Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems

Yeah, so I'm still using song titles as blog titles. Don't like it? Eat a donkey. Or better yet, eat food. I read recently that 12% of Americans claimed they went hungry last year. I know some people are poor, but going hungry is ridiculous. Obviously some people can't help their situation, but many can. Food and shelter are necessities, so if you are poor, you make sure those needs are met first. Don't even think about getting those tacky, hideous, yet somehow expensive shoes with matching purse until you can eat.

Do you see those kids to the left? Right there are three generations of poor kids, or maybe they're siblings. The point is, they look pretty hungry. You know why? You're probably thinking that they have low rent because they live on actual dirt, and their clothes look like your ugly friend's prom dress. So what do they spend their money on? That's the thing. They don't have money. The entire village probably gets about a dollar a week to feed the people. Depressing shit, huh? Of course, a dollar could buy a lot more in the village than in the U.S., but the point is that you don't see them in fancy pants. A one piece cloth thing will do.

With the price of food today, anyone can eat decently for $5-$10 a day. That would be $300 a month total. In most areas, people can have their own room for $600 a month. Hold on, you say, what am I basing this on? Well, while in college I was able to easily live on roughly $10 a day for food, and my rent was about $550 a month the past two years after including utilities. Let's throw in another $100 for "other" such as clothes, electronics, and exotic animals. I didn't live a crappy life. Actually, it was better than now. For under $1000 a month, I had a decent 1 bedroom apartment (it had amazing heating and was in an excellent neighborhood), ate delicious food, and watched movies on my Epson Projector.

Unfortunately, people all over the U.S. do not understand how simple this can be. In some cases, parents wrap up their own babies to eat them because they are just so overwhelmed with expenses and hunger. Luckily for Jr, they were introduced to an economical burrito from Chipotle (see left). At just $7, it is enough food for a whole day, and you do not get arrested on cannibalism charges. For just $1000 a month (or a bit more if you need insurance), you can live a happy and fulfilled life. You don't need cable for $100 a month. I sure didn't. Cell phone for $40 a month? Kinda useful, but hardly needed. Share on someone else's plan if you can, and make sure you get a free phone. Yell. Send IMs. Go actually see someone and talk to them in front of their face. Just some suggestions.

Now, I call on all of you to go out and live a pretty good life for $1000 a month. If you work the standard 160 hours a month, that would come out to $6.25 an hour. Do what you love, and stop wasting so much money to make yourself feel better.

On one final note, if you have too much money and don't know what to do with it, go buy something from my shop. It's almost as good as food. Please consider it, for the starving kids (and myself).