It costs about $3,000 to build a storm cellar. FEMA might pay you back for up to $2,000 of that, but it takes time/effort/qualifying paperwork. You also have to own the land you’re living on, presumably.

Did you win the Powerball on Saturday? You did? Hey, congratulations, that’s super, can I see your ticket? Can I hold it for a second? Thanks!

The rest of you might wish you had listened to the Wall Street Journal on Friday:

The Powerball jackpot is up to $600 million, with a day still to go before tomorrow’s drawing. Which means it’s time once again to ask the question: Is this the rare time where it makes economic sense to buy a lottery ticket?

Spoiler alert: No. No it is not.

Every time there’s a big lottery jackpot you get articles like this to do the dreary math for you. The “expected value” of a $2 ticket is less than $2: the jackpot amount that you’d actually get, multiplied by the probability of winning, is a little under a dollar. (The Journal thinks it’s around $0.85; I get more like $0.98.) A dollar is less than two dollars, so it doesn’t “make economic sense” to buy a ticket.

These articles are always wrong. Or, at least, they make no economic sense. Economics attempts to answer the question: “Is it a good idea for me to do this thing, or would it be better for me not to do this thing?” That is a hard question so a lot of people like to pretend it is equivalent to the much easier question “will I have more money if I do this thing, or will I have less money?” But it isn’t, or at least, it isn’t always. If you buy a sandwich, you will have less money than you do now. Economic reasoning is not about getting more money until you have all the money. Sometimes there are sandwiches.

To decide if you should play the lottery you need to compare the (tiny) chance of winning a giant amount of money, on the one hand, with a dollar, on the other. The simple way to do this is to assume that a one in a million chance of winning a million dollars is “worth” the same as a dollar. But, why?

Among other problems, that assumes that a dollar will do the same amount of good for everyone. It is easy to see that this is wrong. If you give me $5,000, it will in fact make me very happy. If you give Logan $5,000, it will make her much happier. If you give Bill Gates $5,000, it won’t do much for him, probably. He makes that much every 6 seconds. He’s not having a party every 6 seconds.

The more money you have, usually, the less good another dollar will do you: the less “utility” that extra dollar has. One way to express this is to assume that doubling the amount of money someone has always does her the same amount of good, however much money she started with. So $5,000 is “worth” twice as much to someone who started with $5,000 as it is to someone who already had $10,000. Something like this:

Fig. 1

This, as this Slate article from the last big lottery jackpot points out, is a good argument against playing the lottery: because $600 million (or whatever) is worth less than 600 million times as much as $1, spending $1 on a bet to win $600 million is a bad idea.

But that’s still just a rough assumption. If you double the amount of money Logan has, she’ll be happy and all, but I gather she’ll still be in debt and she probably won’t even quit her second job. If you double the amount of money Bill Gates has, that’ll be great, he can cure more malaria and so forth, but his life won’t change much either. But if you double the amount of money I have, big things happen. I can pay off my mortgage! I can take a year off to travel! My day-to-day life actually changes in a way that neither Logan’s nor Bill’s would.

If you win a $600 million Powerball jackpot, even if you have to split it and pay taxes and whatever and only end up with, I don’t know, $70 million, one very important thing happens: you don’t have to work for a living any more. Maybe you already don’t, which is nice for you. But for most people that’s a big deal:

Fig. 2

To be pretentious, although not especially accurate: utility is discontinuous at not having to work for a living.

Other things probably happen too, if you win the Powerball. You can buy a boat or whatever. Maybe a boat is a big deal to you. Something is probably a big deal to you, and if it’s buyable now you can buy it, unless it’s like an aircraft carrier. You can buy love, probably; $600 million is a lot of money.

On the other hand, here you are with a dollar. You could just keep that dollar. How much is that worth to you? I dunno, like, a dollar. A dollar is like a Snickers bar. But it’s not really. Sometimes it happens that a person says “well, I have a dollar, and if I can spend it on the lottery or I can have a Snickers bar, but not both. If I play the lottery, no Snickers for me.”

Wait, the Powerball actually costs $2, but you know what I mean.

