Nickel and Dimed
Introduction and chapter 1 review

So first of all I’d like to say that so far I really enjoyed this book and I think that it is well written and gives an interesting point of view to those who might not know what it’s like to live on the poverty line. The idea of making this book was proposed to the author by a magazine editor while they were at lunch. They discussed the idea of what life is like for people who have to live paycheck by paycheck on the poverty line. So they decided that she herself would conduct an experiment where she would assume the role of a person who lives a day to day life in this lower class. She had to find a job without using any of her prior resources (college education, writer,) and work that job to pay for a place to live, food, and other essentials. Then when the experiment was finished she would use the research and facts that she had gathered along the way and write an article and later this book. She starts her experiment by getting a place to live. She finds a place not far from where she actually resided in Key West, Florida. It is in an old run down trailer park but it is the best she can do because she will be working a low wage job that will require her to live in a less than average home because that’s all she will be able to afford. Next she goes on a job search. She looks at many different places including restaurants, hotels, various cleaning jobs and other small occupations. After looking through 23 different possible occupations she finds one that will be able to support her financial needs in a small restaurant in a hotel. She is hired as a waitress to bus tables and take orders. The job doesn’t pay a lot but it is just enough to get by on. While working this job she observes others around her like her co-workers and the customers. No one shows any signs of knowing that she is actually an accomplished writer and college graduate. They just see her as another lower class woman trying to earn her paycheck. She goes into detail about her father and her family’s employment history. Her father was a miner who worked in the mines for most of his life to provide for his family. And how she had down more with her life in graduating from college and working a successful higher paying job. This is a great example of social mobility because it shows that she broke the mold of herself of being a working class person and went out and did more with her life.