How to feed all those poor people

in India, Haiti, Ryerson, York U., Toronto U, Trent U. Seneca College, Centennial College, Durham College;
I am of course being facetious, but the Toronto Star, on Monday, March 8th in a column in the Greater Toronto section entitled The OSAP Diet, university students blog about learning to feed themselves on just $7.50 a day on page GT3 written by Louise Brown, their education reporter. Now I don't have a serious problem with this, I have known students who struggled for years getting through their degree courses, only to be left with huge debts to pay back; How ever there are many students on low income budgets existing on Ontario Student Assistant Plan, a loan program that assists low income students to get an education; they are ALLOWED a maximum of ONLY $12, 540 dollars a year for living expenses whle away from home; that doesn't sound like a lot compared to the Ontario's poverty level of $15,200 for rural areas and $22,171 in larger cities; but wait, what about the poor single sods on Ontario Works, who are expected to live on $221 basic needs and maximum $364 shelter allowance per month; that translates to $2652 basic needs per year and $7.27 per day. That is to cover BOTH food, clothing, transportation, hair cuts, and any other little luxury that may be desired; where do they get off saying that these students are so hard done by; I have to pay $400 a month for a two room apartment, which includes my internet, kitchen faciities and laundry; a difference of $36 which has to come out of my food allowance; thus in reality leaving me in a deficit situation; so what do I cut out, food, clothing, transportation, haircuts, or all of above; and before anyone complains that I am writing on a computer, so can't be doing that badly, this laptop as described below in another post, is 11 years old and not up to snuff; it was given to me Christmas 2008; my food budget is on average 50 dollars a month; that is just under 2 dollars a day; yet I am able to buy on sale, bulk items like meat, soya margerine, and potatoes; it took me 3 months, but I saved enough to buy a 7cu ft chest freezer; it took me 2 months to save up the money to expand the memory in my work tower, which is 6 years old, and to get a visa gift card to allow me to purchase the time on Cafe Press; this is the reality of my life on Ontario Works (Benefits, or Social Assisatance for those not in Ontario); but I don't go complaining to the papers; what good is it going to do, NONE!! the government and the people don't want to hear about it; if the people (not my worker, she is a gem) at OW head office heard I was complaining it may opem me up for investigation.

this week,
breakfast is 1 cup of rolled oats, with milk and sugar;
Lunch is a sandwich, usually peanut butter OR jam;
my dinners consist of a concotion (I failed to see it being equivalent of a recipe)
1 lb boiled and drained hamburger
1 box of macaroni and cheese dinner
2 cups of mixed vegetables
a squirt of tomato ketchup;
divided up and put in the freezer, I nuke it, and it will do me 4 meals at least; I have an apple for dessert, and lots of coffee or home made gingerbeer
oh yes, I make my own pop; take 1 lb of ginger root, 98cents, cut up, and boiled in a stock pot, add 2 cups of white sugar, and a bit of lemon juice, and voila you have a drink fit for a Cratchit ;0
if I really want to splurge, I have recipe for a steamed pudding, that is cheap and easy to make, and can last a week in the fridge, but better put in the freezer, as it tends to grow mold if left too long; it can be made for desert, or amended with meat, to make a dinner; bacon, hamburger, ham, or sausage/hot dogs works;
other than this, I make a lot of soups from the seconds section of the vegetale/fruit of No Frills; that's where I also get my potatoes and sometimes my ginger root; 3lbs for $1.49 for the ginger root; I buy bulk flour, the 10kg bags of All Purpose No Name; it usually lasts me 2-3 months, depending on if I am making crepes for breakfast; and the syrup, no store bought syrup; I take 2 cups of brown sugar, 2 cups of white sugar, and sometimes a cup of cider powder mix, and boil it down, put it in a wine bottle to keep ;) makes for interesting conversation at breakfast if someone is about; if I don't have the cider mix, I either make it plain or add a flavouring, almond extract, or vanilla extract; I am sure there are other things that can be done, if one puts some thought to it; like boil the water before hand in cinamon, cloves, nutmeg, or ginger or a mix of them all;
last year I found some trees along a nearby road, that were crab apple trees, and I took a couple of grocery bags full, and made some jam preserve; didn't quite turn out right, my first try, but it also serves as a decent syrup; there are ways to survive on limited income, well, if a person takes the time and puts their mind to it; we have wild grape growing around the city, and if one knows how, the leaves can be used as part of a dinner, by stuffing them; they actually taste not to bad raw either; but if your going to try that, MAKE SURE YOU ASK IF IT IS GRAPE!!! I come from the country and know the different leaves and fruit; so for me it is just seeing what used to be common place;
A person is poor, when they are wanting something that they cannot have; I don't think of myself as poor, because there is nothing that I can't have, if I am willing to wait for it; if a person can't wait, and MUST have it NOW, then they are truly poor, no matter how much money they may have, because they will never be satisfied or content;

today is the future, tomorrow never comes

with that I start a new chapter in my life, I have opened up a store on Cafe Press: called High Hopes Cafe; was going to name it Cafe' Deviante' but thought that might be better for later ;0
there is nothing in it right now, just a few lines of code and description;
there is a deep learning curve, of setting up items, graphis, and other things; the pages are HTML so there is the aspect of web design involved, though I think they have tried to minimize that; but on the whole it is going to be a while before I am past the novice stage, and into producing quantity items for sale;
the other aspect is that Spring and Summer are coming, and it is getting warm and sunny; who wants to spend their summer in the basement, away from the sun; done enough of that this past winter; so I have been looking around at getting a laptop that I bought off of my son repaired; monedtarily that is going to be about as expensive as buying a new one, perhaps more; so I have tried an alternative; I have an old Mac PowerBook c. 1999, running OS X Panther; and I have been having the job and joy of finding out that the OS and the programs that it supports are out of date for accessing Cafe Press; it is a miracle that it is allowing me to type this into the post editor; but it is, and for that I am grateful; it even allows me to check my mail, so won't complain; as for manipulating graphics; well, I am not going to push it too far ;-0
just found that I can log into Facebook, but again no joy with Cafe Press yet!!! well, not perfect, but perhaps there is hope for some limited use; get me out of the dungeon LOL will report later with the address of the store and how I am doing getting products for sale ;) oh, btw, I have purchased 12 months time for the store; cost 80 dollars Canadian;
hmmmm just noticed I don't have the ability to upload photos here or any of the other extras; like I said, LIMITED!!!