Living Largely on the Cheap

This is actually the fraternity crest.

Look, it is brilliant. During ‘rush’ week at a local college, go set up your own tent to try to get people to join your ‘frat’ or ’sorority’. Once they have joined up (the fraternity that I started is called Alpha Beta Soup), you can start charging dues and a process that is like hazing, but you don’t call it hazing so you won’t get in trouble with the police.

You really don’t have to be in a college or university to start one of these things. Really, anyone can do it. If you feel strange about trying to get kids half your age to join, start an office fraternity. That is something I just made up, but is sounds great. You could all even live together and have fun events after office hours.

The main reason why you would want to try this, of course, is to get the money that the dues provide. I would say $400 a semester would be a decent start, more if you provide housing. You tell the ‘pledges’ this money is going to great activities. If you are in an office setting, $50 every paycheck would probably be sufficient. Unless you work for AIG, those bailout junkies can afford at least a grand a paycheck. Once you get enough people to join, you probably could even stop working. There is some frankly (tongue firmly in cheek) fantastic advice out there for keeping a great frat or sorority going, so I won’t get into that too much.

Besides getting people to pledge to your Greek organization, once you have some members, they will probably expect to be housed somewhere. If you don’t want to get into this, you can just say that the house is “under construction” and it will take at least 5 years to complete, then hand them a tent to pitch. If they give you a rough time about it, scold them for holding up brotherly or sisterly bonding.

The main priorities of frats and sororities are drinking, hazing, and promiscuous interpersonal relations. Well, even if that isn’t the main priority of most real Greeks, it could be for yours. Make sure there is plenty of alcohol on hand at all times for said activities. However, as you are in this venture to look good and save money, tell the ‘littles’ to pay for it as ‘initiation rites’. Remember, these new members have no idea how your organization runs, so you can make up whatever you want as you go along. Half of the fun of starting an organization such as this is creating slogans and t-shirts. Here is the slogan that I ran on Alpha Beta Soup’s most recent rush shirts:

Mm Mm Good! Get a taste of the good life: Alpha Beta Soup

Catchy and mouthwatering, no?

But, why stop there? There are many opportunities to make even more money by selling all that cheesy merchandise that Greeks have. License plates, shirts, bobble heads of the President (you).

I especially think a branded paddle is essential to any Greek organization.