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Morgan convinced his fiancée, Alex, to join him in his e"ort to live on minimum wage.
Since she is a vegetarian chef, they might run into a few problems with the types of food
they eat. “We’ve been living the good life,” Morgan said, “Hell, we even got to go to the
Oscars! Unfortunately, we didn’t win.”

“I’m concerned aboutwhat’s going to happen,because I’m so bad with money,” Morgan
admits. “You’re going to have to budget,” Alex explains. “I’ve not made a budget
since…” Morgan can’t remember.
They set up three rules: They both have to work a minimum wage job, they both will start
o" with $206 – a week’s worth of minimum wage earnings, and they have to freeze their
bank accounts and credit cards so they can’t use them. Morgan jokes that the only thing
leftin his wallet is his ACLU membership card.Both decide to begin their quest on
minimum wage in Columbus,Ohio,where the minimum wage lifestyle is rampant.

Day 1

They crash out at Morgan’s friend Jim’s house for their first night. The next day they begin
to look for a place to live. Since they have a little under $400, it’s very hard to find a place
that would give them the chance to live there because they don’t make enough to live
anywhere. They buy bus passes each, which eat at their funds, but since they have no
other transportation they have no choice. They check out one place and find the toilet in a
utility closet next to a water heater.

They find an apartment, called The Bottoms, that’s less than $300 a month. The landlord
tells them that a homeless man was living there two days ago,and a crack house was just
below them a few months ago. The landlord agreed that they could pay the deposit over
the nextfew months.They’re handed the keys,giving him $200 cash,and they’re allowed
to move in that moment. “We have an apartment, and that’s a great, great thing,” Morgan
says.“We have to make a grand before the end of the month. We have a lot of time to
make a thousand dollars between the two of us.” In the excitement and surely because of
the keys being a new possession, they had a misstep and locked keys in car,
“Darn it, this is all we need” Morgan says as he plunders at the car door with a bent
jacket hanger. Luckily the car was not designed to withstand Morgans able hands
and they were back on their mission.

Day 2

At 8 AM the next morning, Morgan and Alex set out to find jobs. “There’s no one as
unskilled as me,” Morgan says. Alex ponders whether or not she wants to work at a fast
food place. Both fill out mounds of applications, and Morgan decides to scope out a temp
agencytofind aquickjob.Mostminimum wage workersfindjobs thisway.He starts
tomorrow morning at 6 AM making $7 an hour. Alex will be bussing tables and washing
dishes downtown.

Hungry,they head to a convenience store.Morgan says he only ate six free pickles and
brought some with him, because they didn’t have money for food. “Today was really,
really hard. Tomorrow the real work starts,” he says. “I’m excited about it.”

Day 3

They still owe $450 for rent and the deposit. Morgan is up before 5 AM, and he is up and
ready to head for the temp agency for his first day of work. “It’s something I’ve never
thought about,” he says of riding the bus. “There’s a lot of people in here,” he realizes