But what often happens instead is one of two things. Either you can play the lottery and buy a Snickers bar because you’ve got a bunch of dollars, or money is tight and you weren’t exactly planning to blow your money on Snickers bars anyway before this whole Powerball idea came up.

If you can throw your dollar away on Powerball and still buy all the Snickers you want, how much is that dollar worth to you? If you were going to leave it in the tip jar at the coffee shop, or buy another copy of the Post because you forgot yours at home, how much is it worth to you? Not in dollars—it’s worth a dollar!—but in utility, in things that it will do for your life or that losing it will prevent you from doing. For a lot of people the answer is “a lot.” For a lot of other people the answer is pretty close to “nothing.”

(Oh sure you could skip three $7 lattes every day for a hundred years and thanks to the magic of compound interest you’ll end up with enough to retire on or whatever but I don’t want to hear it. We’re just talking about a dollar here. For the Powerball.)

Calculating “does it make sense to play the lottery” just means weighing the tiny but perceptible benefit from playing the lottery (a very, very, very tiny probability of a very, very big improvement in your life) against the cost—in utility, not dollars—of buying a ticket.

Satisfyingly, this gives a different answer for different people:

1. If winning the jackpot would not materially change your life because you are stonkingly rich, don’t play the lottery, it’s a waste of time.

2. If winning the jackpot would materially change your life because you are a normal person, and throwing away a few dollars every month or so when you notice there’s a big jackpot doesn’t change your life at all because you are financially secure – in other words, if the cost of those few dollars to you in utility is zero – then: play the lottery, why not.

3. If spending a few dollars on the lottery every once in a while would change your life at all—if spending those dollars worries you at all or causes you to cut back on any other necessity or pleasure—then: don’t play the lottery, it’s a waste of money.

Sadly a lot of people who regularly play the lottery fall into category 3. But a lot of people who buy a ticket every once in a while when Powerball gets really big are solidly in category 2. They should keep buying those tickets. They mostly already knew that. An economics that tells them not to is not a real economics.

All of that oversimplifies by leaving out everything but the dollars involved: the pleasure or pain of buying the ticket, dreaming about winning the lottery, checking the numbers, realizing that you didn’t win the lottery, etc. For most people that utility is probably positive, on balance: it’s really fun to daydream about winning the lottery! But for some people the disappointment of losing outweighs the thrill of anticipation.

For those people I can suggest a strategy I once read about, though I can’t remember where. (If you know, tell me!) Here’s what you do:

1. Buy a lottery ticket.
2. Write down the numbers.
3. Destroy the ticket. (I recall the person eating it, though that’s optional.)
4. Wait nervously for the drawing.
5. Check the numbers.
6. Feel an immense wave of relief when you confirm that you didn’t destroy a winning ticket.

This strategy, unlike playing the lottery the normal way, has the advantage that you will almost always “win.” Almost.

Matt Levine writes about the financial industry on the internet at Dealbreaker and sometimes at Planet Money. Sometimes he writes about lotteries. He bought $10 of Powerball tickets on Friday and went back to work again this morning LIKE A CHUMP. Photo: rockinfree

Antonia Crane talks to David Henry Sterry about the sex he’s bought and sold, about his books about other people’s sex, bought and sold, and about how hard it is to find someone who will admit they’ve paid for sex. (“I didn’t realize the enormous stigma attached to the statement to say, ‘Yes, I hire someone to have sex with me.’ Easier to get people to admit they are a ‘whore’ than to get people to admit they hired a whore.”)

Where did your last $240.17 go, William Foster?

OVERALL ALLOCATION

ITEMIZED LIST

$3, large coffee at Oui Presse. Cream, no sugar, to go. $2.50 plus $0.50 tip.

$5.99, 6 oz. center-cut wild Coho salmon, for my cat. ¹

$1, small bag of catnip.

$2.50, one cheese slice at Sizzle Pie. ²

$100, home session with Chanan. ³

$8.48, Chile relleno plate plus one mandarin Jarritos, at a middling but convenient Mexican restaurant.

$57.20, two tickets to Jon Lovitz at Helium Comedy Club. $25 each, plus $7.20 “handling fee.” Funny guy!

$12, two Mirror Pond Pale Ales. $4.50 each plus $3 tip, to fulfill the two-drink minimum.

