The past few days have posed me with my first conflict: the reweave retreat. This retreat is meant to be a time where we can kick off the school year and all be together as a team before we send Rae off to co-op (for reweave in Bali) and Gabrielle to live in French Polynesia. Originally it was meant to be at my house but transportation issues occurred and our retreat ended up along the route of a commuter rail. This led me with two options: spend more than $5 a day for the commuter rail OR don't go on the retreat.
After the team and I racked our brains to find a solution we found a few more options:
- Take out a microcredit loan from a team member and pay it off throughout the month
- Do odd jobs around my house to work for the round trip ticket
Both of these solutions are comparable to what someone living off of $5 a day would do. The problem with #1 is that I would be going in to debt with a friend and that breaks one of my three rules (see first post). So, for the past two days I have been working around my house to pay for the ticket - this includes things such as washing the dogs and mowing the lawn.
With this solution I am neither paying more than $5 a day nor am I going into debt - thus diffusing my first dilemma during experiment.
Tell me your thoughts on this solution in the comments! Is there another route I could have taken?
Tell me your thoughts on this solution in the comments! Is there another route I could have taken?
Just playing devil's advocate here, but aren't you simulating living off $5 a day because $5 is all some people make in a day? Thus, technically, you shouldn't be allowed to do additional work to make additional money because that's not a realistic possibility for the lifestyle your simulating.
ReplyDeleteHey Rich, I see your point!
ReplyDeleteOne of the main reasons I picked $5 is because people living on food stamps are only allotted $5 a day for food. I took it one step further and am trying to see how far my $5 can take me while including day to day expenses (rent is not included because then it would have negatively effected my roommates).
Had I chosen to completely simulate the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) then the money needed for the train ticket would not have been affected by $5. Since I choose to include expenses in the experiment, I decided that working for the money would be comparable to how someone on food stamps would cover an expense.
Let me know if this explanation makes sense! Devils advocate is always welcome :)
Makes complete sense, thanks for clearing that up!
ReplyDelete