Government shutdown impacting you yet?

[Angrboda]

I depend upon food stamps for half my monthly food budget. It's estimated that the USDA only has 64% of what it needs to cover the cost of food stamps in February if the shutdown lasts that long. If they paid everybody at that rate, instead of prioritizing some recipients or something else, that would be a quarter of my monthly food budget. In March it would be half. I could cut out all extra expense and make up that difference, but it wouldn't be easy. Giving up delivery pizza would make up half of it. The other half would have to be made up by eliminating all miscellaneous expenses, like household supplies and such, which is not particularly realistic. There are other areas I could cut back on, but that would result in less time spent in the community doing things. That's certainly doable, though hardly desirable. And I have savings that I can lean back on, but those are very limited due to limits on my assets imposed by the entitlement programs that I make use of.

So, I can survive a shutdown, but it would reduce my usable monthly income by 14% each month starting in March.