$50, 90-minute session in a sensory deprivation tank, the following morning.

New York fact that I just learned: Those standalone news stands cannot sell anything for more than $5 before tax. (Another New York fact: The NYT spells it “newsstand” but that double s really bothers me so Billfold Style is to separate the words. Okay. [Mike edit: I prefer newsstand, but will defer to Logan on her own post.]) I would have never bought anything at one of those standalone news stands but I recently made my first purchase from one of those guys who sells fruit on the corner, so I’ll tell you about that.

I walked up to the guy who sells fruit on the corner and I said, “I would like some grapes please.” And he said, “How many grapes?” And I said, “Some,” and then he picked up some and put them on the scale and said, “$6″ and I thought, wow that’s a lot of money for some grapes I think? But maybe it’s just the right amount of money for some grapes. I don’t know really, but I gave him money and took the grapes.

I ate them as I walked and each time I put one in my mouth, I wondered what kind of pesticide I was tasting. Then I was like, Logan, get it together, you are going to die, obviously, but it’s not going to be from eating these DDT seasoned grapes. Probably.

Photo: Raybdbomb

I’ve never lived alone before I moved into my current apartment building in downtown Indianapolis. It’s named after the family of a badass lady doctor, Dr. Mary Spink, who practiced in the city during the 1890s. A relative, George W. Spink, built a series of apartment buildings in the early 1900s and mine, The Spink, was finished in 1926. It’s gorgeous—wide bay windows in each unit and a soaring, white stucco and brick face. I’ve been living here since October, and it’s finally starting to feel like mine.

Last week, I realized almost nothing I have in my apartment is new. I don’t say this because it bothers me—it doesn’t. I think I prefer it. As a lady on staff at a regional alt-weekly, I’m not exactly raking in the big bucks. But I’m debt-free and happy, and although living alone has its low points (no one around to split the electric bill or bottles of wine), I’m really starting to like it.

So here’s the story of my old stuff. It behooves me to say that I’m blessed with an extremely generous family, who’s helped me get on my feet in a variety of ways. Stuff is just stuff, sure, but everything comes with a story.

Couch
Source: Craigslist

I didn’t have any seating inside of my apartment for a few months, and at some point I got pretty tired of dragging my mattress from my bedroom to my living room whenever I needed a place to sit besides the floor. Cue the “Free Stuff” section of Craigslist. Yes, I was worried about bed bugs. But I overcame that fear when I saw a free, almost new couch listed. I called in a few favors, secured a borrowed truck, and hauled a big blue couch down five flights of stairs, and then back up five more into my place.

The Craigslist poster was moving to Spain, where she had recently been hired as the Spanish Olympic women’s synchronized swimming coach. For some reason, as soon as I heard that, I wasn’t worried about bed bugs anymore. The awesomeness of that position erased any lingering fears from my mind. I know everyone learned from that episode of 30 Rock that anyone can get bed bugs. But what can I say? I believe in the magic of synchronized swimming and the cleansing power of chlorine.

Cost: free

Coffee tables (2)
Source: aunt

My aunt has always understood my need to craft. She’s a part-time paralegal and full-time creator, who’s inspired me to craft everything from jewelry, to scrapbooks to quilts. Of course, anything I create is about 25 percent as excellent as what she does. The woman is amazing. She’s also the reason I got busted for running a black market jewelry business in the fifth grade. I’m still unsure why creating custom bead rings was a no-no in elementary school, but I’ve gotten over it.

She just moved with my uncle into a new house, which happens to be a bit smaller. In the process, I acquired a few pieces of furniture from her; namely, a large black coffee table-cum-bookcase, and a smaller, wooden end table that belonged to my uncle’s family.

Cost: free

Rich Lady

Wingback chair
Source: Craigslist

A very fancy person in a very large house listed this beautiful golden wingback chair on Craigslist one day last fall. The moment I saw it, I had to have it. It was exactly like a chair inside of my childhood house. Plus, it was $40! That doesn’t sound so bad to someone with three pieces of furniture to her name. The woman I picked it up from was redecorating. I guess gold is out and florals are in? Gold is always in to me.

Cost: $40

Desk
Source: My paternal grandfather, by way of my aunt and uncle.

