Low Wage Living - Episode 7 - Tools

So far we've covered the house and food and we went with an unconventional bike option for the transportation. This brought our wiggle room back up to 160 but we still need to figure out our tools.  If this was a survival show we might get some options like tents (now there would be an unconventional housing solution), fishing gear (maybe a hobby to help that food bill), or axes. In modern society though we have ridiculously amazing phones.

So far the budget is a grand total of 800 bucks and we've committed 400 to housing, 160 to food and 0 to transportation our Wiggle Room is currently sitting at $160.

1. Shelter 30%  50% of our budget - $400

2. Food 20% - $160

3. Transportation 20% 0- $0

4. Phone 10% - $80

Now there are some cheap plans out there and we can get data and text for 20 bucks a month and basically bum internet off stores or the library, heck the town I live in has free hotspots on publicly owned buildings. Also there are deals for low wage earners that you might qualify for.

The reason that I'm leaving it at 80 though is this is not only a ridiculously awesome tool for finding a job, it also has the worlds knowledge at your finder tips. There is a reason encyclopedia sales fell so hard. Now depending on how things work out for year two I might opt for cheaper plans, cheaper phones etc for the first year I would opt for the more expensive plan.

This will be my entertainment, education, communication, research all wrapped up in one thing.

The other tool we will need is a Credit Card. While Credit Card's aren't in my mind as cools a phone they are a pretty nifty invention of modern finance. If you think about it Credit is your future effort for current goods. While most of the time we promise much more of our future effort than is wise for current goods this is an incredibly powerful tool. If we had to make everything ourselves it would take a lot of tools, a lot of time, and the results would be ... 'meh' to drought killed all the crops most of the time. Credit lets us jump start our Modern Survival, it just must be used sparingly so we don't get enslaved by it.