Episode: 638
Title: HPR0638: Urban Camping ep 6
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0638/hpr0638.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 00:16:25

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Hi everyone, this is Kwatu and this is how to be an urban camper mini-series.
This is episode I think six in the series and in this episode we'll be talking about money.
This is probably going to be a slightly shorter episode because it is kind of self-explanatory
and also very specific I think to the individual.
While I might make money one way you might have a completely different skill set and have
a completely different way of making money.
And of course I live in one area, you live in another.
My area might be sort of a hiring phase and they're just hiring everyone they can find.
Yours might be in a little bit more of a lull and isn't hiring as much.
So obviously it's just going to be a lot of common sense and just kind of probably doing
what you're already doing.
The big difference between money matters while you're urban camping versus money matters
while you're not is that you're going to find that your cost of living is drastically
lower when you're urban camping.
Probably quite possibly you have no context for exactly how low your cost of living will
be.
I'm no economist or financial advisor or anything like that.
I don't know a whole lot about this sort of stuff but I do know that if your cost of
living is substantially lower than the amount of money that you are making then you are
necessarily making a profit.
So in other words you're making $100 a month.
I'm just using really easy numbers here to get the point across and your cost of living
is $50 a month than how much of you made that month.
You've made $50.
If you're making $100 a month and your apartment costs $50 again I'm using really simplified
numbers here, monopoly money.
Your apartment costs $50 and your food costs $25 in your electric bill costs $25.
How much of you made?
Well you've just spent $50 plus $25 plus $25 that's $100.
You made $100 you're now at $0.
So that's the idea, right?
That's all very sort of elementary junior high school kind of common sense about finances
and of course it holds true through life.
I mean that's the basics of it, right?
If you make more money than you're spending you're making a profit that's that.
That profit ostensibly should go into savings or something like that I guess or it might
go into your artwork or some kind of personal project that you're working on who knows.
So when you're urban camping your expenses tend to be a food that's your primary expense
and aside from that it's there's really not a whole lot other than that.
So whatever you can get food for that's as much as you're spending.
Now you might have some upfront costs initially like joining a gym for instance if you wanted
that easy shower access.
Well and if you're doing the whole living in your vehicle thing there's maintenance for
the car but presumably you've already had that expense as well so that's not probably
anything new but it's still an expense.
So food maybe some some vehicle expenses and then that's about it.
There's no rent there no bills and everything else you make on top of food and vehicle expenses
maybe a gym membership that's profit that's money that you've made.
So if you don't need profit you don't necessarily want or need to save money right now or just
aren't making that much money to do that then basically your your goal would be to
simply make food and car expenses for that month and you're good to go.
So keeping that sort of thing in mind you're going to find that the expenses associated
with urban camping are low so you only need to make so much money each month and typically
I have found a part-time job is plenty to get you by during urban camping.
I've worked at a minimum paying job in a bagel place and was urban camping and it worked
out really really nicely.
Didn't even have that much food expense because I kept eating all the food at the bagel
place so there was really no food cost.
I did have a little bit of a car expenses and that's it.
So I mean this was like a minimum wage part-time job and I was fine.
Now I didn't have any money to spare honestly it was a minimum wage part-time job.
I didn't make a lot at all so I didn't have a whole lot of money left over but I was
fine anyway you know I was making the money that I needed to make.
So that would be the first way to make money while you're urban camping and that is to
work.
Find a job.
You can find any kind of job part-time food service, technical, whatever you happen to
be capable of doing that could be it.
You'll be amazed just how handy a job is when you're urban camping.
I find it very helpful because otherwise at least for me it seems like I'm always hanging
around the same cafe or the same library or whatever you know I end.
So I very often sort of wear out my welcome pretty quickly in one area.
I don't tend to migrate too far from a certain kind of radius so the job helps me kind of
gives me an excuse to be somewhere a lot and I tend to do that a lot.
I tend to wear out my welcome at my own job a lot like in the bagel place that I would
work at I would work you know for the six hours or whatever I would work that day.
I think there's a four hour shift actually but anyway so I'd work in the morning and then
I'd get off at like 10 or something and 10 a.m. and then I'd like sit down there in the
eating area and just work at my computer for basically until they close which I think
if memory serves about 1700 so they really thought I was quite strange they thought it was
really bizarre.