During spring break of my sophomore year of college, my uncle dropped off what, to this day, is the most magnificent desk I’ve ever seen. It belonged to my grandfather, who used it while working at the Naval Avionics Warfare Center in Indianapolis in the ’50s. That’s where they developed the Norden bombsight, which allowed American bombers to strike targets from high altitudes. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs had the Norden bombsight. My history major brain practically vibrates with excitement every time I sit down at it. It’s also the closest physical tie I have to my grandfather (besides my blue eyes) who died before I was born.

There’s approximately one million compartments inside. It’s like my own personal Room of Requirement, except it’s a desk, obviously. I’ve hauled it to five separate houses and apartments now; for a while, it was the only storage I had. I can find anything in there: gold spray paint, Polaroid film, bike helmets, tacks, discarded school books, matches, lopsided bowls I made in high school ceramics class. So, not really things I need, per se. But still! It’s all there.

Cost: free

Bikes (2)
Source: Grandmother; mother.

We’re a biking family—my dad rode across the entire country one summer when he was 17 (Side note: I once asked my mother when I was 17 if she would allow me to do the same thing. The walls practically shook with the force of her “NO”.)

I lost my own bike some time my junior year, after I locked it to an icy rack outside the psychology building. One final later and it was gone. Bike thieves are scum.

My grandmother let me have her 1970s Huffy Wild Wood some time the next year. It’s a forest green single-speed cruiser, with a wide, padded seat and a wire basket on the front. Oh, how I loved it. The cruiser—her name is Betty—was perfect for the short commute between my senior year house and my classes. Not exactly perfect for my commute down busy city streets to my current job, however.

So I finally convinced my mother to let me borrow her Trek 730 multi-track. It’s similarly gorgeous, with a green, blue and purple paint job and actual gears, which was a relief to my aching legs. I hate to say it, but it’s just a touch too small. So, at some point in the near future, I may have to invest in another bike. But I’m loving the free ride (ha!) for now.

Cost: $14, for new tubes for my mom’s bike.

Bikes. Desk.

Red and green Oriental-style rug
Source: parent’s house

This rug lived in the entryway of my childhood house. At some point, it became my ailing dog’s favorite place to vomit. It was relegated to the garage the same day we put her to sleep, and after crying a million tears, I snagged it a few months later for my living room. Yes, this is very gross. Yes, I had it cleaned.

Cost: free

Candles: Beeswax, 10” (10)
Source: Locally Grown Gardens

This year-round permanent farmers’ market is my favorite place in the city. It’s run by a chef who drives country roads all summer long in search of the freshest, most delicious local ingredients. He also stocks things he loves dearly, including beeswax candles, French ceramic dishes, and heavy metal heart cookie cutters. I go in nearly weekly for a slice of sugar cream pie.

Cost: $40

Milk glass. Succulents.

Various milk glass containers (9)
Source: Boyfriend’s mother

I had a vision last year (perhaps Pinterest-inspired) of a collection of milk glass containers holding various kinds of succulents. It seemed so clean, so modern, so easy to take care of. I was half right.

My boyfriend’s mother—who, let it be said, is wonderful—understood my vision. For Christmas, she scavenged Goodwills and Salvation Armies for variously sized milk glass vases. I opened them one by one on Christmas Eve, just so excited. I visited home and garden shops a few days later, bought agave, huernia, crassulas, echeverias. I scattered them around my windowsills, gazed upon them lovingly, and promptly fell asleep on my Craigslist couch.

Most of the succulents died. But the milk glass will last forever.

Cost: $40

End table
Source: parent’s house

I ruined my fair share of end tables as a child. I spilled nail polish on one, and nail polish remover on another. In fact, I also spilled nail polish under my mom’s bathroom sink. It’s no wonder my nails have been bare for almost a year—I clearly can’t be trusted to paint my nails responsibly. It is a wonder, however, that my parents entrusted me with one of their end tables for my new place though. So far, it’s polish-free. However, the drawer inside of it is mysteriously filled with dead lightbulbs.

Cost: free

Water buffalo horns. Candles. Typewriter (stolen).

