"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
$2 Per Day
Exhibit A has a lot of great points, but the one that struck me most was the challenge to live on $2 per day.
As an American, this is nearly impossible.
For everyone in the EVOKE network, I've broken out some of the numbers in a simple way. You can find my spreadsheet here with my calculations.
Assumptions:
In the food section, I assumed that we wanted to eat 3 meals a day, and have the meals add up to over 1000 calories. I picked the cheapest foods that I know of that are readily available in most American grocery stores: oatmeal for breakfast, Ramen noodles for lunch, and lentils and rice for dinner.
All said and done, we could survive on just $1.25 per day. Take a look at the calories, though: only 1120- most grown men would barely survive on this low calorie count. While I'm not a nutritionist, I can tell you that this very limited and mainly carbohydrate-based food plan is not a great idea for your health, either.
Now, we have $.75 left for--- everything else!?
More Assumptions:
I assumed the cost of a monthly phone bill was $50/month, the cost of rent was $500/month (which any New Yorker will tell you is really inexpensive), the cost of internet was $30 (how else are we EVOKEing, after all?), and the cost of transportation was a mere $81/month (the price of a NYC monthly subway card). And these are just things that we generally consider to be necessities in the United States.
After all this the cost of living jumps from $1.25/day to.... $23.28. In fact, each one of our line items alone would push us over the $2/day limit.
So, all this in mind, we have to take a very hard look at what we have- be grateful, and share. $2/day is almost nothing to an American, but it makes all the difference in the world elsewhere.
As an American, this is nearly impossible.
For everyone in the EVOKE network, I've broken out some of the numbers in a simple way. You can find my spreadsheet here with my calculations.
Assumptions:
In the food section, I assumed that we wanted to eat 3 meals a day, and have the meals add up to over 1000 calories. I picked the cheapest foods that I know of that are readily available in most American grocery stores: oatmeal for breakfast, Ramen noodles for lunch, and lentils and rice for dinner.
All said and done, we could survive on just $1.25 per day. Take a look at the calories, though: only 1120- most grown men would barely survive on this low calorie count. While I'm not a nutritionist, I can tell you that this very limited and mainly carbohydrate-based food plan is not a great idea for your health, either.
Now, we have $.75 left for--- everything else!?
More Assumptions:
I assumed the cost of a monthly phone bill was $50/month, the cost of rent was $500/month (which any New Yorker will tell you is really inexpensive), the cost of internet was $30 (how else are we EVOKEing, after all?), and the cost of transportation was a mere $81/month (the price of a NYC monthly subway card). And these are just things that we generally consider to be necessities in the United States.
After all this the cost of living jumps from $1.25/day to.... $23.28. In fact, each one of our line items alone would push us over the $2/day limit.
So, all this in mind, we have to take a very hard look at what we have- be grateful, and share. $2/day is almost nothing to an American, but it makes all the difference in the world elsewhere.
Views: 33
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Comment by Jessica Suzette Santascoy on March 4, 2010 at 5:08pm
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It's almost impossible to live on $2.00/day in a big city in the U.S. One of my friends was impressed because I told her I often spend $0-$10.00 on daily outside expenses (tea, lunch). I think $10.00 a day is a lot to spend on outside food, etc. so I bring my lunch to work as often as possible. I'm also really into health, so I can eat healthier when I pack my own food. So spending less on eating out means better health to me.
If the idea is to keep total expenses for a day under $2.00, I don't see how it can be done.
my lunch & a p&j snack. i also make tea at the office to save $ and it tastes better.
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Comment by Caroline Himmelman on March 4, 2010 at 5:11pm
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I know what you mean. I try to spend less than $5/day on food items myself, and that can be challenging- as time is a commodity I don't have much of!
But I think you are right- trying to keep all expenses under $2/day would be impossible. Yesterday I went to the doctor, and the copay for the visit was $15. That'd be my wh*** budget for a week and half a day!
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yikes, sorry about the giant pic-i thought the system would standardize the size. if you know anyone knows of a way to edit comments, send me a message and i'll do it!
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Comment by THIAGO CARVALHO PELUCIO SILVA on March 4, 2010 at 8:00pm
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Jessica, really nice lunch!
We really must try living at a $2 a day rate!
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Comment by Fiacre on March 4, 2010 at 8:45pm
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Excellent analysis! Thanks for doing the work!
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Comment by Claire Moylan on March 16, 2010 at 8:02pm
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I love the way you broke it down for us and helped us to see how high our standard of living is compared to $2 per day.
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Comment by Rahul Dewanjee on March 17, 2010 at 6:00pm
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The online spreadsheet enabled us to collaborate on this topic and gave us a fresh insight how we can now improve upon the existing spreadsheet model (in microsoft excel) factoring in (1) theory of constraints and (2) purchasing power parity.
This action of yours deserve a +1 for enabling collaboration.
How will that shape up our preconceived notion of reality that begets a real insight into each one of us and how we see the destiny of our consumption pattens emerging in future?
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Comment
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