Twelve Months Project @12monthsproject-blog - Tumblr Blog

Eat What You Can

For the second time this week I have eaten Chipotle, which is ironic because despite every person in my office being a Chipotle-obsessive, I'd mostly ignored it.

However, my desires have changed these past weeks of Living Wage Experiment due to the fact that I currently possess a handful of free Chipotle food vouchers after a recent event we did. When coupled with free promotional ZICO coconut waters I've been drinking and some office almonds and pretzels, i'm managing to get through my work days with minimal spend on hunger-satiating if not boring and overly salty free food.

#chipotle freefood famefame

Income Inequality is the Challenge of Our Times

A few says ago I came across a Huffpost article on TED and a line got my attention: Chris Anderson quoted a post-it note left on the Inequality Challenge board that read [inequality is] "the greatest challenge of our times". Whether we agree or not with that statement, it's undeniable that it is a problem that we, as a society, have the responsibility to fix. Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes reports and stats on how much the typical American spends. But, as the Atlantic points out, "in a country with growing income inequality, the typical American leaves out a lot of Americans." According to the Bureau's numbers, housing marks the biggest divider: in 2012, 90% of the richer America (the top quintile) owns a house, whereas low income workers rent and spend an average of $8.8k/y. Which is 132% more than what they did in 1984, according to the Labour Bureau surveys. But how much has minimum wage grown in the same time span? In 1894 it was $3.6 an hour compared to 7.25/h in 2013: only a 101% increase. Homelessness too has grown from 350,000 to 1,7M (400%). If the minimum wage had increased proportionally to inflation it would now stand at $10.74 per hour.

In a city like NYC spending less than $9K a year (which is more than half of the yearly income for minimum wage workers!) on rent seems unlikely --you can't find anything decent and not very far away for that amount in the 5 boroughs. Do decency and dignity count?

When hundreds of thousands people in a city like this have a job and still have to live in a shelter, something's not working. When a system fails to provide the structure to for decent social adjustments, it means that something needs change.

Far from saying that raising the minimum wage would solve all that, but it still provides an additional $4k dollars a year. With 2 working adults, that could take many families out of the shelters.

I wonder if who's opposing this raise has ever really thought about how MANY things they'd have to give up, and how they'd talk to their kids about making a future for yourself. I hadn't myself, and this is why I'm now trying to understand.

After my 13th day I still do fine but I'm definitely a bit bored, going for walks definitely more (can't afford doing much more than that), eating a lot of junk food (thank god for street food and 1$ pizza), and giving up many of the little things that made my day every day.

My big question stands: when you are tired from working extra shifts, and your brain is busy thinking how to get to the end of the month (or the week) how do you "take yourself out of poverty?". It's not impossible, but it requires an incredible strength and determination. And possibly no kids. Not everyone can do it.

Education is part of it too. When all your time, energy and brain power are drained by your try to make make ends meet, it's exceedingly difficult to raise yourself up by the bootstraps as some suggest. When you're making 7.25 or $8 an hour, investing in higher education, and let alone saving enough money to start a business, is hard to think and almost impossible to do.

And still I read somewhere that "the minimum wage is an assault on freedom."

#livingonminimumwage #april #rent #growth #income inequality #week2

upworthy

The Reality of Who Actually Works For Minimum Wage Will Shock You

If you add up the totals in these charts, 75% of minimum wage earners are adults. Let that sink in for a minute. 70% have at least a high school degree, and some have had at least a year or two of college.

Take a look at the size of the big blue slice in the first pie chart — that represents adult women who are working for minimum wage, almost half of the total. This is why raising the minimum wage would make a huge difference for tons of families, especially those in which women are the primary breadwinners or single moms.

#livingonminimumwage #april

Learning To Save

I was reminded once again today how important this project is for me personally as I visited my accountant to prepare my taxes and discovered that I had improperly budgeted the amount I needed to pay the US government (don't worry Sam, you'll get your money).

You can guess that the idea of saving money has always been out of the question for me, but worse even is just a basic inability to keep my finances organized enough so as to avoid taking hits on miscalculations and moments of low liquidity.

Time to grow up, I suppose, and this project has been a nice kick in the pants.

It's been ten days and i've spent $131 over that time.

#nevergrowup #growupdude

Why Raising Minimum Wage Is Important

The debate over the potential consequences of a federal raise of the minimum wage has reach an intense level, and there’s been a tremendous amount of writing and talking around this topic. Below are a few things that's worth knowing.

