Blog Carnival!

Ok, well, I can't figure out how to post the widget (if you know how to do it send me a message), however, here's the link to the Food Allergy Blog Carnival, I submitted something for next time it runs!

A big thanks to Colette Martin for hosting it!

The High Cost of Food Allergies

I wanted to take a minute to discuss this article that I read today. It touches on things I don't think people really consider when thinking about food allergies. I'm sure people think how hard it must be to cook, to eat out, to be constantly vigilant when around others, but I'm not so sure they know the cost of food allergies.

So, here where we live a gallon fo milk is $3.38 right now. A gallon of soymilk is anywhere from $5-$7, depending on the type and where you buy it. A jar of peanut butter costs around $2, a jar of sunbutter is more like $6. A tub of regular margarine is $2, dairy-free margarine is $4. A small container of ice cream costs $2, whereas a pint of dairy, nut, and coconut-free costs $4-$5. Dairy free sour cream and cream cheese are $4 each for a small container. Dairy free vegan cheese (without casein) is about $5 for 10oz.

In essence you're spending about $16 for all that, and I'm spending $32, exactly double.

Now factor in the 4 Twinject pens and 2 Epipens I have (Total of about $300 after insurance), and the 3 bottles of Benadryl ($8 each), and the allergy testing (Have not got the bill for this yet, but it's typically a couple hundred bucks), and the trip out of state to see said allergist(2 tanks of gas at about $3 a gallon, bringing two meals with us, copay of $35, etc).

And then the cost of sending food to school when there is clearly a lunch program that would cost us less (especially since in preschool it's 2 FREE meals and a free snack daily, and in elementary school we'd qualify for reduced lunch, which would amount of $0.40 per day per child). And the fact that I have to send in snacks. And they're required to be store-bought and pre-packaged. You'd think that'd be easy because you could just grab some fruit snacks and a box of 100 calorie packs and call it a day for $5. Except I can't exactly get away with that, so I end up spending about $20 to your $5 because the more pre-packaged the specialty food is, the more it costs.

Yes, food allergies are expensive! I've learned to make them less expensive by avouding as many specialty items as I can manage to avoid and hunting relentlessly for mainstream items that fit our needs. Grocery planning/shopping/management takes about 3 hours out of my day once a week. Yes, three HOURS. If I got paid minimum wage for that I'd make about $21 before taxes just figuring out our groceries for the week. Sadly, that's not enough to buy much considering the price of speciality items.