[Following on from last fortnight’s From the Archive Friday, its back to 2004, and we catch up with the family in India who were planning to live on an amount more similar to what their neighbours live on. Read on to hear how it went…]
You may recall that last month, in response to our 7 year-old’s dismay that we spend so much more than our poor neighbours, we experimented in living on US$100 for the month. And the result?
We finished the month with 15 rupees (30 cents) left over! Admittedly that meant staying put at home and eating from the existing food supplies for the last day! (And we did spend a bit on 1st March!) Here’s a rough breakdown of our expenditure.
Food $35
Rent $20
School fees $10
Transport $10
Giving $10
Miscellaneous $15
Total $100
We’re the first to admit that experimenting like this for one month is a very far cry from experiencing it month after month for your whole life as the poor do. Never the less, we feel like we’ve learnt some valuable things from it. Here are some thoughts: –
• Transport by any means other than walking, cycle or bus is simply out of the question! We did a lot of walking! But when walking and buses are your only option, even when you’re tired and grumpy and the kids are tired is a hassle! Even the new efficient clean, electric train system is too expensive because they charge for the kids. The buses take longer, are more crowded etc but they don’t charge for the kids.
• Hospitality often involves significant cost for the poor. Even to provide tea and biscuits for guests is often enough to blow the family budget for the day and means eating less that night after the guests go!
• It’s much harder to be generous when the budget is tight. I even found it harder to give a couple of rupees to beggars!
• Similarly I found myself becoming stingier. This would come out in things like haggling with the mandarin seller over whether he charged 2 or 2.5 rupes per mandarin (a difference of 1 cent)!
• The flip side of this is the extra frustration at others not paying their way. One Western friend travelled home with us and didn’t offer to pay us for her ticket. Aaaargh! Normally that wouldn’t worry me.
• It’s very hard NOT to think about money and expenses much of the time and therefore to be obedient to Jesus exhortation to “not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink” (Mt 6:25) That’s easier for the rich!
• The extreme vulnerability of the poor. Thankfully we didn’t have anyone fall sick during the month (and if we did have to go to a doctor or hospital we would’ve forgotten about our experiment!) But for the poor, someone falling sick is enough to blow the budget and as a consequence for the family not be able to pay the rent! Consequently the temptation is to go to quack doctors, who may do a quick fix of symptoms but don’t treat the actual problem.
• When the budget is tight we tend to buy things that are smaller volume and lesser quality. Ironically, this may well mean the poor actually spend more in the longer term!
• The necessity to put off bigger purchases (of new shoes for the boys for example) till later (whenever that might be). Even some ‘small’ expenses are simply too great – such as a new tennis ball when we hit the old one over the fence during cricket and lost it.
• Our diet became significantly more boring through the month as interesting foods were simply too expensive. I can’t imagine what it’s like eating rice every single day!
• Any loss is felt more acutely. One day I dropped some food in the street. It was painful to have to throw it away! The relative cost of losses like that also explains the high incidence of infighting within the family as some explode over the carelessness (or bad luck) of others.
• The need to humble ourselves to ask for reimbursement and repayment when normally we might just let such things go.
• When there is a little extra income it’s a major decision to decide how it will be spent. In that way a low budget simply takes more time!
So all in all it was a very worthwhile experience and we would recommend it to you (if your family is getting on well at the time). But it was also a tough month and we’re all pretty glad it’s over!
[Martin and Kate Donwey (names changed for security reasons) are Servants team leaders and live with their two young sons in a major slum in an Indian mega city]
