Unless you absolutely have to, avoid going into debt for food purchases. Swallow your pride, then visit your local food bank. Yes, your situation is exactly what they’re for. If you have to choose between making your rent payment or eating, the food bank is for you. In most places, they don’t even ask anything beyond how many people you’re getting food for. Most of the volunteers are there because they’ve been in your exact situation, and just want to return the favor now that they’re back on their feet.

And this may be an unpopular take on Lemmy, but don’t forget about local churches, mosques, and synagogues. Many will have charity networks set up to provide things like grocery store gift cards. You don’t need to be a member of the church, or even be religious. Lemmy tends to be vehemently anti-religion, but in most cases they’ll just want some basic info to tell the rest of the network that you received aid. This is purely because some bad actors were taking advantage of the system, and hitting every church in an area to resell the spare gift cards. So to prevent that, churches now tell each other when someone receives aid; If the same person shows up at four or five churches in the same day, it tends to raise some eyebrows.

Source: I grew up poor.