What you need to know

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps) currently costs the American contributors $80Billion a year circa and provides food for 47 million people (14% of all households). An amount not longer sustainable, that the congress is planning to cut in the months ahead.

Minimum wage worker are NOT teenagers. Nearly 90% of them are over 20, and 53% of them work full time. Women are 56% of the total.

The arguments in favor

1. According to a new report released in March 2014 by the Center for American Progress, tying minimum wage to inflation and raising it to $10.10 an hour, might mean reducing federal spending on food stamp by $4.6 billion every year.

2. Wages would rise for 16.5 million workers.

3. 900,000 people would be moved out of poverty.

4. Several studies report that an increase to $10 or more would result in prices just a few cents higher than before.

The arguments against

The conservative wing insists that there are main perils if the government were to raise to $10.10:

1. it's a job killer: more money to some means less money for other. 500k jobs would be lost according to the CBO report released this February

2. it hurts mom and pops to the advantage of big chains and brands

3. costs will be passed along to consumers: companies like Walmart would offset labor costs by increasing consumer prices.

4. it would attract more skilled workers to lower-wage jobs longer

Facts

For the most part, economists have found that increases on the scale being considered in the U.S. -- from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 -- produces "little or no" job losses.

Washington State's increased minimum wage in '98 and that created new jobs.

In big cities it's really hard to afford anything but food.

Considerations

When you're making 7.25 or $8 an hour, investing in higher education, let alone saving enough money to start a business, is hard to think and almost impossible to do.

It is fair to say that $10 an hour salary is not really attractive for skilled workers and even if they temporarily accept a low pay they will eventually migrate to better paid positions, freeing jobs at lower levels.

If you make an additional $330 a month you'll probably spend it on small goods and food.

The 500k job loss figure indicated in the CBO report is merely the midpoint between 0 and 1M and most analysis and studies find that the overall adverse employment effects are small.

All considered, it seems that increasing the minimum salary for low-income workers would increase their quality of life with a minimal cost in terms of employment and inefficiency.

It would not redistribute wealth equally but it's a first step.

#livingonminimumwage #april #pros #cons #twelvemonthsproject

Week 1 is over and we've spent too much

After the first 7 days, we're starting to ease into this lifestyle. We've cut all the expenses we could, we've been out just once to get a beer with friends, I splurged on a brunch and Ben on playing basketball with friends, but overall we've spent long hours reading, watching YouTube video and chatting in the kitchen while eating a plate of pasta al pesto or pita&hummus. Not the most exciting week our lives but tolerable, if anything because we enjoy each other's company, which is the only thing we had, in a grey, chilly rainy week.

Without wanting to obsess over counting the dimes we played by ears knowing that we had an average budget of $11 a day but a total budget for the week of $87.

When we recapped all our expenses, added them to our spreadsheet we were full of hope. Not doing anything must have given the desired results. Our enthusiasm shattered like glass after a long fall: we had spent more than what we have. Just a couple of dollars more, but still more.

All our budget went into food and ONE beer. Nothing else. No entertainment, no personal care, no unnecessary stuff. No clothes, no trips, no movie. The question we asked ourselves before starting was: can you survive on minimum wage? And if so, what can yo afford doing? Far from having a definitive answer, our first week gave us a hint: rent, utilities and food east up all your income. If you want to afford more you might need credit or cut even more on food. Maybe eating once a day? Maybe eating more unhealthy processed food? Is going through the food stamps (if even possible) of food stamps the only option. We hope that is not the only way.

We'll need more time to answer those questions, but for the moment we know we need to adjust our spending to make ends meet.

#livingonminimumwage #april #spending #twelvemonthsproject #food #budgetlife

Can you give up decent coffee?

I have to admit, I have a thing for coffee.

It might be because I was born in a country where nothing starts or ends without a coffee. A place where coffee is the number-one excuse to meet up with friends, get out of school earlier, have people over, step out of the office. But coffee is also probably the second thing we smell after we are born, when we are brought to what will be our home. There family is waiting, making coffee.

It might be because Italy runs on espresso and I am a product of Italy.

It might be because I've never compromised on the quality of my coffee.

When I moved to NYC and both the "espresso kind" and my favorite brand weren't as easy to find, I switched for indie, carefully selected blends. A bit on the expensive side, but 100% worth it. Probably some would call me a coffee snob and Julie Thompson from Huffpost would not invite me at her dinner party.

But with a lower budget for grocery we decided to buy cheap coffee. Actually, the cheapest on the market. So we tried the $1.99 an oz Cafe Caribe blend, which smelled somewhat like cardboard and used ash tray. The first sip was like shoving down burnt dirt. As one reviews on Amazon says "It might best put to use in seasoning new Moka pots then fertilizing the rose bushes." Amen.