Record player
Source: college roommate

I lived with the same two girls for all four years of college. It’s a wonder we could stand each other by the end. But we more than tolerated each other; we were best friends. I’m still sad when I think about how far I am away from both of them. Right after school ended, one moved to Seattle, and the other to New York City. In the process, I acquired a record player, a few dishes, and lingering sadness I can’t seem to shake about the disappearance of two of my best friends to far-away lands.

Cost: free

Bones (7)
Source: Antique stores all over the country.

Yes, bones. For a few years, my mind couldn’t shake the idea of bones. I needed them. Skulls, antlers, water buffalo horns. I needed bones. I know this is strange and vaguely Portlandia-y. So I started collecting antler sheds from places I traveled. I have vague plans of turning them into a morbid chandelier at some point, but right now they’re scattered around those great big bay windows, where the dead succulents used to live.

Cost: $60

Typewriters (2)
Source: basement, Goodwill

I thought it would be a good idea to collect typewriters. Two typewriters and three moves later, I realized how damn heavy typewriters are. So, my collection stands at two. One I snagged from the basement of the student radio station where I was a director; it’s technically the property of the university I attended. (I won’t tell them if you won’t.) It was completely unusable when I brought it out of the terrifying radio station basement, but, as luck would have it, a man from my childhood church is (was) a typewriter repairman. He spent a month on the thing, but it looks like like the typewriter was doomed to the basement because it’s completely unfixable. Now, it props up some of my bone collection, specifically, an Austin, Texas-sourced deer skull.

Cost: free

The other was an impulse purchase at an area Goodwill some time in the last two years. I’ve actually typed a few things on it. It can last about … seven minutes before jamming up completely. Turns out, seven minutes is exactly long enough to convince anyone that the modern computer keyboard is something to be celebrated daily.

Cost: $4.99

Cat clock.

Personalized cat clock
Source: local artist

The incredibly compelling subject of a story I wrote for the alt-weekly created a personalized maneki-neko wooden clock for me. It’s by far the best thing to come out of a story I’ve worked on. It has a tiny illustration of me inside of it! Forever on my wall.

Cost: one AA battery, approximately 50 cents

Actual cat
Source: Indianapolis Animal Care and Control.

Bruce was an accident. While writing a story about area animal shelters and doing an interview with infamous Internet cat—and Hoosier resident!—Lil Bub, I became a foster mom for two skittish kitties from the city animal shelter. I was a foster mom for about … one week, before I fell irrevocably in love and adopted one. A friend took the other. I’m now in the IACC database as a “failed foster,” which strikes me as hilarious. Best failure ever. I guess I don’t live alone any more.

Cost: Whatever it takes to keep her in litter, food, and health check-ups for the rest of her life. And she’s going to live forever, so she’s my most expensive acquisition thus far.

Bruce.

Katherine Coplen is the music editor of NUVO Newsweekly. She loves Bruce Springsteen and her cat, Bruce, equally.

“What have I learned from Gwyneth’s diet? It’s an awesome way to live! If I wasn’t going to go bankrupt to do it, I would follow the Gwyneth diet to the letter every day.”

Jeff Howe’s story in Money Magazine about the costs associated with caring for a child with special needs is very good and worth reading (his son Finn is diagnosed with cortical vision impairment, autism spectrum disorder, and developmental cognitive disability). The costs and sacrifices Howe and his wife have to make puts a huge strain on their finances and relationship, but they are eventually able to have a thing families in their situation would love to have: more money.

Our version of financial planning at the time was to cross our fingers and hope the checks coming in totaled more than the checks going out. And until recently they had. Alysia now writes essays and memoirs; I teach, and write freelance about business and technology.

In 2006, I coined the term “crowdsourcing” in a feature for Wired magazine. A fat book advance was followed by well-paid speaking engagements and then, in 2009, a Harvard fellowship. I joked that God gave us a lot of money, and a son to spend it on.

In short, our life after the diagnosis was characterized by financial fortune and unending upheaval. We moved three times, enrolled our children in three different daycares, and conferred with nearly a dozen neurologists, pediatricians, dietitians, gastroenterologists, geneticists, and ear, nose, and throat doctors.

