today's video is all about exploring la on a budget how much can ten dollars buy us in this
super expensive city i have never been to l.a before and i'm really excited to see all these
places that i know from movies in real life but partly this video is also about how difficult
it can be for people who don't have that much to live in this city so let's kick this off with
some information about inequality in america in september 2019 the census bureau reported
that income inequality in the united states had reached its highest level in 50 years
and los angeles ranks seventh in income inequality among the country's biggest cities
this is particularly felt among people of color but regardless of background many struggle daily
for things that we take for granted access to health care stable jobs affordable housing quality
education and safe neighborhoods the journey begins on sunset boulevard but more specifically
in silver lake which is the area i'm staying in i happened to stay here completely by chance
i was chatting to a friend of mine who's from l.a and she said you know i actually think you
really like that area because it's very hipster and initially my gut reaction was excuse me but
she was spot on i'm absolutely loving it i can't exactly afford to go close shopping today but i
thought i'd quickly check out what you can find on a budget this is sunday's best thrift shop
in echo park and i was pleasantly surprised by what you could find here for just one dollar
they were also playing the breakfast club on a big screen in the shop so that's extra points from me
i'm getting quite hungry but i've realised that searching for a nice breakfast spot here it
might be kind of tricky because the area is very gentrified and so finding cheap cheap cheap places
is gonna be a bit of a struggle but i have faith i have faith i hope this isn't too much of a spoiler
but ten dollars in LA similar to london where i currently live isn't going to get us much
our first meal of the day is a taco delta store i got it from
a taco truck and silverlake and taco trucks are such a great way of eating cheaply and
really really well here in l.a they're absolutely delicious the menu and the prices are pretty
static like you tend to get the same stuff and tacos are usually the cheapest thing on the menu
next let's stop at this little shop the time travel mart i found it on atlas obscura which
i often used to find unique places when i'm traveling they describe this place as
a convenience store for time travelers which i thought was pretty cool and proceeds from there
go to 826la a nonprofit which is dedicated to helping local students develop their creative
writing skills i've opted for good walking shoes because i'm honestly not sure that we're going to
be able to do anything but walk if we want to eat today public transport light is pretty affordable
you pay 1.75 for one journey on a bus or the metro but again ten dollars really isn't that much if we
want to eat and silver lake isn't too close to where we're going which is hollywood renting a
bicycle is another great way to travel on a budget but again ten dollars is not going to allow for it
just noting the existence of this taco truck in case i needed for lunch or dinner looks pretty
good they all do really i feel like i'm being taunted by all these nice looking restaurants
right now so i just got talking to ray over here and he had some really interesting insights into
ellie on a budget oh no you can't make it you can't really you have to have roommate you have
to have a roommate it's the same in london yeah without a roommate you're dead in the water yeah
spitting the food costs you dead in the water yeah i mean transportation you're
dead in the water you go to the store you take a hundred dollars to go get some groceries and
you come out with a bag and a half two type of people in los angeles the halves and have-nots
and there's ain't no more middle-class middle-class they just kick them to the curb just
do them all out i mean it's ridiculous man then they don't want to pay you nothing on these jobs
i couldn't stop thinking about what ray had said as i walked to my next stop the hollywood
forever cemetery which is free to visit by the way but that's about it because as it turns
out even dying in los angeles is expensive the national funeral directors association lists 7
045 as the average cost of a local funeral and that's excluding cemetery fees if you wanted to
get buried here at hollywood forever cemetery you'd need pretty pockets plus currently range
from about eighteen thousand to two hundred and forty two thousand according to la mac but they
do come with the unusual benefit of spending you're here after peacefully resting next to
celebrities like judy garland real valentino or dd remember more of it i feel like every now and then
it's good to be reminded of one's own mortality and this is a very very beautiful place for it
if you watch this channel you know i love walking but that was a very long walk even for me so now
i am really hungry i did enjoy the cemetery so weird to say i did enjoy the cemetery um but now
i'm trying to think where shall i eat i thought maybe taco bell would be a good option but i'm not
not the biggest fan if i'm being honest there's this fast food chain called jack in a box i've
never heard of it before coming to california but i see it all around and i think there's one nearby
so i think i might go there next by the way if you were worried about my hydration
levels don't worry about me because this girl knows what she's doing i brought this bottle
of water i'm hoping to refill it at some point it's cheaper and it's environmentally friendly
all right can i get a junior jumbo jack please
that was jack in the box pretty unremarkable with one exception there was this little girl around
five or six and she came up to me and she said i like your makeup and i like your hair
and that has just made my day that was so cute um so now i know i'm full of energy and um i'm
gonna go explore like hollywood hollywood the chinese theater that sort of area the one that
all the tourists myself included come to one other thing if you're in the us and you're traveling on
a strict budget you really need to look out for taxes i was getting a $1.99 sandwich but it ended
up being $2.19 because of taxes and while that might not seem like too much money if you're
on a strict strict budget like i am today it adds up very quickly just quickly when window shopping
at mcdonald's to see what their prices were like pretty much the same pretty much the same as jack
in a box here's all the money i have left it's five dollars and some change i'm gonna need 1.75
for my transport because i can walk back so this is dinner i'm definitely not hungry but
i'm preemptively thinking about dinner this is just something i like to do and i figured one of
those um pizza slice places might be a great great show turns out one slice of pizza here
it's usually around five to seven dollars there are huge slices to be fair but that that's
that's the law isn't it we're gonna go to trader joe's just because i've never been
my 19 cent dessert
i have just realized it's my first piece of fruit and veg today not great is it i spotted a small
dollar in dime store across the street so i quickly headed inside but the offerings were
