Poverty

So for the past 30 days (ending on Friday), I have been living in a state of self induced pseudo-poverty. The general idea was to force myself to live on a very small amount of money for my day to day purchases. At the same time I didn't want to it to affect things like my school, housing situation, health care, or ultimate. So I kept it simple and decided that I would live off five dollars a day for my purchases exempting rent, utilities, transportation, and costs related to ultimate. This included food, clothes, toiletries, recreation, and an other incidental purchase. I decided to budget it into three primary categories; food, incidentals, and fun money. I would have 3.00 dollars a day for all of my food and drink, 1.50 a day for all other purchase, and 50 cents a day to do with what I wanted. The last rule was that I couldn't be a burden or a mooch on my friends or roomates. I couldn't accept hand outs and if anything needed to be bought in the house I would take on my fair share. Originally this meant I wouldn't let anyone give me anything. I ended up relaxing this rule after I realized something discussed below. In the end the rule became more of an idea that what I get from people should be on proportion with what I am giving out.

I have two and a half days left and have run out of money but have everything I need to get me through the last days so it seems that it will be a success in as much as I did it. Aside from saving money the biggest reason I did this was curiosity. I wanted to know what it would be like, if I could do it, what would I eat, what would I prioritize and how would people respond. What would be easy, what would be hard. Here are some of my conclusions some of which were surprising.

The biggest change in my day to day life related to food. I realized how big a part of my life eating is and how in a way it becomes an even bigger part when you have a 1 dollar a meal. Here are some of things I did and realized in relationship to food.

-I didn't but anything to drink except water the entire month. The only exception was one half gallon of milk at one point. This seemed obvious and essential from the beginning as I couldn't afford to waste money on things that weren't getting me full. I found this to be one of the easiest parts. I don't drink soda or coffee normally and although I missed juice and lemonade I never craved them and water just became completely routine.

-If I was going to eat well at all I had to bargain hunt, I became addicted to the weekly ads and very rarely bought anything that wasn't on sale. I used 5 different supermarkets over time and found some bargains that amazed me. Sometimes you wonder how anyone can go hungry in a country where you can get 10 lb. of potatoes for a dollar of 1 dollar / lb. pork chops. Obviously it is more complicated than that still it seems strange. My general rule of thumb was if it was a dollar/lb. or less I was allowed to buy it. If it was more I had to decide whether it was worth it. Usually those would be items that brought flavor to very cheap foods like butter, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, or cheese. In particular these allowed me to eat more bread, and eating bread was important because....

-I have access to unlimited free bread, in a sense. I go 'Dumpster Diving" at a local bakery for bread and If I was lucky pastries. They close at 800pm so by 930 you can be sure no ones there. I just drive up and search through the dumpster, they always but all the extra loves (each in their own bag) into one bag so it is usually pretty easy once you find it, same with the pastries but there isn't always a bag of those. Sometimes are better than others but if I go once a week I always stay pretty flush, it helps a lot.

-I learned to cook a number of new things because I was forced to cook with what I could get on sale. I came up with some new recipes with the most successful being a roasted green chili bruschetta, which has been a big hit with myself and others.

-Speaking of others I had originally said I wouldn't take any food from anyone because I didn't think I would be able to reciprocate. This changed when I realized how much food I was still giving out. This was for two reasons, one most things I made were so cheap it felt good to share because I knew it wasn't costing much. Also I just like cooking for my friends and that didn't change just because things got tight.

-Clearly I could never, ever eat out. I learned two things about this. One; eating out very rarely is easy. I think when I stop doing this I will be eating out much less than before. Two; never eating out is kinda tough. For one it is inconvenient to never be able to just pick up some food. Sometimes your on campus and hungry and it would be really nice to just grab a slice of pizza because it's easy. Instead you have to go home or be hungry. Also having to turn people down everytime they invite you to get lunch or something is lame. Last although in general I didn't miss it I would get cravings that I really wanted to fill but couldn't. It is shitty to really want a chipotle burrito, know its only 6.50 but not be able to get it.

-One last thing I missed sometimes was sweets. I couldn't drink anything but water so any sugar I got would be from food. With my dollar/pound rule snack foods were quickly out, they are quite expensive. So to get some sweets I relied on a few things. The occasional pastries from the dumpster were the best. Also I would stop at Albertson's on my way home from school for sample cookies they always have out, they're pretty good. Last I could make deserts sometimes. Brownie mix was on sale for a dollar once and that was great. I also started making my own kettle corn which is dirt cheap and nice light treat.

