In France, a diverse and economically disadvantaged population relies on food assistance. We focus on individuals who make multiple and simultaneous use of various sources of food assistance in densely populated urban areas. This reveals certain aspects of the structure of food assistance and its nutritional consequences. We will thus demonstrate that while these families maintain a relative proximity to various sectors of social assistance, they also deploy—through costly psychosocial efforts, sometimes learned as early as childhood—a makeshift system that marginalizes them. Through the narrative and detailed analysis of the paradigmatic case of a woman on the RMI (whose household has approximately 4 euros per day per person to live on), we will attempt to account for the social construction of this situation and the practical, argumentative strategies that make food a flexible budget item, allowing them to save money to try to pay their bills (particularly rent).