Salient Weekly Challenge: Everything Costs Money

Within the span of a week, I’ll be trying to accomplish a long-term task just to see if it’s possible, and to see what I can get out of it. Life lessons, skills, resilience training? The stimulation alone should be enough motivation.

When I was in high school, I badly wanted a Nintendo Switch. The retail price was about $550, and what I discovered motivated me to save was equating everything to the value of a Switch:

If you save your birthday money, that’ll be a quarter of a Switch.

If you buy a new lego set, that’s the cost of 1/5th of a Switch.

If you don’t eat lunch from the canteen for fifty five days, that’s enough for a Switch.

Nowadays, I don’t have the luxury of saving up for a game system—I have anxiety over swimming in this recession and drowning in a cost-of-living crisis. For my weekly challenge, I wanted to see how little I could spend in a week. I’d be trying to pay as little as possible on food, travel, and general spending—aiming for no more than $50 for the whole week.

I started the week with little to no plan—spend less? Easy! I’ll just simply not buy things. Done! I didn’t realize too far ahead that food would be the biggest offender, and I had a very busy week coming up work wise. I didn’t have much time to cook or clean around my schedule, and realized my error later. I went through my Monday normally, skipping breakfast & lunch to save money and thought about going to the supermarket that afternoon. After midday I got hungry, and decided to go bother Phoebe for a little in the Hunter Lounge for a free bacon butty.

This single choice would alter my week for the worst.

Mexico vs England was playing in the world cup. I gave in to Phoebe’s peer pressure with little resilience, and bought three pints to share and to pay her back for previous rounds. In a tipsy afternoon state, I decided to go back to Phoebe’s that evening to watch the new karaoke episode of Love Island (it was shit). Even though I managed to snag a free pasta dinner and had a great day, I had eliminated pivotal grocery & meal prep time, and had already spent $42.00 on beer and a Flamingo scooter back from Karori.

Waking up Tuesday, I immediately bought a $7.90 rice ball from Maki Mono, forgetting the challenge. “Okay, no more spending,” I told myself. That’s when I received a horrific text from my friend:

I had forgotten that I had agreed to buy a ticket the other week for my friend’s closing night show at Circa theatre. I went to the website and my stomach dropped as I realized it was $68. I was two days into a challenge where I was minimizing spending, and spent my usual average.

On Wednesday I went grocery shopping, as I could have done on Monday had I not made the choice to watch the footy. As I grumbled my way through Woolies, I considered bringing back a technique that got me through second year: stealing from supermarkets.

Alas, I do not condone stealing from supermarkets… even though they heavily upsell and cross-sell to maximize profit. I also don’t condone wearing cargos with many deep pockets so employees can’t distinguish if a block of cheese is hidden in your pants. And I most certainly do not condone taking a very big order into the self-checkout, purposely making mistakes and spilling things, looking like you’re on the verge of tears, and putting on a show trying not to disrupt the scales as you can slip essentials into the “checked out” area. It certainly won’t lower your usual shop to $78.67.

By Thursday, I had to catch a train ride to the Waiararapa for an appointment that I couldn’t reschedule, meaning I had to buy a red Snapper card for $10. Metlink train attendants don’t have the same leniency for adults using a green Snapper that Welly bus drivers do, however I linked my Community Service card with the red snapper, meaning I halved the trip from $37 to $18.50! The downside was that I didn’t pack a snack for the trip, so on the way to my appointment I was starving. I stopped for lunch, and foolishly didn’t read the prices too carefully—I got scabbed for a bagel and coffee at $20.40.

Coming back from my train trip, I had a film shoot I needed to haul equipment to, so the trip there was $12.25. For props, I had also bought a box of 12 beers from nearby Foursquare, which meant it was a very expenny $26.09. I thought this was a smart call, as I had a friend’s 21st the next day and could simply re-use some of them for, y'know, 21st drinking. This didn’t come to fruition, as when I put the bottles in my bag to go to the party, they clinked against one another and undid. On the way there, I looked in my bag to find they’d exploded, so I arrived at the party with a wet satchel and a bummer mood, exhausted from travelling around in damp pants. I only stayed a little while, not even having the energy to bum a couple drinks.

Friday, I was not up for anything. I had made plans to go to the Smash Room the next day with friends, but I was so far in the red all I could think about was how much it would set me back. Luckily, everyone else pulled out, so we all jumped ship on the idea of hanging out. I ended up staying home all day, working from home and eating 2 minute noodles. I played Mario Kart later that night without any energy to cook, and thought it strange that I’m somehow the same person who managed to save up for a Switch

On Saturday, I gave up. The only thing left to do was to see my friends’ show at Circa, which looking back wasn’t a regret. The Tīwhas Present: Māreikura was an absolute slay of a drag show that honored wāhine, and was a great way to end the week… only downside was that there was a shared supper afterwards that my Big-Back didn’t manage to get to.

Conclusion:

I need to plan my week better, especially when it comes to meal prepping. I spent a lot more than I usually do, $351.64 excluding rent (HOLY FUCK, WILL). 16.39 percent of the week was spent on travel related costs like DiDi’s, train trips, and a generous handful of electric scooter rides. 31.28 percent was spent on the theatre ticket & jugs at the Hunter Lounge, and a whopping 52.31 percent was on food. D’you know how much of that was on lunches and dinners? $105.29! All the Night n’ Day pies and takeaway meals add up, and if I’m learning anything about myself it's that I need to put a blanket ban on eating bites from food stalls & shops—there’s lots of takeaway purchases I didn’t add to this piece, because it’s a bit unappealing.

If I could do anything differently, I’d look at free food options that the campus offers, such as coffee & tea in the Bubble, or the VUWSA pantry’s grocery options. I might adopt them in the coming weeks, because I have a ways to go to make up for this week’s failure. And if Phoebe asks if I want to get a pint, I’ll have to reconsider… the Switch 2 is on sale soon.