Managing Your Money : L.A. ON $20 A DAY : Roommates and Ramen; A Guide for Bohemians
You say you want to write the next “Grand Illusion?” You want to star in it? Or is a grand illusion merely what you’re suffering?
No matter. Whatever your brand of bohemianism, thrift can make it possible. Aspiring actors, screenwriters and conceptual artists are scraping by on next to nothing all over Los Angeles.
In these tight times, maybe there’s something they can teach the rest of us. Do you really need a Westside condo, a personal astrologer, a pair of new Reeboks? Are they worth 60 hours a week, not counting commuting?
Think of the freedom you’d have if you could get by on, say, $20 a day, or $600 a month. Finally you’d have time-- quality time, to write your novel, build a boat, grow tomatoes, read, sleep, even think.
All it takes is a little penny-pinching. Well, more than a little.
The first thing you need is to lower your overhead. The good news is that you’ll likely be spared the headaches of homeownership, because you’re not going to be handling any sort of a mortgage on $600 a month. Southern California’s real estate “slump” means that the average price of a single-family dwelling in the San Fernando Valley has plummeted from 1990’s inflated $297,300 to this year’s much more affordable $295,600.
But you have to live somewhere. Short of moving in with your parents (it’s worth a try) or sleeping on a friend’s sofa (you’re lucky if it’s even a futon), you’d better earmark $300 for rent.
Again, the silver lining: no more over-priced Italian chatchkas and $6 cups of cappuccino. Look instead for antiquated plumbing in Echo Park or perhaps a powder-blue faux-Cape Cod with a cement back yard and leaky doughboy pool in Reseda.
And say good-bye to loneliness! Because at $300, you’ll be sharing a home (and possibly a bathroom) with one, two or even three other free-thinkers--unemployed musicians, perhaps, or doctoral students in Slavic languages.
Remember how much fun college dorm life was? Here’s a chance to live it all over again. Drawbacks include dirty dishes, name tags on refrigerated items and life with somebody’s Village People records. Benefits are limited to bummed cigarettes, animated conversation about Joseph Campbell and a lentil-based pot au feu forever bubbling on the stove and spattering the walls.
To find a cheap place, visit your local college to peruse bulletin boards or housing listings. Some arrangements even include utilities.
Better still is the much-coveted apartment manager situation. Duties may involve as little as collecting rent checks and occasionally dragging a hose across a weary lawn. Remuneration ranges from $100 rent rebates to that bohemian bonanza: free apartment, phone and utilities with a $300 monthly stipend.
Like house-sitting, these jobs are as hard to find as a regular spot on a soap opera and are often a function of being in the right place at the right time. For the determined, however, there is the Carter School of Apartment Management in Tustin, which offers a six-week course on topics such as Dos and Don’ts of Apartment Management, Tenant Law and Light Bookkeeping.
The $2,950 tuition may seem scary, but the sheepskin apparently carries weight. John Carter says he places nearly all his graduates, and he won’t go less than a free apartment, utilities and phone plus $10 per unit.
Unfortunately, single men needn’t apply; couples and single women are much more in demand. “They’re better communicators,” Carter has found. “Men get the word manager after their names and tend to goof it up.”
Should you land an apartment manager job, you’re in fat city. Extra painting jobs--restful afternoons with a roller and KUSC-FM--may yield added cash for luxuries such as Kraft grated Parmesan cheese and pay-per-view movies. Even monthly payments on an ancient car and a health club membership ($18 a month) may be handled with not too violent a shudder.
Realistically, however, assume $300 toward shelter. Another $50 is for miscellaneous expenses such as utilities, phone, basic cable and your share of such niceties as soap (Tone), toilet paper (Coronet eight-pack), dish-washing liquid (Lady Lee), shampoo (Suave, large), paper towels (generic) and laundry detergent (Lemon Dash, 11-pound box).
This leaves $250, or about $8.33 a day, for clothing, transportation, food and entertainment.
Clothing is easy, especially for aspiring bohemians. Just wear black. Besides being slimming and timelessly arty, it doesn’t show dirt, which is important when you have no dry-cleaning budget. Everything matches everything else, and people will hardly remember if you wore the same thing last time they saw you.
More good news: If you must drive yourself to showbiz meetings, ancient Dodge Darts and other ‘70s muscle cars are in. Motorcycles are also acceptable for riding to film meetings, and they run cheap. (Of course, $600 a month won’t let you purchase anything over $50 outright, but these are suggestions for vehicles you could obtain with a $1,500 windfall.)
If you do own a car, try not to drive it too often. The cost of keeping an elderly vehicle--particularly a hip one--on the road is prohibitive.
Also, try to avoid the powerful temptation to drive without insurance; the authorities frown on this, even though a 1973 Volkswagen insured by a cheap company still runs about $58 a month. And that’s with a family discount.
That price assumes that you live in a reasonably high-risk area, but at $300-a-month rent, this is the only kind of neighborhood you can afford. Meanwhile, your food/gas/clothing/entertainment budget has dropped to $6.40 a day, and we’ve budgeted nothing for bounced checks.
Living on $600 a month now begins to seem less festive, and you may be overcome by the desire to do a couple of weeks of temporary work to take the edge off. That would throw quite a monkey wrench into the works.
The burdens of having to get to and from work--which might be as far as 25 miles--five days a week by car (gas: $20 a week) are by now obvious. Public transportation is often inconvenient and may still run $30 to $40 a month.
Worse, the more menial the clerical task, the stricter the emphasis on the talismanic subtleties of “business dress,” especially for women.
Not all $20-a-day problems are so complicated. Take medical care, for example. You can’t afford any. On your budget, you’re probably among perhaps 35 million Americans with no health insurance, so the answer is simple. Don’t get sick.
Nor should you trouble yourself about having a family. You can’t afford that either.
Food is another easy one. Buy it in one of the large, cheap supermarket chains, and don’t let them tempt you with the deli section, which is death for the depressed single person on a tight budget.
Forget eating out. At $6.40 a day, even El Pollo Loco is an indulgence; that’s almost five bucks for a meal right there. Combine that with a bargain matinee of the latest Jean-Claude Van Damme film and your allowance for the day is blown.
Even a trip to Carl’s Jr. is fraught with peril: a Bacon Western Cheeseburger, large soda and onion rings will run you about $5. (Try the underrated filet of fish sandwich at $1.60.)
No, think potatoes, rice, beans and tuna. Those packets of dried ramen noodles and broth can run as low as 19 cents each; two or three will easily dull the desire for food.
Dating is a dicey proposition. Dinner and a film is out of the question, even by yourself. Nor is it advisable to bring a date home, where your roommates are watching Saturday Night Live in their underwear. (And what’s for dinner? Ramen noodles with American cheese.)
If your date drives, however, you can probably swing a picnic with perhaps two of the cheaper cheeses, a baguette and a bargain Zinfandel (total: around $8) from Trader Joe’s.
In addition, with a little diligence, free art openings with food can be found. Affecting a British accent when calling around might help you get on mailing lists.
Finally, consider finding a mentor. Experts in this sort of living abound; take David Reed, a political activist in his early 30s with a master’s degree in music from USC.
“Los Angeles on $20 a day?” Reed scoffs. “Why? You can do it on 15!”