Even so, the Howe family doesn’t see the money lasting forever—especially if they’ll be caring for Finn into adulthood as well: “Unless we receive some windfall, our combined savings and the SSI benefit won’t come close to covering the $100,000 a year, in 2012 dollars, it could well take to care for Finn, who will need 24-hour attention, continuous learning, and a way to get to and from wherever he needs to go.”

So far this year I’ve spent almost $1,000 on submission fees, contests, and workshops for my poems and short stories. It’s the cover charge to the slush pile. It’s paying my writing dues.

$15 entry fee, Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers
I’ve been publishing poetry in literary magazines for over two years, but have never published a short story in a print magazine with a circulation over 5,000. That chance—and the possibility of the $1,500 prize—made the $15 worth it.

$12 entry fee, “Discovery”/Boston Review Poetry Contest
Possible prizes included a one-time payment of $250 and a poetry reading at New York’s 92nd Street Y. I didn’t win.

$45 application fee, Djerassi Resident Artists Program
Djerassi is an idyllic Northern California residency program that provides free food and lodging while you truck away at an art project for a month. Attendees include visual artists, choreographers & dancers, and, of course, writers of various genres. A friend told me her mom did a stint at Djerassi years ago and the farmhouse that house most of the writers was incredibly mouse infested. If I get in, I’m responsible for my own airfare, but that seems like a fair trade for a month of uninterrupted writing, rent-free, even with mice afoot.

$40 registration fee (student price), Association of Writers & Writing Programs Annual Conference (AWP).
This year’s conference (my first), was held in Boston, and because I live in the greater Boston area and wouldn’t have to shell out money on a hotel room or a plane ticket, attending was a virtual no-brainer.

$422, Conference Costs
The conference cost me more than $40. I got my first professional haircut in more than 5 years ($65) for fear of looking unkempt among the literati. I then spent two hour-long therapy appointments ($20 co-pay x 2) discussing the networking opportunities that were sure to overwhelm me instantly.

Then the reality of the conference was that I spent most of the long weekend eating out ($105), drinking away my fears ($85), and smoking cigarettes in the cold to avoid social situations ($15 for two packs).

I also spent $52 on books at the book fair, and another $35 on the overdraft fee incurred by poor budgeting. Add on the $25 I put on my Charlie Card to get back and forth to the convention center.

$305 tuition, Grub Street flash fiction workshop.
I got an unexpected bonus at work and decided to spend it on a six-week writing course, hoping to get motivated to write more prose. I am three classes in and am definitely getting my money’s worth—the workshop is intimate, well-paced, and has gotten me writing prose regularly again. I’ll probably sign up for another workshop once the summer session course listings go up.

$5 chapbook submission fee, h_ngm_n press
I’ve self-published five chapbooks of poems since I started seriously writing (if you’re doing a poetry show, people want merch), but I’ve never had an official chapbook put out by a real press. h_ngm_n’s chapbooks are all PDFs available on their website, which I like, because it’s democratic.

$40 application fee, Tin House summer fiction workshop
I applied to this week-long intensive workshop in Portland, Ore. hoping to get in AND get awarded a scholarship so I could attend. I saw it as an alternative to the NYU program I looked into that cost about $10,000 for six weeks of classes (HELL NO, NYU.) Tuition + room and board is about $1,600, not including the $500 in airfare to and from the West Coast. I got into the workshop, but didn’t get a financial aid award.

$__ and My Pride, Summer Writing Excursion
I started an Indiegogo page in the hopes of crowdsourcing my trip to the West Coast. I launched the Indiegogo out of desperation, and I felt pretty gross about having my hand out in order to fund a week-long workshop that costs more than three months of my rent. But the rewards for donation levels—copies of out-of-print chapbooks of my writing, a limited edition book version of the short story that got me into the workshop, and my paintings of ghosts—meant I could make it about selling my art to fund the workshop opportunity instead of just hoping I have generous friends. Creating small pieces of art that I’d feel proud selling to anybody even if it wasn’t for this larger goal made me feel less gross about asking for help.

I don’t expect to make what I need to get to Oregon, but I recently got invited to a private women’s writing retreat in Rochester, N.Y.; it only costs $100 for a long weekend of food, lodging, and writing workshops, so it’s much more manageable than the $1,600 Tin House retreat. Even with transportation to and from Rochester, I project this more intimate option for career advancement will cost less than the airfare to my pipe dream writing intensive.

