Can you live on $9 an hour? Play this game.

[Free4Life11]

http://www.playspent.org

How much did you end the month with? It's overly simplified, but it's pretty interesting. I do have to say, I don't know how people in this situation do it!

 

[nunzia]

These things really ARE simplistic...OK..makes the point, but there are ways to make more than they state you will, there are living scenarios that can be made (room mates for one) other extras you will qualify for, (food stamps, commodities)..it CAN be done..I've done it..and the motivatin is to work hard, work well and move up.

 

[delmar411]

I've played this before and ended up with money leftover. I ended up with $185 at the end of the month this time.

The scenarios are unrealistic and the amounts off base but I guess it makes its point.

 

[*pixie*dust*]

Wow! Pretty scary. Every choice was a hard choice.

 

[scrapquitler]

http://www.playspent.org

How much did you end the month with? It's overly simplified, but it's pretty interesting. I do have to say, I don't know how people in this situation do it!

I ended the month with $242, an unpaid cell phone bill and a toothache. I think it was overly simplified, there were definitely in-between choices that I could have made if given the option, but it makes good points.

 

[tlbwriter]

Interesting. It would be easy to make it through the month if you were unrealistic about your groceries and things like that. And one of the scenarios (car wreck) bothered me because if you have insurance, you don't have to pay a deductible if you wreck someone else's car but choose not to fix your own, so being force to pay out of pocket or drive away was simply incorrect. But it would be a good tool to show people why it's hard to live on minimum wage.

 

[WDW Lover]

I actually ended up with $783 leftover... I paid min. on CC bill, no health ins. ended up skipping the dr. when I had chest pains (so I will probably be dead next week anyway), asked a friend to help for a lot of things, and skipped weddings and funerals... paid for my kid to be in the gifted program. I answered honestly on everything - BUT I grew up poor, in basically the same scenarios - you can learn to do without lots of things and have to say No a lot! I am happy that I am no longer in that sort of situation, but I definitely can sympathize with those that are!

 

[fromscratchmom]

I just did the challenge. It is not only oversimplified, but it is deceitful. It is not profound nor helpful to be dishonest or ideological about these things. What is a useful bit of information is that I have lived on less than this in the past without being on welfare and without being demonized or marginalized by bleeding heart liars and also without being oppressed or attacked by the great evils of our society that these type of people pretend are out their hating the poor. These people are not morally superior for the pretend caring nor for their absolutely flawed ideas of creating a utopia.

This was just out and out offensive and stupid. For example the grocery options that could be bought included baby carrots but not the bigger and cheaper bag of regular carrots and offered canned beans but not the more economical and healthier choice of dried beans. It included ramen noodles but no rice or brown rice (to name just three of about a thousand things wrong with it). And I can never approve nor condone these types of attacks meant to convince everyone that we are all morally evil if we are not out their helping to build these people's ideals of utopia.

I'm so thankful, no one used me during my own hard years to convince the world to take away all my freedoms and all my opportunities, nor that these people with their cruelty and ignorance were allowed to come into my life and create problems for me to make a point and convince me that I was a thousand times worse off than I actually was. Those years that I struggled were not horrible years, nor were they any reason for me to be looked at as a sad and pathetic case who needed to start smoking to release stress as was one of the awful and unintelligent messages on this political piece. In fact, they were years in which I grew and matured and learned a tremendous amount. I wouldn't trade them in for riches nor for an opportunity to rub shoulders with the elite that comes up with this stuff.

Give up my cloth diapers on the line years and agree that it is just awful that some people actually have hard times? I DONT THINK SO!

 

[thomas998]

http://www.playspent.org

How much did you end the month with? It's overly simplified, but it's pretty interesting. I do have to say, I don't know how people in this situation do it!

If you want to see interesting go to the following article... it shows that a person making minimum wage only 1 month per week can live as well as someone making $60,000/year.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/en...um-wage-has-more-disposable-income-family-mak

All through the magic of entitlements (welfare)... frankly it is hard to imagine any incentive for people on welfare to actually look for a real job when they make more without a job than they do with one.

 

[MaleficentRN]

If you only make $8/hr waiting tables, you aren't doing it right.

 

[fromscratchmom]

If you only make $8/hr waiting tables, you aren't doing it right.

haha. yeah, I'm working with my son right now to help him learn about waiting tables and how people do succeed doing it. He has social skills issues, but he wants to learn it. poor guy.

I chose that one on the thing and ended up with money left over, but yeah, when I did wait tables 8 dollars would have been a big red flag about my service or some other crazy problem.

 

[RitaE]

I quit at the point it told me that I couldn't find affordable housing within 20 miles of a waitressing job. If I'm going to waitress I'll do it at the bar or restaurant that I can walk to. Actually, I want that day job as an office worker and then I'll tend bar Thurs/Fri and Sat nights. If fact, I have. It sucked and I didn't like having to work that many hours so I placed an importance on gaining career skills that paid better. And if I'm going to pay $800 a month for an apartment, then I'll obviously have a roommate. Funny how there was no roommate option.

And if my landlord tries to illegally raise my rent, I'll pay what my lease says I owe and if he tries to evict me --- I'll call my friends from college to sue his butt.

