle of salt or pepper with the budget. Another rule was to not factor in beverages because I couldn't afford to buy instant coffee as well, and I mostly stuck to free coffee from the office. I know, I know — those two ground rules probably made this experience less authentic. However, besides those exceptions, I did my best to stick to a budget of $4 a day, which totaled $28 for the whole week. I did go slightly over my budget. I spent $29.29 on two grocery shopping trips combined and an extra 40 cents on an impulse buy of instant ramen. I initially thought I was going to just shop at one store, but I had to break it up into two trips. You'll read more on that later.
Another thing to note is that I didn't follow the recipes to a T because I didn't have enough to buy all of the ingredients, so I just tried to make it work with what I managed to purchase.
