An Observation

For Lent and as a personal experiment, I have choosen to eat lunch for no more than $1 on Fridays.  Technically speaking, I have choosen to spend no more than $1 on Fridays, but other than lunch, that is not a big deal.  Even at that it is not a huge personal sacrifice, but it is not really intended to be.  It is intended to make me think - and it has.

Doing some research for this post, I realized a number of people have done a much more extreme version of this exercise, typically eating for $1/day for a month or more.  And more importantly, there are far too many people in the world who don't do this as an experiment, but as thier reality.  Rachel Ray has a television show demonstrating how you can travel and dine on a mere $40 a day.

But that's not the point of this post.  I live in a moderately low cost-of-living city in the Midwestern United States.  I get paid a good salary by a good company.  I work downtown with easy access to multiple sources for lunch - chains of all levels, private owned restaurant, two cafeterias, and a up-scale farmers market.  Not exactly a seller's market in terms of dining options.

My company support the Mid-Ohio Food Bank through a program called Op Feed.  According to the records, we provided more than 1.2 million meals to the Food Bank in 2005 and provide about 1/3 of all volunteer and volunteer hours at the Food Bank.  According to the Operation Feed documentation, $1 provides about 2 meals. 

So today, I set off to find lunch for $1 or less.  For convienence sake, I checked the vending machine.  Not a first choice, but it's on the same floor as me.  I could get a bag of microwave popcorn for 80 cents or a package of peanut butter on cheese crackers for 55 cents.  Anything else was either further in the category of junk food or candy or cost more than a dollar.  I decided to pass on the vending machine today.

Next stop, the main cafeteria.  Surely I could get a package of carrots or maybe some hard-boiled eggs for less than a dollar?  No dice.  $1.09.  Same in the other cafeteria.  It's cold outside, and I don't have my coat with me (it's back at the desk), so I pass on exploring downtown for today.

I end up at the McDonalds in the building, looking for their fabled Dollar Menu.  It's not a "Dollar Menu And More", meaning you can't get much for a dollar these days.  I could fries or a drink, but water is free up on my floor, so I settle for a burger.  Technically speaking, I could get a cheeseburger for $1, but I could not recall if they were going to charge me tax, so I settled for the 95 cent hamburger.  Not the healthiest, but seems somehow better than vending machine food.

To add insult to injury, I realized once I got back to my desk that they did not charge tax, but that they shorted me my nickle.  As I look at the receipt, it was by design - I handed the clerk a dollar bill (which I had set aside for the day - I am carrying no other cash today) and she rang the cash tendered as 0.95.  I wonder if that is official policy.  I see at the top of my receipt "For any Comments or Questions Please Contact us at....".  I will have to think about that.

Now I realize that I could have carried a lunch today, made strictly on a budget of less than a dollar, but that wasn't the point for me.  The point was to see if I could feed myself ONE MEAL DOWNTOWN for ONE DOLLAR.  While I've eaten, I'm not certain I can wholey endorse my hamburger as a meal.

I started by stating that the exercise was to get me to think.  And it did.  I am thinking about the extra time it took to grab a quick bite on the budget.  I had to think about whether or not there was tax on what I was buying.  I am thinking about how the Food Bank can feed an individual for 50 cents a meal.  I am thinking about how I can typically spend $6 or more for lunch downtown.  And I am thinking the other $5 I didn't spend on MY LUNCH today might be better spent for food for someone who doesn't have a well-paying job for a good company.

I wonder what I will be thinking about next week.

Doc Blue