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Schakowsky says a minimum-wage paycheck leaves “no
room for error,” as even small mistakes, such as forgetting

your lunch, can derail your budget.

The Benefits of Foot Power. During our week on minimum

wage, my husband and I used our car only once, to stock up
on groceries for the week. He rode his bike to work every
day, and I did all my other errands on foot. Strickland also
says that he walked as much as possible during his mini-

mum-wage week to keep his transportation costs down.

The Cheapest Way to Eat. Of all the people who took the
challenge, I was the only one who didn’t eat any differently

during the week than I do normally. There are two reasons
for this: First, my husband and I are near-vegetarians, and
second, we have a home garden that supplies us with fresh

veggies during the summer. This meant the only groce-
ries we needed to buy were staples like flour, cheese, oat-
meal, and milk, plus a bag of fresh apples from the farmers
market. With these plus the produce from our garden, we

were able to eat our usual healthy diet and even squeeze in
a trip to Starbucks over the weekend.

Problems With the Challenge

Less Stress. Living for just one week on a minimum-wage budget
can’t begin to mimic the stresses of living that way week in and
week out. The people who take the challenge know that it’s only for

a week, and they also know that there are no real consequen-
ces even if they don’t make it through the week. If an emergency
crops up, they can always just pull out their credit cards and declare
the challenge a failure.

Inability to Budget. Many of the expenses workers have
aren’t paid on a weekly basis. The challenge takes out mo-

ney for housing, which is usually a monthly expense, but it
doesn’t account for occasional costs like clothing or insuran-
ce or maintenance for cars.