Today we went back to Key Foods and got the cheapest Lavazza coffee can for $4.99. Definitely a step up. But that means we'll have to do without something else.

Moral: the things you love are not priceless. Mastercard has it wrong.

#livingonminimumwage #april #day4 #coffee #badcoffee

Let's put this into perspective: EVERYTHING is expensive

Image courtesy of Freerangetalk

Let's put this into perspective. When you make minimum wage and you have more or less $10 a day to spend (after rent, metro card and utilities), anything you want to buy is expensive. Even milk.

Budgeting is never an easy task, but when you have to decide between milk, a tee you really like, and a beer with friends, choosing is a matter of priorities. Do I get what I need or do I do what like?

Is it better to eat (and possibly eat healthily), get something you really want or have fun? Common sense would say that satisfying your primary needs is the best choice. But we, humans, are moved by passions rather than instinct. That's what sets apart from the rest of the animal other species. We have passions and we are social animals. Those might be considered, in some ways, needs too.

The choice then comes down to what makes us the most happy. If you are a very responsible person you'll probably go for milk, if you are into... But the world ain't black and white world, ain't it? You might easily be a mix of all 3. So here we are again. The choice is though.

In my case, I decided to semi-unconsciously rush through the work-week like a race horse, drinking sugary coffees and eating hummus-based lunches, getting frequent pit stops at the cheapest fast foods around, to then be able to "splurge" on drinks with friends during the weekend. It means quasi-starving myself during the week, eating very unhealthy food, paired with an almost guaranteed weight gain.

On this last topic more later.

#livingonminimumwage #april #day4 #nyc #choices

Day 3: I spent my entire $11 budget for the day on 1 taco & nachos

You know it's not going to be a Friday night to remember when all you do is clean your apartment and eat tacos.

What we would have done on a regular low key weekend night is hang out at a bar in the burg, maybe get dinner at a South American restaurant and then stop by a dive bar for a shot or two. If we were up for some fun we'd go into the city, have dinner somewhere in the East Village and then head to a bar in the Lower East side to meet up with some friends for a drink.

Either options are something you can't afford doing on a $10 budget -- so we stayed in, watched American Hustle and got one taco & nachos each, for a total of $8.50. That's all I spent the entire day yesterday. Which means I saved $2.50 I can spend on beer today. #win

#livingonminimumwage #april #day3 #tacos #budget

Keepin' it real

Lasagna in a can is a real thing. And it's not cheap.

#livingonminimunwage #april #day3 #creepy pasta #keepingitreal

We have now found the worst non-instant drip coffee in America

And it goes by the name of Cafe Caribe.

In trying to reduce our expenses, we realized that spending $13 on a bag of Gimme Coffee would be out of the question and so while grocery shopping last night we decided to go cheap.

Years ago I remember drinking Cafe Bustelo's brick coffee (I think the most famously inexpensive coffee in NYC area) and thinking, "Well... it's not that bad. For the price." And then we saw right next to Bustelo ($3.99) was this 10 oz brick for only $1.99. "Why not?".

Wrong. I guess you get what you pay for: this coffee is horrible, even compared to the worst non-instant drip coffees i've ever consumed. And to be clear, though we usually drink expensive high-end coffee, I have lots of experience drinking Folgers, 8'oclock Bean and the aforementioned Bustelo. This is far worse than any of those--it doesn't even smell like coffee when you open the bag. Specifically, your drink tastes like coffee made from used coffee grinds. Would not recommend to any human being who derives enjoyment from drinking coffee.

#cafecaribe #badcoffee #livingonminimumwage

THINGS I WILL NOT DRINK REGARDLESS OF MY AVAILABLE A$$ETS.

#livingonminimumwage #weirdfood #lolgore #boston

Free Beer for All

This week begins our little attempt at controlling our spending to minimum wage earning levels, which leads me to do things like drink this Heineken Light beer, which I found in the trunk of a rental car last week and saved in anticipation of an evening I might want a beer I couldn't afford.

That evening turned out to be Wednesday. It wasn't that bad, honestly, and given that I hadn't eaten anything all day it really hit the spot.

Most importantly though, it was free and cost nothing against the grand total of $340 that I have to spend this month on food, entertainment, travel, household items or anything else I might want or need to bring into my life.

