Food stamps questions (NY)

amother

Wed, Aug 29 2012, 11:32 pm

familyfirst wrote:

please be careful with what you write regarding this topic. You may be posting information that could be hurtful to the establishments engaging in these practices, should they be discovered.

Except if someone's doing something illegal, they don't really deserve any special protection from that, they have to be prepared for the possible consequences. I wouldn't be enough of a moser to walk over to the authorities in charge of this and give them a list of places to investigate, but if they found fraud and prosecuted it according to standard fraud policy, I would have to say it was coming to them.

5S5Sr7z3

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 1:13 pm

zg wrote:

food stamps does not roll over to next month, meaning you'll lose this month's money. what I do somethimes, is either put it on an account if you have one at a specific grocery/fruit/butcher. or give to someone who can pay their bill with it, and they'll give you the $. just about all supermarkets in brooklyn take food stamps. food stamps pays for just about all food items, but not non-food items like papergoods...

That is fraud!!! You may only use your foodstamps on food items, and you may only use your card at the time of purchase. You may not pay for anything in advance, nor may you use it to pay an old balance.

OP, food stamps balance will roll over at the end of the month, but if you do this too often they will cut you off, as they will assume you do not need it if you dont use what they give you.

5S5Sr7z3

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 1:14 pm

amother wrote:

I also live in NY and my food stamp money does roll over from to month. the money never expires.

you can use the money for all your groceries but not prepared takeout foods.

try finding I supermarket in Brooklyn that doesnt use foodstamps, BH. Ive used it at Appetizing Plus, KRM, Moishes, Pomegranate, Glattmart, Super 13, Goldbergs, Mega 53... to name a few

Any balance that has been 'rolled over' expires after a year

Happy18

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 1:16 pm

amother wrote:

familyfirst wrote:

please be careful with what you write regarding this topic. You may be posting information that could be hurtful to the establishments engaging in these practices, should they be discovered.

I agree, and btw if a store is committing fraud personally I wouldnt trust their hashgacha.

5S5Sr7z3

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 1:17 pm

amother wrote:

OP here, thanking everyone who answered (so far.) WHY WHY WHY is it so hard to find this very basic information online or directly in the welcome letter?! No matter what words I google together with food stamps all I get is info about applying and qualifying, nothing about how it works after the fact.

Another big question: On the application, I put me, DH, and DD on the case. However now that we've been approved the approval letter came to me and only my benefit card seems to work for food stamps (DH tried his and it didn't. We all have benefit cards because we were on medicaid before) Any idea why that is, is it supposed to work on all our cards because we're all on the case, is there any way to get it to work for all of us?

It will only work on your card. It is hard and confusing to find the info because basically the govt wants to make it hard for you because they save themselves money if you just give up because it's too confusing and dont apply

amother

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 1:50 pm

IYamWhoIYam wrote:

amother wrote:

Um, no actually, I was saying quite the opposite - there is PLENTY of info about applying and I found the application process pretty smooth and easy (especially considering that my case was a bit complicated as I'm self-employed with fluctuating income). It is very easy to find info about applying, in fact the reason I even did it in the first place is because I was flagged down by someone with an info table in my medical center offering free info about applying, FROM the NYC HRA. I guess they don't want people to starve because they don't know how to get benefits. The thing I didn't get any info about is what to do with the benefit once it came.

amother

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 1:56 pm

IYamWhoIYam wrote:

zg wrote:

That is SO slimy, what alternative do I have when they first activated my account including a month and a half of backdated money all the way at the end of the month?! Sheeeesh. I guess I'll have to use the bulk sum to stock up on nonperishables and freezables. My freezer is tiny though. Sigh. Maybe this is G-d's way of giving us extra special meat for yomtov! Of course if I stock up on things now, I will need less in future months and have the same roll-over problem. WHERE was this money when I NEEDED it last month and the month before?! It's so WEIRD when they say "Yes you qualify because we see that indeed you have little enough money that you need help paying for food. We'll give it to you in a month or two. 'bye!"

amother

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 9:52 pm

amother wrote:

I have already responded a few times to this thread.

