Inspired by SESP senior Nikolai Smith’s philosophy of eating only free food and putting the unspent money to better use, one writer decided to record her attempts to go for a week without money or a meal plan. Throughout the week, she explored what inequality and awareness means on our campus by attending events and talking to people a lot more knowledgeable than herself.
Monday
Only a few hours into the week, I’m already hungry, thirsty and skeptical of my decision to sign up for this in the first place. I usually head to Norris after my 9 a.m. class and grab a snack and bottle of water, but today I bypassed the Norbucks line and opted to hit up the drinking fountain instead, water bottle in hand.
I caught myself envying the students waiting to eat their muffins and scones and realized how much money I waste on things like bottled water. It’s easy enough to drop $1.50 on water here and there, but just one bottle a day adds up to $548 a year. How can I justify that? I don’t mean to criminalize buying bottled water, but I’ve realized how often I do it without really thinking about it. It’s something to ruminate on while my stomach growls.
It’s 5:30 p.m. and all I’ve had to eat is a sugar cookie from the box my roommate’s mom sent her for Valentine’s Day, so by this point I’m in a bad mood and feel a little sick. I sleep it off until 7 p.m., when I skip lecture to go to dinner and discussion with a panel of speakers focusing on poverty and inequality sponsored by the Northwestern Community Development Corps (NCDC). I’m overjoyed to find out the event is catered by Dave’s Italian Kitchen, and I pile my plate high with pasta, salad and bread. I feel extremely proud that I haven’t spent a cent but am still enjoying a legitimately delicious and filling meal.
The lecture focused on the inequality that is present even in our own affluent communities at Northwestern and in Evanston. One of the speakers, Hinman Chef Rafael Marquez, spoke about a fellow Northwestern employee who had four children but was homeless. Marquez had helped organize an effort amongst his co-workers to help her out by donating their honorariums to her cause.
“We’re going to take the initiative because actions speak louder than words,” he said. Marquez also spoke of the recent improvements since he started working at Northwestern. “Now that we have a union, I have a little bit of a better outlook,” he said. “Maybe my daughter could come here one day.”
I wish that the friends I had invited to go with me to this panel had not declined my promises of free food. Going without money for a week — a feat my friends seem to be astonished at — hardly seems like an accomplishment at all in comparison to working a job, raising four kids and not having a home.
Tuesday
Today my best friend told me she didn’t understand what I could possibly gain from this project. I struggled to articulate exactly what my goals were, and was suddenly unsure of what I was really aiming to get out of this. It was hard to tell if I was really gaining any insight, or if this was just a naïve gimmick. I felt very guilty for letting her buy the cookie we habitually share after our Tuesday class knowing that I wouldn’t return the favor on Thursday as usual.
I also did something I swore I wouldn’t — I spent 14 cents printing a paper in the library right before class. Especially after last night’s little revelation, I really wanted to be serious about not spending a cent all week, and I’m pretty embarrassed that I messed this up only two days in. The worst part is that I know places to print for free, but I didn’t leave enough time and opted to break the rules to avoid being late to class or taking a late grade. This really illustrated the limitations of this kind of stunt, because even if I hadn’t spent the 14 cents, I still know all along that I could, if I needed to. All I’m really doing is an exercise in willpower. It would be impossible to simulate the demoralizing awareness of having no other options or a backup plan. I’ve always been drawn to putting myself in others’ shoes, like fundraisers against homelessness that involve sleeping outside for a night to experience what homelessness is like. But the thing is, you can’t artificially create what it’s like to live the real thing.
I had another great meal I didn’t pay for, this time from Pomegranate at an event titled Islam & Judaism 101 that was sponsored by the student group Peace of Mind. Like last night, there was not a huge turn out, despite a very relevant subject matter and delicious free food. I am not sure why students don’t flock to events like these. They are advertised well enough, sent out over emails and flyered all over campus. Smith has a personal listserv he sends to more than 1,000 people that lists all the free events on campus. Just stopping to read the signs in Norris will yield numerous interesting events with catered receptions or dinners. They are easy to forget about, but it’s not hard to make the time to go to them, either.
Wednesday
This shouldn’t be a surprise at all, but I’ve eaten some horribly unhealthy foods so far this week. Normally I stick to sushi, salads and sandwiches, but so far most of my meals have been either sugar cookies or 69-cent Sbarro breadsticks I sucker my friends into buying. These greasy salty giants are perhaps the most filling thing you can buy for so little money, and they’ve kept me from starving this week — but it’s pretty clearly illustrated an alarming paradox in our society. If you are poor, you can’t eat very well. If you don’t eat well, you’re going to have health problems. But if you’re poor, you have limited access to health care. You don’t have to be an expert in nutrition or health care policy to figure this one out.
I’ve actually been eating such random food at such strange intervals that I’ve been feeling sick every day so far. I’m cranky and tired, and definitely too exhausted to even contemplate going to the gym. I had ambitious plans to talk to some of Evanston’s panhandlers today, but I passed out in exhaustion this afternoon. Hopefully tomorrow will be more fruitful (hopefully literally as well as metaphorically, since I haven’t had any fruit all week).
The high point of the day was going to Allison Munchies, which happened to be pancakes from Clarke’s. I was scolded for taking more than two but I didn’t care. I even went back for more to stash in my room for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Things are looking up already!
