ZOMG, I'm BACK!

Maybe not forever, but I'm in the US (and have been since the start of the year, actually), in Charleston, and on a budget.

I make a lot more money than I used to. No, like, WHOA more money than I used to, but I'm still pretty broke. Partly because I don't make gobs of cash, just more than I used to. And partly because while I'm in Charleston I'm living downtown.

Which I'm tempted to start calling "overpriced hipster land". Srsly, places that were abandoned a year or two ago are split into three tiny three bedroom apartments (with the magical addition of electricity and a coat of paint...) and going for $2400 each. Or more. So people living in them are, every single month, paying about what their landlord spent for the whole freaking building.

Yay, profit?

Anyway, I'm in the US, and I have expenses that make my most expensive Mexico or Guatemala expenses look really not expensive at all. And people have been full of epic fail when it comes to feeding themselves on $29 a week...

So why not be back, right?

Zeee Plan

Turns out, with my income, even South Carolina would give me food stamps. The calculator says $170-190 a month, which sounds crazy. What on earth would I spend that much money on? Chips and sour cream every day?

Luckily I'm only planning to be in town for a couple months. Let's say until the end of June. Might be end of May, but I'm probably here for two months.

The time it would take to get the card and all that is.... more than I can be bothered investing, and I don't really have a lot of other expenses (housing, health insurance (yay!), Dr. co-pay, food, $20 a month to have someone else do my laundry...) so I'll just work with my own budget.

This month that looks like about what the seriously failed internet and media-types had. Not $29 for the whole month. Been there, done that, it's more fun in other countries. No, about $120 for the month. Maybe a teensy bit more.

I have $100 in the bank for food, and some stuff in the fridge. $10 of veggies and tofu and butter from the Veggie Bin, and $28.25 in stuff from Costco (used my sister's membership). Oh, and a $0.70 ataulfo mango from the store we do not name. Costco stuff is 2lbs of colby-jack, a monster pack of granola bars (choco chip) and a box of 18 Lara Bars (now greatly reduced in number). Oh, and about nine billion cheap tea packets. Um, and a small left-over bag of tortilla chips from a local taco place.

I might talk my sister into giving me a pound or two of rice from her Epic Costco Bag of Rice Doom, and I'll take a couple bucks out for it (and even give them to her, aren't I a great sister?).

I'm going to use the $100 in the bank for all my food and snax and soda for the month, and we'll see if I starve to death. I probably won't. I mean, that's more than $3 a day, right?

CRAZY HUGE BUDGET!

Party?

Back tomorrow with some shopping and some food. :P