See America on Twenty Dollars a Week

(Like many headlines, the one above is misleading. It doesn't factor in expenses such as rent, utility bills, insurance premiums etc. ; and by "See America" I mean: "see my office, the inside of the bus , my apartment and various sidewalks")

Sunday night I withdrew twenty bucks from an ATM. This, I told myself, is all the money I can afford to spend this week. I really thought I could pull it off, but I failed. It was close.


My largest unavoidable expenditure was getting to and from work. A round-trip is $2.50, over five days that's $12.50, which only left $7.50 to live on for seven days. Transportation wiped out over half of my budget before my week even began.
It's important to note that I started with the following already in my larder:

-A half-dozen or so cans of food- tuna, beans, tomato sauce etc.

- 2 lbs dry rice

- an onion

- Fresh garlic and fresh cilantro

- Too much oatmeal

- Spices, spices and more spices

- Assorted condiments, some in jars, some in packets.

- A pound of coffee

- Cat food

I purchased a loaf of whole-grain bread- a luxury at $2- a half-gallon of grape juice ($2) and three pounds of bananas ($1) . That left $2.50.

With that, I bought a 20 lb bag of generic cat litter ($2) and a box of store-brand baking soda, ($.50). (I mix the baking soda into the litter-it greatly reduces the smell- and it's much, much cheaper than buying the 'deodorant' brands.)

That left me with zero cash for seven days. What to do?

First, I made rations, starting with my version of Fidel's Tsunami Salsa:

- 2 cans black beans, drained
- 2 cans corn, drained
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- a few cloves of garlic, chopped
- a 1/2 cup or so of cilantro, chopped
- a 1/4 jar of jalapeno slices and the last bit of a jar of pepper relish
- 1 diced onion
- some cumin

This yields approx. 4 lbs of tasty, healthy salsa that will keep for over a week in the fridge. Total cost is about three bucks, perhaps less.
I ate the last of it for dinner Thursday night, self-served with a side of curried rice, a piece of dry toast and followed with a dessert of oatmeal flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, honey and bananas.

This meal was nearly identical to my lunch and dinner of the previous three days, with the exception of a tuna sandwich for lunch on Tuesday and some grapes I mooched from a pal last night.

I'm not complaining- even in the abundance of cash, this is pretty much what I eat- it's not because I can't cook , it's just that I'm lazy and unless I'm sharing a meal with others I consider eating to be considerably less exciting than cooking. This apathetic approach to diet has caused me to go from 195 lbs to 145 lbs in under two years, as well as lowering my cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure from the 'critical' (Tri-G was 650!) range to the 'exceptional'
( TG now 110) range ; my doctor uses me as a model to hold up to his other patients who have high cholesterol etc...he recommends diet and exercise as alternatives to prescription drugs...in other words, he says a healthy lifestyle is better for you than magical pills.
What a quack, eh?

In any case, my cupboard is Hubbardesque and the catboxes need changing, but I made it for five days, which is pretty good, I think. Four dollars a day, $2.50 of which was busfare= $1.50 a day for food. Healthy food that tastes good @ fifty cents a meal. Easy.

This is how I plan on replenishing my savings, because today is the day I get my car out of the body shop, which means that my money will all be gone at 5 pm this evening.

I'll be too busy to spend money this weekend: tonight I'm guest- hosting our Friday funk show, Zendo Soundsystem; tomorrow I'm hosting our weekly 1980's show and engineering some band that I've never heard of; Sunday I have my morning show and after that I'm going to attempt to visit my grandmother again. I will be watching the woods for deer on this trip. Carefully.

I know my grannie is gonna ask me if I need any money.
I do.
I need twenty-five dollars. I bet that I can live for a week on twenty-five bucks...oh, and hey, could you throw in an extra hundred for gasoline?