MovieChat Forums > 30 Days (2005) Discussion > Only watched the first episode, but...

Only watched the first episode, but...

posted 11 years ago by imapunkybunny
5 replies | jump to latest

What a load. First off, they gave themselves 30 days, but took 2 off to find a job and an apartment. They also had to lay down money for deposits, set up fees, etc, which does not happen every month. Those are very much one time expenses. To give it a fair shake, the would have already found an apartment and a job.
Mostly, they used no common sense! When I hurt my wrist, I would go get an ACE bandage and try to favor the other wrist until it healed, not go to the emergency room.
If I had a urinary tract infection, I would take over the counter medication for a day or so to see if it got better before going to the ER. If she didn't have it at the start or for more than a day or so, it couldn't have been bad enough to damage her.
If I wanted to live in a nicer apartment, I would look for someone looking to rent out a room in a nicer neighborhood. Living on your own is a luxury if you can afford it.
Also, you can eat for much less than they did. When I had a minimum wage job, I could eat for a few dollars a day.
Lastly, do they not have any friends? I forgot that minimum wage people can't have friends. For her birthday, he could have still thrown a party and made it BYOB. They could have bought a cheap 12 pack and a small grocery cake for what they spent on dinner out, and had people over to hang out.
The whole episode was ridiculous, and the only people who would buy into it are people who have never been poor.
Being poor is hard at times, but it isn't all sitting in a corner crying about your wrist.

[–] Slogutis 11 years ago

I actually didn't watch this episode cause it didn't interest me much. I already know what it's like to live off minimum wage and quite frankly, I'm happy those days are over. It's hard to want to watch a show and relive those days.

But in any case, I'm not sure what happened in the episode or if he exaggerated with certain things. But I do think it's crazy how people expect people that are on minimum wage to magically have some kind of healthcare plan. He is right to try and get the point across that one trip to the emergency room and one slip up can literally mean your life is over when you are living on such low funds.

[–] kb01 11 years ago

I don't recall the specifics of the ER trip but was there a reason they didn't work out a payment plan?

I remember thinking the episode was interesting but as others in this board have suggested, certain aspects seemed very forced to make a greater point.

[–] TheSeeker7 11 years ago

To the OP's bringing up the question of "don't they have friends?" well yea apparently Morgan had one friend IN THAT AREA (it was where they slept over the first night of getting into town), but don't forget, they normally live in NY, they traveled to Columbus Ohio to do this, I think they explained because life in Columbus (or at least in Ohio), for what they're doing anyway, is a good mirror for many other areas of the country.

I actually wound up switching off before the end of this episode, I watched maybe 25 minutes of it, max. For one thing, stuff to do with how they set up the apartment confused me, in the context of what the point of the whole series is. Like Morgan's talking about how they're setting up this situation with the landlord of paying off the initial extra fees (security deposit, etc) over a few months... huh? The whole idea of the show is to be living in a particular way for exactly 30 days. I mean, maybe that was explained better somehow toward the end of the show, but that being a part of things kinda threw me off, and I wasn't super into the episode anyway, so I just went onto another one.

[–] mittymandi 10 years ago

While I agree with a lot of your points, I'm going to have to beg to differ on the urinary tract infection thing. Infections don't just "go away" and waiting could have caused severe implications. Sure, she could have gone to a free clinic, but as they showed in the episode, that was risky at best.

[–] osbornese 10 years ago

No I totally agree. I was poor when I worked lower wage jobs starting my life out but now I have a good job and 2 kids and its almost just as hard if not harder. I think too that they made it seem much harder. Im not saying its not hard but what about food pantries? And the er thing was ridiculous. I have friends post online all they time about going to the er for a sore throat etc. I pay for my Ins and I can tell u I dont have $200 copay to drop at the er. Not to mention hospitals all have programs to waive fees based on your income. And to be fair, when I was a single mom putting myself through college I lived in the EXACT town they staged this in. I had a car that cost $400 and sometimes caught fire but I had daycare and healthcare through the county and for about 6 months we even had food stamps. Now I am newly divorced with 2 children and I live in a 3 bedroom home by myself w my kids. I have a mortgage, car payment, ins payment etc. I can def say with certaintity my ease of living was much better before college than after trying to make a life for yourself. This show struck me as being fake and over done.