Need your honest opinions please!

This post stems from a debate I've been having...partially with a friend of mine but mostly with myself. If you don't mind I would love to get some honest thoughts and opinions on this. I know some readers have mentioned that they don't like to comment on blogs. Please feel free to comment anonymously or email me.

The issue is, I've been unemployed for a long time. Because I do seasonal work I'm used to having periods of unemployment in the fall, but this one has gone longer than normal and I didn't have any "filler" income like I normally do. I've chosen to give up my reliable and fairly lucrative job this winter in order to be able to continue with the therapy I'm in now. It was an extremely tough decision that I still question a lot, but it's been made now. I had thought I would be able to find a replacement job fairly easily, but for all the places that I thought would be a sure-thing position I haven't even gotten one call back or interview. It's getting stressful.

I had to take an apartment that was above what I had hoped for for rent, mainly because I was going to end up homeless otherwise. Also, this apartment complex unfortunately has a lot of hidden charges. So money is a stressor right now, and is likely to continue to be for a bit.

A friend of mine brought up going to the food bank. This is where I'm looking for opinions.

I'm not desperate. I haven't reached the point where I'm not going to eat if I don't get food bank food. But food is a major part of my budget, so having that lifted would take some of the stress away so I could focus on getting other things together. I know it would be helpful for me, but I picture my going there taking food away from a desperately hungry family with nothing to eat. Especially during the holidays, I know it can sometimes be hard to keep food bank shelves stocked.

Another factor in this is that I'm really really bad at sticking to a budget. I'm not much of a cook, so I'm not the type that can get what's on sale and figure out something to do with it. I end up buying things that are more expensive because I actually know how to do something with it. I'm also not good at budgeting money in general, which causes issues. Another recent issue is that side effects of a medication made me so hungry I was eating everything in sight. I spent a huge sum of money at the grocery store in just a couple of days because I was constantly feeling hungry (and being hungry is a huge trigger for me), and I was going through crazy impulse buys because everything looked good. Thankfully that has resolved itself quite a bit, but what I'm saying here is that I could save a bunch on food just by making sacrifices in what I buy and learning better spending habits. So I'm thinking that maybe I should just focus on that and avoid getting to the desperate point that way.

This has been hard for me because there is food drive stuff going on all over school. I am normally one that loves to give and now it just makes me sad that I have nothing I can offer. We had a pot luck for the end of one of my classes today (can't believe this semester is actually ending...as long as it's been it now suddenly feels like it ended so fast!) and I brought nothing. Then I found myself stuffing myself and taking an extra plate with me just because it was there and free. I really don't like acting like that. The stress is frustrating. (Of course, I'll do stupid shit like that for a few days and then I'll have a bad day and go out and spend way too much on comfort food and undo anything I might've saved anyway).

For now I'm thinking I'm going to call around to food banks and soup kitchens in the area and see if I can set up something to volunteer in exchange for food or a meal. That way I'm at least giving back some of what I'm taking. I know a lot of this comes from the way I was raised...be independent, self-sufficient, don't take charity, etc...but I'm thinking that some of that is not such bad advice. I'm just confused. I don't have experience with any of this and I'm not sure what to do. I just don't want to take food from starving children...or be a drain on society for problems of my own creation.