Rocking Your Way Through a Recession Pt. 2
Miss Truth Hurts is taking a mini break from the usual sex, relationship, and bitchy girl dilemmas that have been rolling in since this column started just a wee four months ago. In this month's posts, we're looking the recession beast in the eyes and saying, "Fuck you!"
In the first installment of this two part recession special, I offered tips on how to make Valentine's Day a cheap date, how to cut down expenses without downsizing your life, and how to not get fired. Additionally my buddy wiL Francis told bands how to tour on the cheap. In part two, we rock out (and work out) a champagne party on a beer budget. Next month, we'll resume to our regularly scheduled programming of love, lust, relationships, and life enigmas.
Q: I can't afford my gym membership anymore. What are some good options other than running around my neighborhood, which is not very safe?
-Working it out in Wisconsin
A: Cancel that gym membership, for sure! There are so many cheaper and more fun ways to work out than sweating next to some muscle-heads in a meat market. Use the great outdoors for your exercise: hike, use parks that have jungle gyms or stairs to run around on, go to donation-only yoga classes, and, my favorite, buy a small $50 mini trampoline and bounce your way to a tighter ass. You can pick up yoga and workout DVDs and small free weights for under $10 at Target as well.
Q: I can't afford to shop for new clothes, so how can I reinvent my wardrobe and keep up with the trends without buying new stuff?
-Style Starved in Seattle
A: You might not need to cut out shopping entirely. The 99 Cent stores have colored and black tights, which are very fashionable right now. You can make an old dress look fresh by wearing a cool pair of tights with them. Stores like Forever 21 and Target have great deals, especially their sales racks, as do yard sales and Good Will or Salvation Army stores.
But, if you really want to keep away from the stores, do a clothes swap party with your friends. This is how it works: whoever shows up to the party first, gets to choose first. So make a list of the order once everyone arrives. You hang up or spread out all of the clothes, shoes, accessories that people brought and if the first person brought five of her own garments, then she is allowed to choose five garments from the selection. If the second person only brought one item, then she is allowed to take only one item, and so on. It's a great way to recycle your old stuff and get new stuff for free!
You can also revamp your existing wardrobe by dying some clothes a different color with Rit Dye. I do it all the time. I take my dingy white tank tops and dye them the hot new hue of purple. I also took my dated boot-leg jeans and cut them into cute shorts, which, of course, are so en vogue.
Q: I have no extra money for entertainment these days. What are some cheap ways to have fun?
-Partying in Pasadena, Calif.
A: Have more parties at your apartment or house and make everyone bring something to eat or drink. You can do a girlie at-home spa day where everyone does each other's nails or if you need your hair dyed, you get a great bottle of L'Oreal's Feria color at the store (my fave brand) and have a "Dye and Drink" party. It saves big time on going to a salon for a mani/pedi or dye job, and it's fun. And, did you know that you can borrow movies for free from the library? Or check out, documentary-film.net, which has a ton of amazing -- and enlightening -- films for free. If you don't need to go that cheap, then invest in NetFlix. It's worth the admission.
But, my favorite cheap thrills are games. Screw Pictionary and Trivia Pursuit. Get saucy with it and play games like "What the F#*k," which asks naughty questions like, "Would you rather suck face with the person to the right of you or the person to the left of you?" Or rock it old school with games like Truth or Dare, 7 Minutes in Heaven, or 20 Questions. Wanna have fun out of the house? Some museums are free at certain times, such as LACMA in L.A., which has a Pay What You Wish (which can be gratis) program after 5 p.m.
Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna is Suicide Girls' sex, love, and life advice columnist. She is an entertainment journalist, rock wife, and author of Cherry Bomb: The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Better Flirt, a Tougher Chick, and a Hotter Girlfriend, and to Living Life Like a Rock Star and Eyewitness Nirvana: The Day-by-Day Chronicle.
Send your questions, dilemmas, and conundrums to misstruthhurts@suicidegirls.com. Alternatively, SG members can send a message via the site to MissTruthHurts.
Feeling Poorer? Paycheck Not Lasting as Long? You're Not Alone.
Why are people with annual salaries of $35,000 lining up at food banks? Why are more consumers cutting down on nutritious foods like milk and vegetables, and buying more of their "groceries" at 7-Eleven, rather than the supermarket? Why, when "overall" wage growth is a solid 4.1 percent over the past 12 months? According to economists, it's because that "overall" wage growth is mostly happening for "top earners," while people who make less than $30,000 a year (and in some places, more than that) are having a tough time keeping up with rising rent, food, and energy costs.
The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder. What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.
Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It's starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.
Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.
Grocery sales at 7-Eleven have surged between 12 and 13 percent in the last year, in response to steadily rising food costs, and the average family of four is spending about $40 more each month on grocery basics than they spent last year. They're also abandoning healthier foods for cheap, filling stuff like peanut butter, pasta, and hamburger meat.
Food costs have increased 4.5 percent over the past 12 months, partly because of higher fuel costs. Egg prices were 44 percent higher, while milk was up 21.3 percent over the past 12 months to nearly $4 a gallon, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Food banks are already finding themselves overrun by increased demand. One food pantry in Brooklyn has recorded an almost 70 percent increase from last year: 5,000 new families, on top of the previous 3,000.
"The reality of hunger is right here," said the Rev. Melony Samuels, director of The BedStuy Campaign against Hunger, a church-affiliated food pantry in Brooklyn.
"I am shocked to see such numbers," Samuels said, "and I am really concerned that this is just the beginning of what we are going to see."
If there's any silver lining around this ominous, dark cloud, it's that some of these food pantries are getting creative.
Samuels said her church, Full Gospel Tabernacle of Faith, just started offering free cooking classes to teach clients who are diabetic or have other health conditions how to prepare vegetables like squash. It's also offering free exercise classes.
"We are trying to make them health conscious," Samuels said. "It's not right to give them just anything. Our mantra is eat well and live well."
If you squint, you can almost kind of see it.