Now other jobs have been it's been really sort of it's paid off a lot better than that
where I'll stay there all day even though I was only employed half time and they would
think that I was just working really hard and that I really wanted a raise or something
and so that actually worked in my favor personally I don't really care I just need a place
to sit and use my computer.
Jobs are nice for that.
The other way to get around you know not having a job but still get the whole money thing
are just random odd jobs you know community boards crags list whatever look around see
where people need something done and then tell them that you will do it for money.
It's pretty pretty straightforward really what I used to do when I was doing this kind
of thing would I would just print up a whole bunch of notices and business cards as well
both of them and I would go around to all the community boards I could find and just post
what I could do like you know computer help Mac or PC setup printers help you with internal
your home network of the term that they everyone seems to know home network six year computer
you know all that kind of stuff and I would have my email on there or and my my phone number
and then people could contact me and hire me and it worked out really well actually I got
a lot of really good jobs that way a lot of some reason setting up printers that was like
one of the main things I did I don't know why people couldn't for a while it seemed like
no one could set up their printer and I really learned a lot about cups at that time
and and just kind of configuring printers mainly on Macs because that was what I really
pitched myself as but a lot of people would bring me in and have me work on their Mac and then
they would see that I knew what I was doing and automatically assume that I would know Windows
even better and so they would have me work on their Windows machine and of course I know who
what to do on Windows but if you're halfway intelligent then you can just kind of figure it out so
that that was a really good thing Craigslist I've had less luck with but I think that's because I'm
just kind of out of the rhythm of those odd jobs I think if if I was really doing that all the time
I think I could probably find some better things on Craigslist but keep in mind that on Craigslist
I mean I probably don't need to be telling you guys this but there are different categories for
the job posting so you have to kind of look in all of them like some will be specific to computers
some will be more like vague things like repair or something like that you know and but you'll find
a computer repairs in that you know they're miscategorized job postings I guess is what I'm trying to
get to which again common sense obviously once you start getting random jobs with one person
you can typically really really advertise yourself with that person and just just keep telling them
you know let let your all your friends know about me I do that you know call yourself a
freelancer that's a term that a lot of people like and just let them know that you're available
you love doing this sort of thing you know just be friendly basically and really try to get them
to advertise for you and I have found that they actually typically do especially if you're nice
and really really friendly and really really helpful if you're doing a odd job kind of thing
oh I find a lot of times you've got nothing but time so yeah they might only be paying you $50 or
$75 or something but if you I tend to try not to think of it so much as long getting $50 and
I only spend an hour I did really good I just think of it as $50 for that month and if it takes me
two hours and and for one of those hours I'm simply talking about you know talking to this person
about how beautiful their little poodle is okay then that's an investment and yeah it's time spent
and I'm only getting $50 for that two hours I just don't think of it that way I think of it more
of a a monthly kind of thing like that's $50 that I don't have to make for the rest of the month
now that's $50 I've got in my pocket so job well done and that and that kind of thing typically
gets the person on your side they they start to really like you and I've literally had
those few people who will just it's almost like they start to invent invent problems or they're
not really inventing problems but they're little problems that normally they wouldn't
ever think of paying anyone to fix because it's just a little thing it's just they can't launch
um safari anymore which doesn't really matter because now they're using firefox so they don't
really care but hey there's that really nice guy caught two and he's such a pleasure to talk to
and he really seems to like my poodle and he knows his coffee really well and maybe I'll go
ahead and pay him you know $25 to come over here for an hour to to fix safari and it like takes you
three minutes to ditch the preference files and relaunch safari and you're done you spend the
rest of the time drinking coffee and talking about the dog show coming up and then you're out
you know it's just it's silly but hey it really really works and I guess once again it's a
form sort of of social engineering if you can think of it that way I mean it's really I guess
just good business practice or something okay so that's random jobs promoting yourself I hate
promoting myself I can't do it I'm horrible at it so I just prove myself as vaguely capable of
computer-y kinds of things and they tend to sell me a lot better than I can sell myself if you're
great at advertising yourself hey go for it but yeah I find that business cards and a little
posters you know just eight and a half by eleven size posters with just the important stuff you know
because you got to assume that these people are going to be walking by on their way to the subway