Thursday
I woke up for a fantastic breakfast of soggy pancakes leftover from last night, and then spent most of the day meeting with a few particularly involved students about awareness, activism and inequality on our campus.
Smith is in Guatemala for the quarter, so I spoke to some of his friends who, like him, were especially passionate and outspoken. I also spoke with Max Fletcher, a co-chair of NCDC. I guess I was looking for an answer to why nobody goes to all the cool events on campus and, perhaps too optimistically, a solution to the problem of apathy our campus is accused of all too often.
The answer, as you probably guess and I should have known, is that there isn’t one, at least not a definitive one. Fletcher, a SESP senior, believes that students can make a real difference when they volunteer at NCDC’s 25 sites across Evanston and Chicago. But not everyone agrees.
Loren Balhorn, a Weinberg senior, used to volunteer very often as a freshman. But since then, he has become disillusioned with volunteerism altogether, and views organizing politically as the only real way to bring about change. “The way students on this campus try to change the world is really embarrassing and naïve and intellectually dishonest,” Balhorn said.
“We sure as hell don’t have all the answers, or even most of the answers,” said Peter Luckow, a Weinberg junior and co-coordinator of the GlobeMed national office. But there is a genuine desire on our campus to get involved, to make a difference. It might not always be carried through with or executed the right way, but the initial seed is there.
Not spending money for a week is not going to change the world, obviously. But it’s made me a lot more conscious of how often I take the time to think critically about an issue I care about, and the different ways that students on campus have found to act on their desires to better the inequities of the world.
Friday
Today was my last day, and to be honest, I was a bit tired of the whole endeavor. It didn’t help that there was a dearth of free food events today. I ended up casually walking into a dining hall through the exit for lunch today. I’m not particularly proud of this, especially since it might be cheating, but it was really nice to eat a full meal. I also grabbed a bagel and cream cheese for dinner tonight (which would otherwise pose a challenge, as there’s not a lot of free food on a Friday night and my friends would probably want to go out to eat).
After classes, I took a trip to CVS with a friend and stopped by to chat with one of Evanston’s panhandlers, a man who goes by Aaron or “Heavy,” and one of his friends who introduced himself only as “Breeze.” They were very suspicious about anything resembling an interview, referencing the many times they’d been approached. Heavy said that someone offered him $5 to take his picture, and the next day, his face was blown up on the cover of the Daily. I thought of the audio recorder I had in my pocket, and decided not to even bring it up after they mentioned students who hid audio recorders and video cameras under their coats. I was pretty aware that although I walk by these guys multiple times a week, the first time I’d stopped to have a real conversation with them was for a journalism project.
I don’t know how truthful these two guys were — we’re often warned that the panhandlers we see are not the ones in need, that they aren’t truly homeless, but it’s hard to really say or know for sure either way. Regardless, going for a week without money doesn’t seem like much compared to hoping, each day, that you’ll collect $40 from an apathetic crowd’s spare change, just enough to get a room to spend a night. I think that taking the time to talk to the people it’s more comfortable to avoid is perhaps at the heart of being aware, and the first step to changing the inequalities in our community.
My next main concern was how to get through a Friday night without spending any money. I had to skip a trip to visit a thrift shop I’d been planning with a few friends because I couldn’t pay for the El or buy anything, not even at a thrift shop. I was a little irritated that I had to miss out on this just because I couldn’t spend money.
Going out was pretty much out of the question, since I couldn’t spend money on cabs or drinks, so I ended up staying in with a bunch of friends in Bobb. This was fine by me, but tonight really drove home how money is a limiting factor socially.
Saturday
This morning I woke up early, walked to Einstein’s, and bought a steaming hot bagel with cream cheese. It wasn’t fancy or expensive, but the ability to buy what I wanted, when I wanted and not have to depend on someone else to provide it—that was fantastic. It flooded me with this great warm feeling of power and independence, and it wasn’t hard to imagine what the opposite feeling must be like: to be depend on handouts; to not know when you’ll eat next or where you’ll sleep tonight, or to face the constant insecurity of living paycheck to paycheck, which is not such a rare reality.
Though inequality exists right here on our very on campus, most of us are in a comfortable position to ignore it and not feel any worse for doing so. But the general thoughtlessness with which we stand in line at Norbucks and serve ourselves food prepared by a homeless employee and walk by people who sleep outdoors at night — that’s a problem.
Fortunately, there’s an enormous wealth of opportunity on our campus to get involved in almost any issue that inspires you. You can volunteer at a local school or help a village in Africa or participate in a political rally. Maybe more importantly, we’re living with future leaders who are full of ideas and opinions and who are organizing these very opportunities, and we have a lot to gain just by talking to each other.
Trying to live entirely without money, especially if you’re required to be on a university meal plan, is not terribly realistic or productive. I ended up relying on friends to spot me for a 99-cent crêpe or a bread stick occasionally, which was not exactly the point of the project. But there are so many opportunities on a college campus like ours to not only widen our horizons, but to eat a delicious, filling, and free meal while doing so that not taking advantage of them is hard to justify.
It may be impossible to recreate the experience of poverty, even by doing something “extreme” and going entirely without money. But the ways in which we can better understand inequality abound, and by being just a bit more mindful — of what we are consuming and what we’re paying attention to — we can make a big difference.