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Tomorrow morning I leave for Rhode Island, where I will spend Memorial Day Weekend with my best friends. This has been weighing on me all month, because it seriously screws with the experiment. Dare I live on $2 a day while on vacation? No: one of my friends recently lost her job, and it feels chintzy enough to be mooching couch space. Okay, if I'm spending extra, how much? Most of my friends have said it's a vacation, I should just take a break, but that seems too easy. There has to be some sort of ceiling, and it can't be too arbitrary ... something within keeping of the experiment's spirit. Then I noticed my jar of loose change.
It's a Christmas tin of Hershey's Miniatures that I've had for a decade. I got it in a college care package from my mother, and (once the chocolate was devoured approximately five hours later) it has been home to my loose change ever since. My routine was to take it to the grocery store when it got about half full, or when the checking account was approaching zero, and cash it in for $20 or $40 -- a big metal ATM (albeit expensive, since most coin machines charge 5 percent or more, and like other rational human beings, I'm not about to spend an afternoon rolling a mound of dirty pocket change into fussy little paper wrappers). Last year, I stopped emptying it, since it really wasn't worth the hassle for the amount of money I got out, and once the habit fell away, I stopped thinking of it as a rainy day fund, and started thinking of it as a de facto trash can for my coins. I didn't even consider it to be money. I figured, okay, I can spend my leftover grocery money for the week ($20), any of my $2 allowances (currently $8 remaining), and whatever's in the jar. I figured it should be enough for me to buy bus tickets, a few beers, and maybe even dinner one night for my beleagured hosts. I went to Bay Federal, where once again I regretted not banking there because it turns out the change machine is free for credit union members (non-members are assessed a 5 percent fee, which is not bad as these things go). I opened the jar, which was suspiciously heavy, and noted that it was just about full. "Good," I thought, "maybe I'll even get $50 and be able to afford a muffin at the airport." Halfway through the process, the change counter broke, choking on the sheer volume of the deposit. A helpful employee came over and fixed the jam (turns out coin counters have a lot in common with office copy machines), and in went the rest of the loot. The final tally, to my jaw-dropping surprise, was $99. I gave the clerk one of my Jeffersons to make it an even $101. I never thought the sight of $20 bills would be so lovely. I have to keep my drool in my mouth, though: this money, like a government earmark, is only available to me outside the Pacific Time Zone. If I don't spend it all, it goes right back into the bank when I return. Theoretically, the idea of "couch change" to bridge the gap on an underfunded vacation was sound. Little did I know I had a dragon's horde of treasure sitting around at home. *** This week has been all about getting by with a little help from my friends. Not only have I been accepting more offers of lunch and dinner, a random e-mailer by the name of Hal Beacom from Florida let me know that razor blades will keep forever if ... you spray them with Pam after one use. "I used just one blade for 14 months and it was sharp as hell until the end." Not to mention that smooth, non-stick feeling your lady friend will enjoy. The Monterey County Weekly recently ran a cover story on pecunious living . Aside from suggesting that a change in presidents will somehow make life cheaper (for all GWB's faults, I wasn't aware that he woke up one morning and forgot to make the global economy continue to pretend the dollar is strong), there was an intriguing section on eating for a week on a dime . Sadly, the suggestions are all related to eating out, and following the advice would cost a total of $101.64. Hundred-dollar bills are the new dime, I guess. But then again, you never know when a few dimes will add up to $101....
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