or the way to work or whatever they don't have time to read a whole paragraph just put the key
words on there and and make it easy for them to grab your number or your email okay that was
probably too much on that subject but it is that's a great way to make money really don't sell
yourself short as an independent contract try guess you can go out there you can make money if
you have computer skills believe me there's so many people out there who just have no idea what
they're doing I've had a lot less I guess I guess this is a more complex subject than I thought so
I had a lot less success with the like the web did not that I'm actually anyway a web developer but
like web you know creating websites or editing editing videos for for quote unquote normal people
those kinds of project-based jobs I seem to have a lot less luck with they work you can work on
the project and you you will get paid I have found that the pain the sheer pain and and this
pleasure of dealing with with really the people who become clients right these people with a
project that they need done in a certain way and you're supposed to guess how it needs to get done
and then you have to go change it when they hate it and it really does become one of those things
that takes up all your time all month long you're only getting 300 dollars for it 200 dollars
for some stupid like that and yet they want everything they want you to do everything for them
they want it perfect they want it exactly as they're describing even though their ideas are
horrible I mean you've seen all the jokes online about this kind of thing well they're all true
and they're not funny when you're trying to make you look on Craigslist and there's like five jobs
that pay 50 dollars each and then you're you're stop doing this one job that is completely unpleasant
it's taking eight hours a day of your time because you just keep going back and forth with this
client it's horrible so I tend to avoid those unless it's for some kind of business that they
need like a video edited or sometimes if it's a person who needs to be almost have a class like
Final Cut Pro lessons or something like that that that tends to work out a lot better that
almost goes back to that sort of random computer help more than it does I think the whole project based
model so be very very careful with project random projects that you find on Craigslist and stuff
those in at least in my experience have been horrible horrible things if you if you find
differently please go for it good for you me myself I tend to avoid them okay so that's random
jobs that was getting a job the other way to do it of course is using your skills as you see fit
so by by this I mean I have friends who play musical instruments quite well they'll stand out
on the street and play music and they will get donations from passers by and they do really
really well and that's one of those things that I mean that's great if you do that not only are
you practicing your instrument but you are getting money for it and yeah you're spending probably
a good part of the day doing it but I mean you're only getting better so don't forget that you
probably have some kind of skill and I don't know what that is I mean maybe you sing maybe you play
an instrument maybe you're a really really fantastic mime I don't know but don't sell yourself short
on your skills I'm kind of assuming that if you're listening to show you're a computer person
and that you have computer skills but keep in mind that you might have either yes you have computer
skills but you also have other skills or maybe you're not a computer geek maybe you don't really
know that much about computers but hey you probably know something and a lot of times you can use
that somehow I can't really think of all the possible ways of course but of that you can if you
really think about what you can do and how it might be I guess the term would be marketable
however it pains me to say such a word sounds so official so businessy um okay so the last
way to make money that I know of is to beg or spange um spanging is the hipster term for begging for
spare change spange if you go out onto the street and ask for money you ostensibly will actually
make money and this tends to work for people fairly well because the human you know the average
human on the street wants to help another person not everyone but the average one does they want
to help you they want to make you feel good because it makes them feel good to make you feel good
this works very much to your advantage if you simply stand out on the street and ask
passers by for money I have found in my very limited experience doing this that making up elaborate
stories as to why you want need the money is quite unnecessary you simply say do you have any spare
change or you know do you have a dollar whatever and and people are either going to give it to you
or they're not honestly whether you need money or not this is a great activity to do you should
just go do this one afternoon like take your lunch hour or or when you get off from from class one
day just go out onto the busy foot traffic street in your city and start asking for for money
it's astonishing what happens it really is this is in terms of like the whole social engineering
or or at least the the studying of of people this is a fantastic activity it's just really
interesting to see people's reactions see what they how they respond to the question whether
they give you money or not whether they stop and talk or not it's just really really interesting
and there are all kinds of variations on this you know you can go out and wear a green t-shirt
or something and say that you're with with green piece or some charity like that and get money
uh from from people on on completely false pretenses uh you can you can go out and and tell people