$6 entry fee, Paper Darts fiction contest
First prize is $800, plus print publication and a special website dedicated to the winning story, as well as illustrations for the winning work. I sent them a story about a girl eating watermelon with a dead man.

$73 for 30 minute hot tub soak and 30 minute massage
My neck is sore from all the time I spend in my desk chair. And compared to the money and labor I’ve invested in my life as a writer, an evening at the spa seems like small potatoes.

Emily O’Neill lives in Somerville, Mass. Her Indiegogo page can be found here.

My boyfriend and I made a big move at the beginning of this year from Los Angeles to Cleveland for a job promotion I received at work. He’d gotten into making ice cream while we were in California—we had even tossed around the idea of starting our own business, but the task was daunting and the costs seemed prohibitive.

Due to the move, we are currently living rent-free with his mom while he looks for employment. Given my salary bump and the lower cost of living, it seemed like a good time to take a risk, so we started Mason’s Creamery, our ice cream business. We decided to target food festivals and farmer’s markets because:

1. The initial costs are lower than it would be to rent a storefront or go the food truck route.
2. It’s about to be summer! People love food festivals and farmer’s markets in the summer, right?
3. That’s pretty much it.

In March, we applied, and somehow finagled our way into an upcoming festival in Cleveland that will happen in May. We were also recently accepted to the downtown Cleveland Farmer’s Market, and will continue to apply to others around the area. This way, we hope to get our name out and eventually segue into something less booth-like. For anyone curious about the costs of starting a very small business, or the costs of a festival (because you love festivals in the summer), here’s the rundown:

Pre-Festival:
- $120, one-time: Business incorporation for the state of Ohio, with which we can now procure our EIN (free of charge!).
- $299/year: Liability insurance—we used Food Insurance Liability Program (FLIP). FLIP covers food vendors at festivals and farmer’s market at a much lower cost than actual food insurers. The $299 we paid is the lowest rate, which is based on sales numbers. Our sales are $0.
- $25, one-time: Transient vendor’s license for the state of Ohio, which will need to be renewed yearly but paid only once.
- $15/every three years: Online food safety course called ServSafe, a national food safety certification.
- $160, one-time: Food vendor license and placard for the city of Cleveland.

Festival (Two Days):
- $640: Festival food both with temporary food permit, which is comprised of $40 for the temporary food permit, $10 for the booth set-up and $590 for…well, we’re not sure, but we paid it. General festivities? This was a lot steeper than we had expected, but the festival had 40,000 people in attendance last year, and we know there were a limited number of ice cream vendors, so it seemed like a good way to debut in Cleveland.
- $50: We need to rent electricity for our freezer.
- $75: We bought a quarte-page ad in the pamphlet the festival will be handing out, because after the first $690, the $75 seemed like a bargain.
- $215: The aforementioned freezer was purchased used from Craigslist. There’s a few rust stains on it, but otherwise it is in good condition. If the ice cream business fails, we will start hoarding food in the freezer for the eventual zombie apocalypse.
- $20/hour: We will be renting a commercial kitchen in preparation for the festival. We’re not sure how long we’ll need, but that’s the going rate.

So far, we’ve spent $1,599, and that’s not counting the actual ingredients for the ice cream we’ve been testing, kitchen rental time, and all the incidental goods we will need to purchase, such as napkins, cones, cups, spoons, business cards, trash bags, etc. Thankfully, someone in my boyfriend’s family has a trailer, which we’ll use to lug around the freezer, and which can easily cost up to $800 for a new one.

We plan on charging $3.50 for one scoop and $5.00 for two small-ish scoops of ice cream at the festival, and hope to break even from that. After the festival on May 18-19, we’d love to come back and provide an update of how much we spent and how much we’ve made.

Helen Qin lives and works in a non-ice-cream-related industry in Cleveland, Ohio. Follow her on Twitter @masonscreamery. In the meantime, Mason’s Creamery can be found in a suburban kitchen in Cleveland, Ohio and at masonscreamery.com. We love and appreciate all advice, criticisms, feedback, at jesse@masonscreamery.com.