What is WIC?: Government Help With Groceries

If you need help buying groceries for your little ones (of yourself if you’re a pregnant or breastfeeding mommy) then WIC is an awesome resource you should look into: it is government assistance with your food bills! I just looked into it about a week ago, and it was easy to set up an well worth it!

What is WIC?

WIC (which stands for Women, Infants, Children) is a Federal program that provides funds for nutritional foods, information on healthy eating, and in some cases even health care referrals for pregnant, post-partum, and breastfeeding mamas, infants, and children up to age five.

How Do I Qualify?

The basic requirements for WIC are that you live in the state in which you apply, are one of the categories of W.I.C. listed above, and meet the income requirements of being between 100 and 185% of the Federal poverty income guidelines. The table below gives a partial list of the current WIC income requirements.

(Find the full list of WIC’s eligibility requirements here.)

How Does it Work?

Once a WIC officer has determined that your family qualifies for the program, they will give you printed checks for specific food items the State government has deemed nutritional, such as milk, cheese, cereal, and peanut butter. You then take the checks with you to a WIC approved grocery store, and purchase those items using your WIC checks. (The cashier should be able to help you if you’ve never done it before!)

How Do I Apply?

To apply, you’ll need to contact your local WIC office. You can find contact info for your local WIC office at the WIC website http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/.

Does it Work?

Our family just started using WIC a couple weeks ago. I had to take little Bun into the WIC office to be weighed and measured, and had a short interview with a WIC officer. They showed me a video about how the program works and sent us home with two months’ worth of checks for foods like beans, tuna, juice, carrots, peanut butter, milk, cheese, and cereal. I took my first batch of checks into the store last week, and found it super easy to shop for and pay for my WIC items. It takes a little extra time at first, but it probably ended up saving us about $30 in grocery bills!

love,

Annie

photo: cheese by kirsche222