that that you're raising money for your school it's just fascinating to see how people respond
to what you're saying now the downside to all of these things is that um while it's really an
interesting social experiment i think it is typically not uh technically legal i think i know
that people are shoot away when they're doing this quite often by the police i have found that the
police tend to bother the people who don't look totally crazy a lot more than they bother
uh the people who do look crazy so while you might see like that old uh war veterans supposedly
who's sitting on the side of the street um asking for money and he'll do that every day and he'll
never get bothered and then one block up you'll see some person who looks like they might just
be kind of doing it because they're they just want some extra money that day or like they're
passing through town and trying to get some more money to for their next stop something like that
they'll get they'll get bothered bothered by the police they'll get i literally see people get
ticketed for um i don't i panhandling i think it's a term yeah panhandling um that they literally
got a ticket for it so it it's really strange and it seems very nebulous in terms of what's
acceptable and what's not acceptable so you need to kind of watch out for that and and like i like
i said i i don't actually do this for money i i i do it for fun sometimes just to see the reactions
and stuff like that but i've i've never felt the need to to go do it for for actual money more
often i would play an instrument or something like that um that that tends to have the same result
and that seems to be less of a target by the police i think because as long as you look vaguely
presentable i think maybe it's the general consensus that street musicians kind of add to the charm
of the area rather than detract from them that's about it that's that's the way that i know to make money
it would be a good idea one of the things that that really helped me um well every time that i was
i was urban camping but i i think i really kind of perfected it this most recent time is coming up
with a just a daily budget because if you come up with one day's budget and you can be very very
precise when you're urban camping it's really fantastic like one thing that i have a problem with
when i am living in an apartment or something i never seem to get a grip on what the expenses
are going to be you know you see the apartment and it's advertised for five hundred and fifty
dollars a month and you're like okay well that's pretty cool so you go into the apartment five hundred
and fifty and it says all the utilities are paid except electrics that's cool you get into the
apartment turns out there's really nothing in the apartment but electrics stuff well there's water
but but there's no gas anyway there's the stove is electric the heat is electric you know and
you're like oh that's why they're not going to pay my electric and so of course heat and and
stove and things like that and lights how do you like you can't really gauge how much money they're
going to cost you and maybe you could maybe i could like literally time every day how long a light
is on and then like look at the end of the month and see what the the overall cost is or something
but anyway my my point is that when i'm urban camping it's a very very set amount of money every
single day there's money for breakfast and lunch and possibly dinner for coffee and there's
that well there's there's the initial cost of a gym membership but that was only once and so
that was done there might be money for gas and that's like thirty dollars a month because i don't
really drive that much so yeah i mean it's just like what are your expenses and then you can kind
of play around and start seeing especially if you're a creature of habit you can start seeing how
much money you typically spend on for instance breakfast and that might be two or three dollars
for a bagel and a coffee and then you can see how much you're going to spend for lunch and that
might be a little bit more like seven dollars and you can see how much if you're going to spend
anything for dinner and that might be another seven dollars and so you start to build up a pretty
clear and very very consistent budget so if you do that and you say okay this is how much
i spend in a day and i know that there are 30 days in the in the typical month so this is how
much i need to make every month in order for me to be completely happy and uh comfortable and
you'll find that when you're urban camping that's not that hard to do so i don't know try that out
for a month um if you are going to do the whole urban camping thing and and track your expenses
or not even track them just like we'll track them for like two days and figure that that's
probably going to be your consistent expenditures uh for pretty much every day and you'll find that
it's really really simple to get a grasp of of what exactly you do all day in terms of monetary
requirements and take it from there start start figuring out what you need to do for work based
on on that pretty straightforward um enjoy making a little tiny bit of money while urban camping
or a lot and then you can save a lot of money or you can put it towards your personal project like
building your secret super computer or making a movie or an album or you know whatever it is people
do with their extra money um thanks for listening to this episode the next episode we are going to be
talking about what on earth you do during those daylight hours as an urban camper like what do you do
to fill up your your day you've got all this time now you're working a little bit and and then what
so we'll talk about that next episode
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