So you’re knee deep in garbage – who cares? Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes your stomach’s roaring at you like a hyena, all the stores are closed (even though you’re broke anyways) and you need to find a way to eat. A lot of people would scoff at the idea of diving in a dumpster, but clearly they aren’t vested in the ways.

 First, you’ll need to consider the benefits of what you’d be doing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmaio/4242925476/

 Saving money.

Food’s not free – unless you’re hitting a food bank, a soup kitchen, or a dumpster.

 Helping the environment

All the food that you scavenge would otherwise meet its demise at a waste dump – not even a reycling or a compost facility.

 Being resourceful

 So you’re strapped for cash, hungry, thirsty, hurting for a beer or six, and stuck without your bank card. What are you gonna do? Here’s a couple useful (and not necessarily ethical) ways to make some coin.

 Busk!

Do you play any instruments? Take your guitar, or your drums, or your saxophone, or your didgeridoo, or whatever you play, and stroll on downtown. Take a seat at venue with high pedestrian traffic (liquor stores are always popular) and start jamming out. Throw a hat on the ground, and people will start dropping you their spare change. Or, on a good day, spare bills.

Note: most cities require you to pay for a busking license, which can cost anywhere from $5-50

 Panhandle

If you’re a sociable person (or if you’re not) you can always just go person-to-person and ask for spare change. You’ll make some money quickly enough, but people generally frown upon this. It’s considered to be demeaning to the town and to yourself. You’ll also most likely be kicked off wherever you are – cops frown upon this.

 Fly a sign

 Take a fair-sized piece of cardboard, write a simple, legible message on it (BROKE & HUNGRY, ANYTHING HELPS. THANKS YOU) and step on out to a busy boulevard on the highway. Walk up and down alongside the cars that line up when the light turns red. People will read your sign, most will scoff at you, and some will start handing you money out their window. Watch out for cops, though – this is considered panhandling, and they’ll usually kick you off the highway.

 Get a job!

 This is probably what you’ve been avoiding, but it never helps to start handing out resumes, or to check your local classified ads to try and find some good, honest work.

 Now that you’ve read this article, you’ve got a few ideas churning in your head. Stop chumping around and go make yourself some money!

 36 hours passed quite enjoyably (albeit famished) as hills began to grow on the bland, lifeless prairie landscape. They soon matured into looming mountains as we cruised into BC. We only jumped off the train when we found ourselves stupidly hungry- we’d forgotten to bring food for our journey, and had grown tired of the compartment’s hotplate taunting us. We’d long-since depleted the stock of water that came in the train’s fridge. We were dying, and I took a second to remember why.

 Three provinces away, with a sore thumb and less than a week to get home, I wondered how the hell I was going to get back for my birthday. Hitchhiking sucked around these parts, and I’d already turned my pockets inside out – no chance of getting a plane ticket. Looked like I was stuck…

“Unless you want to hop a train,” my buddy proposed. I took the offer into consideration, juggled it quickly in my mind, and decided within the minute that I was completely down.

We camped outside Regina at the local trainyard until dusk. I spent half the time interrogating Chris about how we were going to jump onto a commercial cargo train without getting caught.

I learned quickly that a trainhopper has a few options – they can ride in a grainer (one of the solid, metal cargo cars used for carrying grain.) There’s a small hole on either side that a traveller can squeeze into with his bag. They could then spend the next 24-plus hours freezing their ass off alone in a claustrophobic tunnel by themselves.

You could hop onto a death car, which is basically the skeleton of a grainer. This usually involves strapping yourself to one of the supports so you don’t fall off, and then freezing your ass off for the next 24-plus hours.

Or you could be smart, and sneak into an engine unit. There are usually engine units on the front, middle, and back of a cargo train. The middle and back engine units are unattended, used only as locomotive powerhouses and staffed only when fuel changes are required (once every day and a half, or so.)

When the train pulled up, I shook off the adrenaline that was threatening to explode my head and followed Chris as he pulled himself up the staircase and onto the unit.

I was fascinated by the commodities that were surely commonplace to a conductor. A bathroom that was to be ours for the next day or so, a hotplate, a fridge, a balcony, a whole array of computer screens to mess around with to possibly throw the train off the rails (which I later decided against.) We were set, we were going back to BC.

We only got kicked off once – outside of Kamloops, at four in the morning, battered by an excruciating hangover. Fortunately, we were able to stumble a hundred feet and pass out in a field of overgrown grass until the next train arrived and took us back to Vancouver.

All in all, this taught me that – despite being somewhat illegal – if you need to get somewhere, there’s always going to be a train to catch. Just make damn sure you remember your food.

Yes, Yes they are. Greyhounds are basically piss-stained prisons on wheels, full of tramps and ‘questionable’ individuals.

This Fall I have frequently been travelling between Ottawa, Toronto and Guelph. I have saved 150% on my frequent travels by ride sharing. Many interesting students, entrepreneurs and even government workers prefer to travel with the relatively unknown rideshare community. After one year of using this method of travel, I have literally saved hundreds of dollars and tens of hours avoiding the bus and train. The experience is either one way or another: Super interesting and conversation threads the whole way, or a relaxed book reading/ cat napping road trip.

The reality for students studying in Ontario is that they need to get back and forth between cities dozens of times a year. While most students don’t have cars, I believe that enough of them have cars to cooperatively travel with other students while sharing the gas costs. Not everyone needs cars. Sharing gas money and networking together creates a rich economy of efficiency of human resources. Good for productivity and the environment.

There is a market for ride shares in Ontario. It’s located in the craigslist “rideshare” section. After a short span of studying you can find the market price of various destinations. Ottawa to Toronto: 25$, Ottawa to Montreal: 15$.

There is simply no comparison. Bus and train service is inferior. Ride sharing is a faster, cheaper and more interesting way to do an otherwise tedious and expensive commute from from city to city. From your school to your home with your family.

Let’s just take a look at the options shall we? (see: Murder of Tim Mclean)

A non-refundable round trip aboard the greyhound costs me 170$ plus tax. Compare that to a combination of ride shares and a short greyhound from Toronto to Guelph with my old Student ID (hehe), and a round trip costs me $70. Thats $100 in my pocket that, and time in my life that I don’t have to sit on the greyhound.

And I won’t have a psycho cut my head off.