Finding the free is sort of an imperative when you have a daily spending budget of $11.60, and I've certainly explored that this week in partially subsisting off food items I found raiding the pantry at my office:

Clearly, as you can see, probably not living off the healthiest of diets so far. We did go grocery shopping last night, with the aim of trying to introduce some inexpensive but not entirely unhealthy nourishment, but I did also buy 9 packages of $0.33 ramen noodles, so yeah.

Which leads me to a personal sidebar of this experiment: while Giorgia wanted to undertake this project to think about money and politics, a large amount of my own curiosity in getting involved is just experimenting with the way $$$ influences diet generally, and with me specifically. I weighed a steady 180 pounds when we began and I'm curious where i'll be on April 30. I am already sure that I'm not going to spend the month subsisting off of white rice and vegetables, but I am sure that I will be eating less, and that what I eat will be less rich.

Lastly, the past few days have reminded me a lot of my Hyperliving project from many years ago and how much I enjoy--and miss--subjecting myself to odd challenges. So far, so good.

#freebeer #ramen #hyperliving #livingonminimumwage

Day 2 - After work drinks

You only realize how much hanging out with friends costs you, when you sit at a bar and suddenly everything is out of your league. As an Italian I'm into wine, but the cheapest glass was $10, that levitates to $12 if you include tax and tip. (Off-topic: if I'm making minimum wage am I still expected to tip who makes more than me?).

The only thing within my budget was a soda, but when you are out with friends after a long day of work what you really want is a drink of some kind. So I splurged and got a $6 beer, that plus tax and tip was actually $8. **Red flag** Now I'm over my budget. Staying too long without drinking wasn't fun, so after a while I went home.

#livingonminimumwage #april #day2

Day 1

Day 1 went pretty smoothly. To avoid temptations I worked from home and didn't leave the house at all. Probably not a feasible strategy going forward but good enough to get started.

The only things I had to give up are my Gimme Coffee large cup of black Fracktisvist and a muffin, that together would have costed me the entire daily food budget of $5.

No lunch (oh pizza slice I missed you!) and pasta alla carbonara for dinner. Yummi. And it only costed me around $2 to make!

#livingonminimumwage #april

How much do you need to only survive in NYC?

Minimum wage in NYC is $8. Assuming a 40 hours-per-week work year, with with 2 weeks unpaid holidays my monthly income is $1330 (yearly $16,000). Low income workers hardly ever get paid vacation time and often decide to not take time off at all, but for the purpose of this project we'll assume they do what any American does.

Based on a number of different stats, reports, online calculators, and experience, we estimated our fix monthly expenses to be $985. That includes rent, utilities, phone, TV and cable, transportation and pet food for our little Shiba friend, Skye, who is remarkably happy that we'll be home more. For all the rest -- food, household, entertainment, clothing, travels or other expenses -- we'll have a total of $348, of which $220 for food alone!

FIX COSTS

1. Rent, $700

Only applicable if you don't live alone, like the thrill of 90mins commute and your place looks like this:

This was actually $653 but it looks like it does include windows. Since our rent is way higher than $1400 we'll rent part of our place on Airbnb.

2. Utilities, $150

3. Internet & TV, $21

4. Transportation, $112

A multi-functional 30-days MTA card

5. Pet Food, $30

No more healthy $3-a-can pet food. He doesn't really care. He's happy we'll be home more.

#expenses #livingonminimumwage #april

Living on Minimum Wage

This project is about empathy and living with less. Starting today and for 2 months (yes, 60 DAYS!) Ben and I will live on the NY State minimum wage of $8 per hour (April) and the proposed new minimum wage of $10.10 (May). The reasons we're doing this are 2: 1. The arguments against the proposal to raise Federal minimum wage to $10.10 (currently it's $7.25): some say it would NOT help the economy but instead kill jobs, and that it hurts mom-and-pops. With this small experiment we just want to show how a raise of $2+ per hour can change people's quality of life while increase the spending on small goods and services. Besides HOW CAN ANYONE live in NYC on minimum wage? 2. We want to challenge ourselves: we think we could make a better use of the extra money we now spend (mainly eating out) every month, and we believe we'll appreciate more the simple things. We might also start cooking healthy Italian stuff. We'll be posting daily updates on what we spend, what we'd like to buy but can't here and on Instagram and Twitter. For all social media updates we'll use the hashtags:

#twelvemonthsproject #livingonminimumwage And if you feel like this is a challenge you want to take on, join us! The more the better! PS. Let us know if you know of any life-hacks that could make our day-to-day easier.

#livingonminimumwage #april #twelvemonthsproject

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Twelve Months Project