Wanted: A Select Few to Commit 1 to 3 Months...
 

I am looking for a select few…
I am developing a documentary on not just surviving but thriving. You will be provided with $20, your social security card and driver’s license along with 3 changes of clothes as well as a cell phone (for emergencies and pics/vids) and a notebook and pencil. You will be dropped off in a city where you have never been (in the US) and don’t know anyone. You have 1 to 3 months to find a place to call home, a secure job and save $500. You shall document your experiences. GO! Up for it? Lets talk…

I cannot take that much time off, but if I could, I'd take the challenge and win.

Whats my reward?

I knew a guy like that!
His name was Jim. Jim was way down on his luck as usual, wandering around looking for a job, when he passed the Baptist church. He went in and said, “Pastor, I don’t want a handout, I just want me a job.” The preacher told him they happened to be hiring a janitor, and gave him a job application to fill out. Poor Jim started to shake and said, “Pastor, I’d fill this out, but I can’t read.”
Pastor told him because of all the chemicals with hazard warnings and specific directions printed on them that the janitor had to use, he had to be able to read. “I cant hire you, but we just had a food drive and there is this bag of apples left over. Have some apples to eat, and good luck.”
Jim took the apples and ate one. He walked around the neighborhood and sold the rest for 50 cents each. The next morning he took that money down to the fruit distributor and bought a whole box of apples and sold them for 50 cents each.
After a few weeks he was selling so many apples he bought a cart.
Soon he had a truck, wholesaling apples all over the city.
He started putting money in the bank every week, and became good friends with the bank president. After a few years he bought out the fruit distributor, and every week he took his extra money down to the bank.
After 25 years Jim decided he would retire. He sold the fruit distributorship for a million dollars and put the money in the bank.
One day he went to the bank to get some of his money out, and the bank president was there. He said, “Jim, I’ve been watching you for 25 years and you have been thrifty and ambitious. It is a testament to the spirit of freedom of opportunity in this great country that a man who can’t even read could become a millionaire. Do you have any idea where you would be today if you could read?”
“Yeah, I know ‘sacly where I’d be,” Jim said. “I’d be the janitor down at the Baptist church.”

What do you want it to be?

not fame!
maybe fourtune

So it's kinda like Survivor, but without a million dollars?

fascinating project. i believe this is what some monks have to do to become ordained, the sec that the current pope is from has to do something similar to this, except they get dropped off anywhere in the world with a small amount of money, and left there for a year.

i think its a big reason why he is such a liberal pope.

Sounds like what I went through when I got out of the service. But I had $67.

You've described my late teens into my mid-twenties...NYC, LA, and SAN FRANCISCO.

Next to zero money, no job, no apartment, no friends, and no contacts.

It sure was fun.

I am doing what you said and I hate sleeping under a bridge. I give up.

I'd buy the best broom I could get for $20 and start sweeping for food, money, or a place to stay. I'd have the $500 in a couple of weeks.
Jim

I could do it. Except the 104 pound dog says if I go so does he. And the IRS would tell any employer that my Social Security number was invalid and that they must withhold all pay from me.

Jim, I think Matt should do it with his 3 kids and wife! You should do it with your dog. Great stuff!!!

Without anything and it shall be true reality ... no stupid challenges just real world strife and struggle...but if you succeed then not only is that worth bragging it worth writing about and more so, worth talking about.

I hope you all can see the direction this could go if done well and pure.

There is a very real possibility of tragedy from this.

In my opinion, by posting this on Pelican, you are putting our gracious host at SERIOUS legal risk. It would be prudent for you to delete this thread.

Just do it yourself if you think it's such a great idea. :rolleyes:

__

Could you drop me off some place warm?

do this offer come with bennies?

The answer to the riddle is: Window Washing. You take the $20 to the nearest supermarket and buy a bottle of DW soap, a pail and a squeegee. You start walking up the street in any business district offering to wash store windows for $5/10, whatever the going rate is which you'd figure out pretty quickly. In the right neighborhood, you could be making $50 hour if you're good.

Very soon, you'd have a nicer bucket and equipment and maybe an assistant. Rinse and repeat until you're a millionaire.

You're welcome. :)

My dad once had a client who was Lebanese. Drug dealer, I think. (Dad was a defense lawyer). He was one of those guys who took one look around the federal pen and said, "you call this a prison?? In my country, this is a fking country club!"