I have no interest in demonizing people who need assistance. I'll happily contribute to agencies that serve the poor and needy. But I don't buy into the "It is hopeless and there is no way out" mantra either. For some, who are unable to work because of disabilities or outstanding circumstances - then fine. But for the rest of us, there are a zillion and 3 success stories of people who worked their way out of poverty in times much worse than what we live in now.

 

[MrsPete]

But I don't buy into the "It is hopeless and there is no way out" mantra either. For some, who are unable to work because of disabilities or outstanding circumstances - then fine. But for the rest of us, there are a zillion and 3 success stories of people who worked their way out of poverty in times much worse than what we live in now.

I agree. In the last two years I've read two books about middle-class, college-educated people going out to live a "minimum wage" lifestyle . . . and they had very different experiences:

The author of Nickle and Dimed started out with the idea that it would be impossible. She tried to live like a middle-class person suddenly thrown in to the lower class. She rented hotel rooms, maintained a car, ate fast food meals. She was doing all the things she knew from her middle class life, but she was doing them at the lowest possible cost. She ignored things that minimum-wage people do to make ends meet: Sharing housing, using social programs, working two jobs. She couldn't make ends meet and left the reader with a message that "it's hopeless".

On the other hand, the author of Scratch Beginnings had a different philosophy: He decided he'd do anything possible to get himself on his feet. He started in a homeless shelter, worked a regular job and took extra work on Sundays, went to a revival just to get a meal, bought cheap food at places like Family Dollar and treated himself to fast food once a week, and generally took advantage of every opportunity that came his way. In spite of the fact that he was badly injured at work, in less than a year, he had a place to live, a vehicle, and money in the bank.

 

[RitaE]

okay, so I went back and did the whole thing and there was actually a roommate option - but then he turned out to be noisy.

The grocery items were unworkable. No canned or frozen vegetable or ground meat?

It's funny that they bring up the Nickel and Dimed author but totally neglect to mention the book that refuted those claims by the guy who started homeless with $20 in his pocket and by the end of the experiment was living in an apartment with a good job and electronics.

 

[MrsPete]

It's funny that they bring up the Nickel and Dimed author but totally neglect to mention the book that refuted those claims by the guy who started homeless with $20 in his pocket and by the end of the experiment was living in an apartment with a good job and electronics.

That book is Scratch Beginnings by Adam _____. He took a train to a new city, where he knew no one. He took with him $25 and an empty gym bag.

 

[superme80]

Yeah I could grocery shop way cheaper than that. It was pretty frustrating. I did end up with money left over. My kid just didn't go out as much and I was their tutor.

 

[eliza61]

These things really ARE simplistic...OK..makes the point, but there are ways to make more than they state you will, there are living scenarios that can be made (room mates for one) other extras you will qualify for, (food stamps, commodities)..it CAN be done..I've done it..and the motivatin is to work hard, work well and move up.

God bless you. I ran out of money on day 23rd and it was a dismal existence up until that. My down fall was paying my car registration and a few items for my kids.

Horrible choices to make, I turned down helping my mother pay for her medicine and turned down every social engagement

I going to leave now because usually turn into the normal, "people on welfare are lazy and are don't need it because their going to disneyworld and eating steaks, while I have to live in a tiny 2 by 4" vent.

 

[RitaE]

I had to spend $200 on a Community College class. What, I'm making $9 an hour and I have a kid and you're telling me I don't qualify for a Pell Grant?

 

[HelenePA]

If you only make $8/hr waiting tables, you aren't doing it right.

Also my dh works in a wearhouse and makes way more than $8 an hour... I dont know of any of the 15-20 around me that start that low.. most start at about 15$

 

[leebee]

I just did the challenge. It is not only oversimplified, but it is deceitful. It is not profound nor helpful to be dishonest or ideological about these things. What is a useful bit of information is that I have lived on less than this in the past without being on welfare and without being demonized or marginalized by bleeding heart liars and also without being oppressed or attacked by the great evils of our society that these type of people pretend are out their hating the poor. These people are not morally superior for the pretend caring nor for their absolutely flawed ideas of creating a utopia.

This was just out and out offensive and stupid. For example the grocery options that could be bought included baby carrots but not the bigger and cheaper bag of regular carrots and offered canned beans but not the more economical and healthier choice of dried beans. It included ramen noodles but no rice or brown rice (to name just three of about a thousand things wrong with it). And I can never approve nor condone these types of attacks meant to convince everyone that we are all morally evil if we are not out their helping to build these people's ideals of utopia.

I'm so thankful, no one used me during my own hard years to convince the world to take away all my freedoms and all my opportunities, nor that these people with their cruelty and ignorance were allowed to come into my life and create problems for me to make a point and convince me that I was a thousand times worse off than I actually was. Those years that I struggled were not horrible years, nor were they any reason for me to be looked at as a sad and pathetic case who needed to start smoking to release stress as was one of the awful and unintelligent messages on this political piece. In fact, they were years in which I grew and matured and learned a tremendous amount. I wouldn't trade them in for riches nor for an opportunity to rub shoulders with the elite that comes up with this stuff.

Give up my cloth diapers on the line years and agree that it is just awful that some people actually have hard times? I DONT THINK SO!

WHOA! Where'd this come from? It's only a game... chill! (and speaking of a political piece...). And FWIW, not everyone has the same experience as you remember having...