Posted on 10/14/2011 11:11:51 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Say what you want about the assorted professionals, philosophers, bums, radicals, students and wage slaves comprising Occupy Wall Street, but they've managed to pull off the impossible. In the center of one of the world's most expensive cities, a place where the average tourist family of four spends roughly $3,500 per visit, they've accomplished something even the guidebooks wouldn't dare promise: New York living on less than $10 a day.
Lexi Ricciardelli, a protester from Central New Jersey, says she packed light for her first foray into protesting. She loaded her backpack with a notebook, makeup kit, pocket knife, bandana, change of clothes, four pairs of underwear and a tube of superglue ("in case my necklace breaks").
That's all she needed. In Zuccotti Park, fellow protesters provided blankets and extra socks, not to mention breakfast, lunch and dinner. Ms. Ricciardelli says she's never eaten so well. Back home, dinner was whatever was on sale at the supermarket: boxed mac 'n' cheese, canned beans, frozen vegetables. Now, she's feasting on vegetarian chili, roasted cauliflower and pasta primavera. Her only expense is coffee, and it's easy to cover the cost—she earns a few bucks a day charging tourists to take her photo...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Moochers!
makeup? Makeup? MAKEUP? That is one of the essentials she packed? Ha.
They are handing out free money! Anyone there that is against these people ought to not shave or shower for a few days, then go in there and take their funding away.
The last paragraph:
He's really living the high-life. Since arriving on the overnight Amtrak from Chicago a week ago, in contrast, student Mark Knowles says he's spent less than $20 on subway fare, pizza and a breakfast sandwich. Over the weekend, he met a Brooklyn man who paid him $75 for an afternoon of apartment painting. The Occupied lifestyle, says Mr. Knowles, is a lot cheaper than real life: "I might go home with more money than I had."
... and with the knowledge that if you do useful work for someone, you often get money in return.
I traveled to downtown DC to attend a street festivity called Taste of DC sponsored by many small and big name restaurants. There you could pay $15 to buy 10 tickets to be spent at any of the 60 kiosks. An egg roll was $3, a chicken shiskebob was $9. After several hours and a visit to the port-a-pottie row, I decided to check out the adjacent Freedom Plaza event sponsored by October 2011, one of 2 economic protest groups currently camped in DC. Feeling hungry again, I went to the food tent and had a very tasty bowl of brown rice with chile on one side and vegetable stew on the other. Not being a moocher I gave them $5, it was a much better value.
If she makes money getting her picture taken, makeup is a business expense. If looking pretty gets her freebies from the guys, it’s the price to play.
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