Anyhow, my dad said that you could drop this guy in any city in the world, naked, and without knowing the language he would figure out a way to survive and then thrive in very short order. That this particular culture was very adept at capitalism, though he used slightly different language to say that. :)

I've been hungry and broke before. One time I had enough money to either feed myself or my dog till payday. I made ketchup soup for supper for 3 days.

Beside the Immigration problem, the IRS problem and the 104 lbs dog problem the first thing I'd do is look for a temp agency. They pay slightly above minimum wage and usually will pay everyday. This solves the immediate cash flow problem ($20 would feed you for two days if your careful).

Next is shelter. Assuming your not dumping me in a city like here where it hits -50C or a place where there are no social service's I'd look for a Salvation Army or a hostel. Sally Ann would make you sing for your supper but they would feed you and give you a place to stay. Depends on where you are there might be a limit to how long you could stay at either place. Next full time employment.

As I have a drivers licence and I can drive any tandem axel truck, crawlers or loaders I'd look for a job driving a dump truck or like equipment. Next a home.

As home is where it feels good to hang your hat I'd look for rooms to rent. As you would have money from working temp for the first week you might be able to rent one for a month. Two weeks driving a dump truck and you would have your $500 goal.

I had a guy stop by my house in Florida once who was mowing lawns at 1/4 the going rate. The only catch was he didn't have a mower so he had to use mine. IIRC, he did most of the block this way. $10 to mow my yard in the FL summer, I'd pay that everytime. Let's say he did 8 houses per day, he'd have $500 and a new lawn mower in 8 days, and start charging $20 and grow from there. He'd have a full on business in a month.

I would go dwn to the nearest ship yard, freight yard and go to work.
Or drive a truck,
It would not be much of a show at all.
simple

Was not this the premise of the very first reality show? I believe it was of Japanese origin.

This problem is too easy. There are too many social services available in cities in the US.

To make this a true reality experiment, you'd have to give us a drug addiction or a mental health problem, or both. Heap that misfortune on our shoulders and you'd have yourself a challenge that more accurately reflects what I think you're going for.

But I think the real problem is that you cannot artificially create the despair inherent in such a living situation. We know we can give up on the challenge. That is quite a bit different from not ever seeing an end in sight.

Simple... Go to the nearest library and post an add on CL for misc handyman services. Take your cash to pawn shop, HF etc and buy pliers, a hammer and a few screwdrivers. Take any job you can get that will pay. Also start cruising adds for help wanted in any of the trades...

Of course you need to have some skills, but I could have a place to live and a few hundred in a week or two easily.

This. ^^^

You did such a good job of exposing the inherent BS of this "challenge" that I now feel bad for my semi-joking response.

Sorry man, but gotta agree with Speeder, et. al

It's just too easy for a fully functional, intelligent, experienced person with a solid job history and marketable skills.

The first few hours, or at most first few days, might be mildly interesting. But after a week IMO anyone here would be set up and then it would be a monotonous, boring process of saving up $500.

A clean, reasonably dressed, intelligent person dropped in a city with the only task being to find a place to ride it out temporarily while trying to accumulate $500 simply isn't going to experience any significant "real world strife and struggle" for you to show, IMO.

$500 ain't nothin. Some women make that in an hour or less ;)

Twenty Dollars! Man, I only need about tree fiddy.;)

That would make for a quick show, now wouldn't it?

Might actually make it worth watching though. ;)

I own a 911

It needs valve guides BAD.

Did I mention the valve guides?

you would have to get to the job site - so reserve bus fare - assuming it is ON a bus route

you would not have any evidence of that experience or solid job history under the rules of the OP

you would need to survive until you got paid - and you might just get stiffed out of your pay too (ask any employment lawyer)

also, social services vary from city to city, AND are prioritized with women and children getting beds first, single men at the very last

but I do think a healthy young male could survive and make it for several months, even as a homeless person - I don't see them getting a rental as it would be hard to accumulate the 1st, last & deposit in that time (here it would be at least $1,500 up front; more like $2,000) while still getting food & etc. to live on

With a happy ending...

It's impossible to erase that evidence from a person.

you are welcome to wander in and talk to an employer about how good a record and experience you have after you wake up from sleeping on the curb for a few nights

- good luck

How about a harder experiment?

Take a homeless person and get him a job and a safe place to stay.

Most won't stay in a large shelter because they are unsafe and or the shelters won't allow them to abuse substances while there. So you would need to find him a place that will take him and is safe. Clean him up and help get him a job.

Keep him clean and sober for a period of 3 months.

Your reward: satisfaction you helped a fellow human being