For the past few days I have attempted to “get by” with a low paying job. I’ve realized that you really have to save every penny you get to survive in poverty. This experience was like Barbara Ehrenreichs from Nickel and Dimed. In this book she purposely went to go live in poverty to see if the people who lived in it could survive. Also, from the essays “What is Poverty” by Jo Goodwin Parker, “Elvira’s Story” by Flora Mancuso, and “Working, but still poor” by the Week Stafi, many different of examples were exemplified throughout.
The job I worked at was at Costco, which paid about $11.50 per hour so I had enough money to make ends meet. If I had to give up things I would give up a few of the small and unnecessary things like Netflix and I wouldn’t buy as much clothes. Yes I was able to save some money. I wouldn’t have had a car so I wouldn’t need the extra money for car repairs but I would spend it on things like food and wifi. I would also try to save some for the future to hopefully buy a car. The conclusions that I drew from this experience are that surviving on a small amount of money is really hard. I really had to save every penny I got to make sure I had money to pay for everything. The generalization that I made was that people who live in poverty really work hard but don’t get recognition for it.
My brief second hand experience did compare to Ehrenreichs. Working in poverty as an adult is very difficult. Enrenriechs experience was more intense than mines. It was very hard for her to find a job and etc. She had to change her living styles. She went from living in a nice home to a trailer and someone else’s apartment which is a big transition. The people that she wrote about in the story had survived barely like the people in the stories. Of course, my experience wasn’t as intense as Enrenreichs and the people she wrote about because she actually went to go live out in the real world as someone who barely made enough money to survive.
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In the stories that I read, each person barely survived off the money they made. The people in the essays had a much harder living experience than what I went through. In “What is Poverty” by Jo Goodwin Parker, the narrator goes into depth about what poverty truly is and she exemplifies what it truly means to live in poverty. In “Elvira’s Story” by Flora Mancuso Edwards, Elvira is used as an example to show what it is like to live in poverty with barely any money. In “Working, but still poor”, by the Week Staff, questions are answered about how it is to live in poverty today with examples of where they live, how much money they make, and etc. After I get my diploma, I want to go to a four year college. Yeah the research has affected my plans because I don’t want to end up like how I did and it will push me to try harder.
My experience cannot compare to Ehrenreichs or the people in the essays. Yes it was difficult to live on such a small amount of money but I was still able to survive with money even left over. I learned that as an adult you really have to watch how much you spend on things to make sure that you aren’t spending too much. I now understand what it truly means to live in poverty.