I always have leftover money and it never expires. On an average month I spend about half of what they give me. I use extra money for yom tov, but still I always have some extra left over and it never expired, even after a year.

So does that mean you now have a huge overabundance of money available on the card? IF you usually use only half, wouldn't you now have a lot of extra on there? Just trying to understand.. because I heard that if you don't use the money they will notice it, and assume you don't need it and they'll lower your amount of money.
has that happened to you at all? How long were you on FS for?
(I'm trying to understand b/c I'm just starting with FS myself and not so clear on how it works)

wtvr

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 10:11 pm

Re: Rollover- from the EBT pamphlet on the NYS SNAP website

"An expunged benefit is a benefit that is removed from a cash or food
stamp account. In the cash benefit program, if you do not use your
account for a period of 90 consecutive days, any cash benefit remaining
in the account that is at least 90 days old will be expunged (removed)
from the account. You may ask your worker to reissue any expunged
cash benefit for which you are eligible.
In the food stamp benefit program, if you do not use your food stamp
account for a period of 365 consecutive days, any food stamp benefit
remaining in the account that is at least 365 days old will be expunged
(removed) from the account. Expunged food stamp benefits cannot be
reissued. "

amother

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 10:36 pm

amother wrote:

This thread has so many amothers so from now on I can be purple to avoid some confusion.
right now I have an extra few hundred $ on my card. I have always been getting the same amount of FS since I started about 2.5yrs ago

I could technically use the extra money to pay a friends bill or something, but that would be fraud so the extra money just says on the card.

amother

Thu, Aug 30 2012, 10:39 pm

wtvr wrote:

right, if you dont use the card at all the $ will expire, but I do use the card, just not the full amount of $, so it does not expire, BH

amother

Fri, Aug 31 2012, 2:34 pm

Hi, everyone. I am an eligibility worker for FS program on West Coast, and know the regulations as ABC. It's federal program so the rules are pretty much the same for every state exept some waivers. So, the resources are now exemps for all households, the program is based only upon income and expenses. For households with all members under 60 years old and not disabled only rent and utilities expenses are counted. So when applying do no foget to show your electricity bill. If you are paying for utilities that used for heating or cooling you will get max standart deduction for utilities, so doesn't metter how much your electric bill, on the budget it will be as you are paying $320 for your utilities, and it will increase your benefits a lot. Also if both parents are working or looking for employment, child care expense is counted. For elderly and disabled, out of pocket medical expenses are counted. Food Stamps does roll over for the next month, but make sure using your card at least once in couple months because if the card not in use the account will be expanged, so you will need to call your worker to reactivate it, if not used for one year, the money will be removed. Every adult household member can request his/her own card, it's just the same as debit cards for joint bank account. If the card not working for your husband call your worker to fix it. Good luck, Shabbat Shalom

amother

Fri, Aug 31 2012, 2:57 pm

Thanks, previous amother!

So, please get me if I'm wrong - it seems like if I use food stamps frugally and let them roll over, I will still be able to keep using the leftovers even after I stop qualifying for getting more? I would like to do that if possible because it's hard to get back on your feet when that means your benefits get cut off the second you get a better job, when at the same time you need to start making up for all the time when you were living on money that didn't really exist...

amother

Fri, Aug 31 2012, 3:25 pm

Absolutely. Even just swiping your card at the store to see the balance will work. but remember, your worker can see all your transactions, and if you are not using your benefits, it's going to be questionable. You may be asked to clarify that, or even investigation may be sent to check if you have additional unreported income. So, I would recomment to use your Food Stamps now for food and save your money

amother

Fri, Aug 31 2012, 3:31 pm

Oh I am certainly using them for food but I don't really need to use ALL of them if I keep on living the way I was before food stamps. Especially since when I said the food stamps were just a bit more than my previous grocery budget, since then I realized that I was including things like paper goods/cleaning supplies in my grocery budget since I buy them all together but that won't be included on FS so if I keep on shopping frugally we should have at least $50 we can sock away every month, that will hopefully add up to a couple more months of food at the end.