pretty lackluster and not the price i'd expect from a shop like this so when i noticed an
ice cream hot dog truck parked nearby i thought i was in luck a hot dog is not one treasure dinner
because it cost six dollars look i don't know what i was expecting from the hollywood walk
of fame but it certainly wasn't this there's such a stark contrast between the haves and
the have-nots as ray described them earlier and you can't escape it it's everywhere you look i
saw people digging through bins to find scraps of food sleeping on the street on filthy mattresses
and begging for money wrapped in rags i'll be honest this part of hollywood is unbelievably
depressing i don't like it at all and right as i was saying that i came across a scientology center
of course people convert to some dodgy suitor religion when you're surrounded by so much
disparity so much inequality so much power is plus hi not a fast if you are traveling on a
budget and you for some reason want to stay in this terrible area and like this is my personal
opinion i'm sure some people like it then samsung hostels was really highly radionbooking.com i just
came across it it's right in the middle of the action hi sorry i know these aren't worth much
what's your name logan nice to meet you thank you hi what's his name here's danny her name
sorry very rude you're from canada i'm not i'm uh i live in the uk though so i have like a weird
stuffed accent yeah i know i just like when you said yes and you had a very clean accent yeah i
immediately thought canada i stayed and chatted to logan for a while and what he said really reminded
me of my little talk with rey me personally i feel as things get higher we should get more raises on
our government pensions and checks and things 100 but they don't think about that like i said the
halves and the half-knots if you have it or you don't and if you don't have it you're in trouble
and with that i was done i left the walk of fame a fun fact in 2019 stash.com conducted a survey
of the world's 100 most famous tourist attractions they're trying to figure out which places live up
to the hype and which ones don't and no surprise here the walk of fame came in dead last i got
off the metro at pershing square and there's this one place i've been meeting to see for ages it's
called the last bookstore it's a really beautiful bookshop and even more importantly for my ego
somebody told me that they saw my book there the book that i wrote in 2020. so i would absolutely
love to see it there because i have literally never seen it in a bookshop before the bookshops
in the uk don't really have it i live in london and i've not been in the us for for quite a few
years now so so yeah so fingers crossed obviously visiting the bookshop is going to be free but
we now have a very important and difficult decision to make i can either get a bus back
or i can have dinner oh this is it's really hard you don't realize until you do you know a
challenge like this and look for me this is just a challenge this is something i'm doing because
it's interesting but for some people this is literally how they are forced to live i haven't
found the bookshop yet but i've had this place saved in my map it's the grand central market
i'm really curious to see what it looks like so let's go on it well i made a decision one i'm
not particularly proud of and it wasn't very wise now in hindsight but instead of getting dinner i
got a horchata it's this amazing mexican drink it's made with nut milk it's got cinnamon in it
and i'm currently mildly obsessed with it and now i've realized with this 10 budget i no longer
have money for dinner and as you can see it is not nighttime so um yeah that was dumb one word
of caution many locals have warned me against coming to downtown l.a because of safety issues
now i will say as a solo female traveler i haven't felt particularly unsafe but there are a lot of
let's say strange people around um there's a lot of untreated mental illness here in l.a
and it you can you can really see it wherever you go especially on like the metro or on
buses and really busy areas so i wouldn't particularly recommend coming here after dark
or staying very late unless you have transport pre-arranged or you have people with you okay
okay moment of truth well they have my book look how beautiful this space is
they're definitely not going to have my book here because this is rare books
are you girls are not going to find my book here
this is the kind of section i'd expected i keep thinking this is it but it's not sadly
i didn't find my book but i absolutely loved my trip to the bookshop regardless i posted a
real about my visit and it's had 3.7 million views on instagram so far if you don't follow
me there and on techy talk yet then here's my handle it's the same on both platforms the room
is actually genuinely very very creepy with skulls let's get out don't don't touch that
it's even a little gallery here what a beautiful bookshop and now we're gonna go home before the
sun sets i have put my hoodie on for two reasons number one it is a little bit chillier now but
that's not the most important the most important is i'm attracting less attention this way and
sadly as a woman that's something you've you gotta have in the back of your mind wherever you go so
yeah and i'm gonna try to walk home but um i'm gonna walk out i'm gonna walk along the bus route
so that if i feel like anything's dodgy i can just hop on the bus i wanted to keep my camera
in my backpack for the weight bag just for safety reasons but i have just realized that my route
back is literally next to chinatown and now this i've heard this is also not a place you should be
after dark but we're gonna give it like 10 minutes just so i can have a quick browse and i really
don't want you to think that i don't take safety precautions seriously i really genuinely do you
always should let people know where you're going you should always make sure that your phone is
fully charged that you have some kind of you know means of payment available ideally cash and card
yeah the chinatown hiranola is actually great it feels very immersive there are chinese signs all
around you it doesn't quite feel like beijing but it definitely has that vibe i i had the intention
of moving to beijing attention eventually with an ex-partner obviously that didn't happen
that's a good thing but um but i still have such a soft spot for china and i would love
to go back now that covet you know restrictions are easing although i know they keep having loads
of lockdowns because the rules there are a bit more strict but for now this will do me nicely
okay as promised this was a very quick detour so i am gonna get back on the path and we're we're
nearly we're nearly home now i've made it back i will say it has gotten dark out there very
quickly so when making your plans don't do as i do i have managed to stick to the budget but it
wasn't easy and i'm not exactly full so yeah even as a fun little challenge it was pretty tricky and
bear in mind that this is a reality for people daily for so many people out there
and if this video moved you if you feel compelled to help some of those people or
support them in any way here are a few charities that i recommend but there's so many out there um
this one beam i actually used to work for so full disclosure the end i will see you next friday bye