MONEY SAVERS

Surviving Sydney's cost of living.

I have never lived in a location as expensive as Sydney, Australia. Basic groceries were overpriced, restaurants and bars hike up their prices, and even fast food joints were barely affordable. The biggest piece of advice I can give in order to save money is to buy groceries and cook yourself. You simply won’t be able to eat out for every meal if you are staying in Sydney for over two weeks. It just isn’t reasonable. Even though groceries are generally more expensive than in the United States, they go a lot farther than meals eaten out. Pasta and pasta sauce is really cheap and you can buy a large variety of them. Eggs, bread, milk, and any other essentials are typically cheap and can contribute to many, if not all, meals. Obviously, spreads like peanut butter, jelly, and Nutella are cheap and can provide lunch for a while. And of course there are $1 Ramen noodles anywhere you go! At first I avoided meat because I had classified it as expensive, but if you shop for it right, it is affordable. Chicken for $15 may seem like a lot while shopping, but it lasted me an entire week. If I tried to eat chicken out every day for a week, it would be $15 per night.

The main grocery store in Sydney is called Coles. I immediately signed up for their rewards program called “Flybuys” which saved me money almost every time I went shopping. Also, print your receipt (it’s an option) at Coles for coupons at the bottom! Aldi is also popular in Australia and, like in the U.S., offers cheap produce. For any home goods or clothing, Kmart actually came in very handy. Most products were very cheap and fashionable.

If you are looking to eat out, many places offer happy hour meal deals. Although Domino’s offers a $5 pizza, Domino's pizza got old very quickly. It turns out, a place called Fratelli’s offers a $5 pizza between 5 and 7 pm on weekdays. Their pizza was delicious! Many other places have similar offers and occasionally eating out can be affordable if you do the research and find nice prices!

My favorite money saver was with public transportation. On Sundays, your traveling could not exceed $2.50. I took this opportunity to travel to further destinations that required several buses and trains. Instead of costing me $25, it was only $2.50. Overall, bus fares actually do tend to accumulate, so try to walk to everything that is in relative walking distance. I initially took a bus to and from my internship every day and the money caught up fast. I was spending over $25 on buses a week, when I could walk and save the money.