Dina Gachman - Brokenomics: 50 Ways to Live the Dream on a Dime

BROKENOMICS

50 Ways to Live the Dream on a Dime

Copyright 2015 Dina Gachman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gachman, Dina.

Brokenomics : 50 ways to live the dream on a dime / Dina Gachman.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-58005-568-0

1. Budgets, Personal. 2. Finance, Personal. 3. Cost and standard of living. I. Title.

HG179.G2342 2015

332.024dc23

2014035697

Published by

Seal Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

1700 Fourth Street

Berkeley, California

Sealpress.com

Cover design by Kate Basart

Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by Publishers Group West

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Mom, Dad, Amy, Jackie, and Kathryn

And for JZ (the original)

CONTENTS

I n the classic Preston Sturges movie Sullivans Travels, a well-to-do film director named John L. Sullivan gets fed up with making comedies and decides to take on an important, serious picture about human suffering. He has no clue how normal people function since hes been living the high life of three-martini lunches, five-star dinners, and country-club tennis courts and swimming pools, so in an effort to understand the material, he goes undercover as a hobo so he can experience what its like to... be a hobo.

Sullivan hits up the studio costume department and trades in his high-waisted designer suit for some pretend hobo duds and a bindle attached to a stick. He then sloughs off his distinguished appellation in favor of the more down-and-out sounding nickname Sully and sets out to learn what makes the little people tick. Sully enters the big, bad world with ten cents in his pocket and declares: Im not coming back until I know what trouble is! At a diner, he meets a broke aspiring actress wearing a very swanky evening gown whos been booted out of her apartment. Shes referred to as The Girl, and shes played by Veronica Lake, who is just about the most gorgeous pauper youve ever seen. I havent got a yacht or a pearl necklace or a country seat or even a window seat, The Girl tells Sully. Soon enough he agrees to let her come along on his little adventure, and The Girl gets outfitted in some tramp clothes of her own.

What Sully discovers along the waybesides the fact that The Girl has more street smarts than he doesis that in tough times, people dont want to watch movies about human suffering. They just want to laugh at cartoons and chew some tobacco. It isnt much, but its better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan, says Sullivan, who by that point is world-weary from weeks of living off canned beans and stale coffee.

In Sullys day they had the Rockefellers, Coco Chanels Bijoux de Diamants jewelry collection, and Hearst Castle. Now, almost a century later, we have superyachts, bespoke submarines, pop stars building floating mansions in Greece, six-dollar coffee drinks, and ten-dollar pressed juice, so its safe to say that were living in a cockeyed caravan of our own. Im not implying that youre a hobo because youre reading a book called Brokenomics. But, compared to people who can afford caviar facials and $80,000 African safaris, were all maybe, possibly, just a bit hobo-esque.

Not that the hobo-esque life doesnt have its merits. I imagine the upkeep on a floating mansion would cost a fortune, and if Im ever within a ten-foot radius of caviar Id like to shove it into my piehole and eat it, not waste it by putting it on my face. Thats just common sense. This, my friends, is Brokenomics: a practical, real-world approach to finance thats all about living the high lifewhether youre making peanuts or pulling in six figures. The point is to have fun while youre working toward six figures even if youre still at the peanut stage. Its also about cultivating a healthy attitude when it comes to money. Do you overspend on fancy creams made with orchid essence and green bean extract? Brokenomics can help. Do you think that spending $300 a year on lotto tickets will solve all your problems? Stick around. Does the thought of talking about money with your husband, wife, lover, or partner cause you to break out in hives, sweat profusely, and start pounding whiskey shots or two-for-one bottles of ros? Youre not alone.

Right about now you might be wondering what sort of credentials I possess that make me such a sage financial guru. For better or worse (Im thinking better), I do not have perfectly coiffed hair, spectacular muscle tone, billions of dollars, or really white teeth. Despite all that, I do know for a fact that there is no surefire way to get rich quick unless you rob Richard Branson or elope with Sara Blakely, the billionaire creator of Spanxwithout a prenup of course. You have a better chance of getting rich quick by eating a spoonful of black-eyed peas on New Years Day (a Southern tradition that promises prosperity and luck that I always observe just in case) than you do by walking on hot coals, joining a multilevel marketing opportunity, or spending thousands of dollars on weekend seminars with names like XTREME MAX MONEY MIRACLE. At least black-eyed peas are cheap, full of fiber, and delicious. You do the math.

What I do have are experiences, and those experiences have not always been glorious. At times they have been mortifying, humiliating, demoralizing, and ridiculousbut they have all been educational. I know, for example, how to save enough money to travel: by sleeping on a friends couch for months and working at a restaurant so divey its been unofficially nicknamed Seagull Feather Heaven (more on that in for more juicy details on that one.

I dont mean to be a Debbie Downer, but Oprah is not going to slide down your chimney, bop you on the head with her magical Tory Burch wand, and get you the promotion that will catapult you into her tax bracket. Any promotion you do get will happen because you earned it, you asked for it, and you have a boss who is a fair human beingnot a robotic, micromanaging, bottom-line-obsessed d-bag who thinks your name is Productivity Enhancer, not Betty Jones or Bob Horton or whatever. (If youve spent any time at all waiting tables or slouching toward retirement in a cubicle, you know this type of moniker mix-up can sometimes happen.)

Unless you actually are living off the grid in a burlap teepee, finances impact every aspect of your life: love, education, where you sit at concerts, when you board a plane, where you live, and how you feel about math. Rest assured, you do not have to be good at math to be smart about money. You just have to be able to tolerate math, which, depending on how your brain works, is not always as easy-breezy as it sounds.

Now, there are plenty of dead-serious self-help manifestos out there that promise to make you rich, skinny, successful, and fulfilled. Think of Brokenomics as a financial call to arms with a sense of humor. A comedic economic manifesto for the masses! Its not about feeling mopey because you cant afford a private jet with solid gold fuselage. Wed all love free-flowing Dom Prignon and an infinity pool, and some of you may even covet an infinity pool filled with Dom Prignon, but its not about that. Its about surviving and thriving, no matter what your situation might be. I dont need a ball gown made of pulverized diamonds, and I bet you dont either. Besides: how many times have you stood all primped-up at a fancy event and thought: I cant wait to get out of here, jump back into jeans, and meet my friends for happy hour. Im guessing your answer falls somewhere between two and fifteen, depending on variables like age, attitude, rank, and access to highbrow events. However many fancy events you attend, were all in this cockeyed caravan togetherso lets make the most of it.