better business boro

I'm living trendy on pennies. Now that I'm officially a working woman, with bills and taxes to prove it my finances are a constant worry. Teaching public school doesn't pay nearly as well as it should, and after coming out of a paycheck-less summer (TFA doesn't pay for its training Institute but it does offer up some start-up grants and loans), my money was particularly funny.

Things were looking a little dire for a while until my homegirl and I decided to go into business. As a cash-strapped grad student at NYU she understood the plight of the broke urbanette. So, being the enterprising young sisters that we are, we got to work, literally and made buttons.
We were slinging pins of positivity, after turning my apartment into a mini-sweatshop we took it too the streets and set up shop on my uncle's stoop and sold our wares. Standing out there in the hot sun, trying to look friendly and not too desperate, I suddenly felt an increased respect to all those brothers and sisters out there, peeling oranges, selling water, drawings and handbags. They're just trying to make an honest buck and I really can't knock their hustle. It's all part of that enterprising American spirit. My business partner and I did pretty well, selling much of our merchandise (the Obama pins were snapped up with the quickness). However, unlike many of the folks out there on the frontlines of the street corners across NYC we have choice. Selling our stuff on the street is a side job used to supplement our incomes and not the source of it.

We expect the folk to work, to pull their weight and earn their keep. But what happens when that old model of street hustling is fading? What comes in next? As Congress tries to get our nation though this economic purgatory, my folk on the street will be rolling up their stuff in their blankets and keep it moving. On to the next corner. Its a living, indeed.