All the things I could do
If I had a little money
It's a rich man's world
Money. Some have a lot enough to soak in their marble tub from Italy. Some don’t even have two pennies to rub together. New Orleans is a city in which both live. New Orleans is a tourist town, I see them quite often as I get off the bus on Monday mornings, as my bus stop is across from a large hotel. The tourists sit on the benches with their brightly colored suitcases surrounded by the locals going to and fro. Another one of our core tenets as part of the Young Adult Volunteer Program is simple living.
According to the YAV page on the PCUSA website, Simple living means that YAVs are challenged to practice simple living – living an abundant life with less. Living simply pushes YAVs to evaluate their true needs with their lifestyle and beliefs. We challenge one another to live more simply in response to an unsustainable human demand for natural resources.
Living in a tourist city means that many things in the ‘tourist’ part of town come with a higher price than in other parts. As I have been here for two months now, I have come to realize very quickly that there is so much more to New Orleans than just the French Quarter. We have the Bywater, Mid-City, Uptown, Treme, and other parts that make up the colorful quilt that is New Orleans. When I knew that I was coming here, I was so excited to visit all the places that cost a few dollars. Now I have come to enjoy those places where I can just wander through shops or just a simple walk down the bayou or through City Park.
Another way that I see how the idea of simple living is living on a food budget. Grocery budget to feed all four of us in the house has been a challenge but one that I have grown to appreciate. Each week the four of us are tasked with cooking one dinner with a few nights of leftovers thrown in between. This has actually been nice to learn what others eat and to expand my recipe knowledge. With the idea of what we are all cooking each week, we can create our grocery list from there. This allows us to follow a guide when at the store and limits what we can buy. We get only what we need. This has been an exercise for me as to recognize my reckless spending habits and how it effects the environment. Yes, we buy from the big blue box, when I wish we could be supporting more local chain or local farmers, but that can get more expensive and with a limited budget is not reasonable.
Always sunny
In the rich man's world