-I think my diet is somewhere between as good and somewhat better than it was before. I'm eating less meat and cheese so I think my cholesterol must have gone down. My diet is pretty carb heavy but I think that's fine considering most days I get 2-4 hours of some kind of exercise so I need the energy. Probably the only place where I am really deficient is certain varieties of vegetables. Good salad greens are expensive and many other vegetables are too. Still I don't think it is so much worse than before and I get plenty of tomatoes, onions, and chilies so thats something.

-All and all the biggest difference with food was how much more thought I had to put into it. I had to plan what I was going to eat each day, and to a certain extent through the week. Portion out the more expensive items so I am not eating bland repetitive stuff for a whole week. I had to put a lot of thought into what I bought, where I bought it, when to eat it, where I was going to be, how hungry would I get, and other things. In a way food became a bigger part of my life.

-Not having much fun money kinda sucked but I managed well. In the end I spent it all one one beer at a happy hour, and the same movie twice. When I would go out I just wouldn't drink though I did find my friends all of the sudden dying to get me to. I tried to find fun free things to do. I spent more time at home and went to some free museums. This kinda of went hand it hand with other trends in my life anyway so it was fine. Still it would be nice to have a little more.

-As for incidentals that didn't end up really even being a challenge. I just didn't buy stuff. If I wanted something it wasn't like I thought about it for a while, figuring out how much I wanted it. It didn't really matter I just wasn't going to buy anything unless I had money left at the end. When I had to buy toiletries and such and little brand loyalty went out the window, I bought the cheapest stuff every time. In the end at the end of the month I had enough left over for a haircut and to buy the one thing I really wanted, a head lamp.

So I did it. I think I learned some stuff but I want to learn more and do better. I kind of like it anyway, in a sense it makes my life simpler. So I am starting again on Saturday, I am going to rethink my budget just a little taking 15 dollars off incidentals and adding it to food and fun. That will make 100 dollars for food, 30 for incidentals, and 20 for fun or 3.33, 1.00. and .66 a day respectively. I'm not sure if it will be easier or harder. Harder I think as I struggle with more things becoming monotonous as well as building on the previous frustrations. Wish me luck. Oh one last thing, I've totally lost sympathy for people on food stamps. 7 bucks a day, shit, I could eat like a king on 7 bucks a day.

Self deprication is okay.

If I were to list the new things in life that I tried to do of any significance and then figured out which ones I had accomplished and which ones I had failed I feel like it would not go well for me. Some of my innumerable failures have been different attempts to chronicle thoughts and events in my life. As vain and self absorbed as I am there are few things that give me more pleasure than hearing about myself, even if it has to come from a 'me' of say 6 months ago. To that end I have tried multiple times to keep a journal which has met with different levels of success but all inevitably ending the same way, with me stopping. So, I am taking a new direction with the online blog (redundant?). Perhaps the added appeal of getting other hypothetical people to hear about me will be enough to keep my otherwise insufficient willpower in the black.

For anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon these musings rest assured that it will not always be this irritatingly self deprecating. There are other times where it will be mind numbingly conceited and self serving. Such is the nature of my group (as apposed to 2 or 3 people) personality. The two extremes (self deprecation and egomaniacism) are meant to balance each other as I am curiously incapable of just being honest with what I think about myself when I am with groups of people or for that matter any person I don't know that well. That is certainly one of my biggest flaws, another is my frustrating use of run on sentences and unnecessary parenthesis (this would be an example), though for good measure lets mention my absent mindedness as well (I currently don't know where my cell phone is).

While I am listening my many flaws let us digress while I tell you about a realization of a somewhat depressing flaw of mine I came to terms with the other day. In my adult life I have had some success having good, healthy, platonic friendships with women. There are a number of women who I have become pretty good friends with without any more than a passing consideration to something more. I have also had some luck with staying friends with women that I had been romantic with in the past. I felt good about this as it is something that I think a lot of men my age aren't really capable of. However in the shower (feel free to imagine me naked for this next realization because I totally was) the other day I realized that all the women that I have ever really been friends with were attractive. Now I am not saying they were all knockouts, but ostensibly they have all been at least pretty and certainly on the right side of the bell curve of attractiveness for all women. Now you might think that I would be happy about this but quite the opposite. This seems like it can hardly be a coincidence which means that even if I wasn't looking for something beyond friendship with these woman I was certainly on some level concerned with more than just their personality. I guess it just made me a feel like I was much more superficial then I thought I was. I suppose it isn't the worst thing in the world and probably most people are as well, but it is still kind of an uncomfortable thought. I suppose I will have to lean on my many other admirable qualities to get me through this tough time. Like that fact that I can juggle, that's a good one.

Alas I have to wake up in less than 5 hours for physical therapy, so we'll call this a first post and hit the road. Good night and God Bless.