Budgeting with a purpose
Necessity is the mother
of austerity. When I moved to Philadelphia, I briefly worked in a used CD/DVD store, where my crack-addled boss found paying his employees to be just too much of a bother. In San Francisco, it took nearly five months to find work. In Chicago, over two months. All the best planning in the world is meaningless when your economic fate is in the hands of others. While I can’t always control my income, I can control my spending.
My budget for groceries and toiletries ranges from $150 to $200 a month, depending on the cost of living in the city. Once I’m established and working regularly, I budget to put aside $300 a month for the next move. After rent and bills, whatever I make is extra — to spend at my discretion. When it comes to discretionary purchases, I’d much rather buy concert tickets or an extra round of drinks than a stereo system or a brand new wardrobe. Life experiences never depreciate.
The fact remains, though, budgeting is only half the story. Even the most fiscally responsible person is going to fall off track unless he has a purpose, a goal worth saving toward.
Evolution of a project
Like Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Kerouac before me, I felt a little worldliness would go a long way to informing my fiction. Even two or three years into the project, the idea was little more than a writing prompt. A part of me figured something would distract me eventually and I’d settle somewhere.
Over the years, though, the project evolved. It stopped being about having a few wild stories to tell my future kids and became about the people I met, their lives, their aspirations and, unfortunately, their roadblocks.
A lot of people travel these days. There are countless blogs and Web sites devoted to the globe-trotting adventures of vagabonds and housewives alike. Most of these writers are either backpacking through countries in Europe and Asia or are stationary individuals who use their savings to take trips across the world. I admire all of these travelers and jealously read about their international tours.
What I do is different.
Living in a city for a year requires that I be more than a tourist, more than the passing ghost. It’s not enough to pay my bills; I become a citizen of the city and, with that, a part of people’s lives. And, in turn, they become a part of mine. I have been asked how I can possibly build relationships in such a short period. If I’ve learned anything doing this project, it’s just how much one can pack into a single year. And these relationships are vital because I would never have come this far without the liberal assistance of friends and family.
What originated as a, frankly, self-indulgent attempt to avoid adult entanglements has morphed into something complex and unwieldy. It’s equal parts sociology experiment, performance art, historical record and endurance test.
Capturing the zeitgeist
I have a year in Seattle ahead of me, and just like the previous six years, there is no guarantee that I will make ends meet. All I can count on is my unyielding determination to see this project all the way to its conclusion. It’s having a destination that’s bigger than any material wants or momentary pleasure that keeps me going.
I have never wanted to be an example of spiritual asceticism. This isn’t the “Kerouac Guide to Financial Security.” What I do isn’t a practical way to live, which is why I do it. Everyone reads “On the Road” as a teenager, then they graduate college, put on a suit and start thinking of their 20s as “the best years of my life.” That path didn’t work for me.
It was seriously bad luck for me to embark on this endeavor during the most financially unstable period in recent history, but we don’t choose the generation we live in. Like my literary heroes, I have the modest desire to help define mine. This is most definitely not the Jazz Age, and our generation seems more beaten than Beat, but we are writing our history all the same. I think we owe it to ourselves to be more compelling than a footnote in a chapter on financial collapse and political ineptitude. I’m trying to do my part.
There is an art to living.
This is my ill-advised life, one part Kerouac, one part Darwin, two parts whiskey and a splash of luck.
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