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People
who do not earn US dollars,
Euros or any other currency stronger than the
Australian dollar might find Australian living costs
higher than in their own countries. Food, public
transport, clothes and entertainment are a large
percentage of a student’s budget. Here are some
hints on how to save money and get the best value
without scarifying quality of life.
Always
buy food in large supermarkets
who due to competition, tend to offer better prices.
Every week, supermarket brochures with the weekly
promotions are left in your letterbox or distributed
inside newspapers. Smaller convenience stores usually have higher prices and
should only be used in emergency cases. Take your
lunch from home as eating in a restaurant is at
least twice as expensive than cooking at home. You
will save a lot if you buy your food in the
supermarket and prepare it yourself to take to
school. If you eat a lot of the same product for
example rice, it is worthwhile buying large
quantities and stock it. One kilo of rice costs
approximately AUD 2.50 but goes down to AUD
1.00 per kilo in 10 kilo bags. The same happens to
butter or cheese when 1 kg portions would be
proportionately cheaper than 250 g portions. Avoid
buying prepared salads as they would cost at least
20% more expensive than buying the vegetables and
preparing the salad at home. If you buy a whole
piece of rump (approximately 6kg of beef) you can
freeze it and use it for barbeques, mince, steaks,
stews and even roasts saving up to 40%. The meat
kept frozen properly can last up to 3 months in
perfect condition. But if you like roast chicken it
is best buying the already roasted ones at the
supermarket as they are only a little more expensive
than the uncooked ones.
Public
Transport is expensive but
you can save buying Passes valid for 1 day, 1 week,
1 month or even 1 year. The longer the pass is valid
for the bigger will be the savings. Some cities
offer passes covering transport in buses,
trains/subways or boats which means that with a
weekly pass you would be able to catch any type of
transport, anywhere, anytime at no extra cost. You
can buy transport passes in the bus, train/subway
stations and also information booths. Taxis are
expensive and should only be used when you have no
other option. If you do not go too far from your
home the best option is to buy a second hand bicycle
and use your legs to get fit. Thousands of
Australians ride bicycles everyday to go to work or
school and with the bike-lanes in all cities it is a
healthy and cheap way of transport. You can also
take your bike with you in the trains if moving from
one city to another, for example from the Gold Coast
to Brisbane.
If
you are not careful,
the telephone might turn into the villain of the
story, especially the mobile phone. Local calls in
Australia are billed per call not taking into
account the length of the call. You can call in the
same town for approximately AUD 0.30 per call and
talk as long as you want. The same does not happen
with long distant calls, between different towns,
regions, states or countries when the call is
charged by the minute adding to every cal a
connection fee of approximately AUD 0.30 per call.
Mobile phone calls are billed per minute and the
tariff depends on the time of the day you make the
call. Mobile phones should be used only to make
short calls, emergencies and to receive calls
(free). Even receiving messages cost you something
and it is not rare people getting bills of AUD 700 a
month for their mobiles. It is very affordable to
buy the telephone and each phone is locked with the
company you bought it from.
Before you buy a mobile phone check with the
sales person which type of phone and program is
better for your needs.
Note:
Telephone Cards are the cheaper option for
international calls. With one AUD 10 card, you can
talk to Rio for approximately 2 hours and 20 minutes
and for USA and Canada much more. Keep in mind that
making 6 calls of 10 minutes cost more than 1 call
of 1 hour as for every call a connection fee will be
charged. There are several different telephone cards
offering different prices and discounts between
different cities and countries. Ozcall, Daybreak and
Gotalk phone cards offer calls to distant countries
for about 2 ½ cents a minute. You can buy the cards
for AUD 10, AUD 20 or AUD50 and use them from your
home phone and also public phones.
Entertainment,
restaurants and alcohol can make a big hole in your
budget. Depending on the bar or restaurant beer can
cost from AUD 2.50 up to AUD 5.00 but if you buy a
carton of beer at the bottle shop you would pay
about AUD 1.00 per bottle or can.
If you smoke the best is to stop unless you
are prepared to pay as much as AUD 10 for a packet
of 20 cigarettes. For those who like to surf buying
a second hand surfboards can save you a lot of money
as you can find second hand boards in very good
condition for half the price of a new one. Usually
it is better to buy new wet suits.
You
will get a Student Card from the school you are
enrolled in, free of charge, and would need an
International Student Cards only for discounts. If
you intend to travel in Australia the cheapest way
is to buy the tickets during promotional offers and
travel out of school holidays. Airlines often offer
cheaper fares on the Internet where you can use you
international credit card for payment online.
Factory
outlets selling clothes with small defects or last
season models in most big cities are a good way to
get quality cheaper. On the Gold Coast
Outlet shops as Billabong, Rip Curl and other
famous clothes shops, offer good savings.
There
are 1001
different ways of saving money while in Australia
and we exposed only the most important ones. Check
our Costs page for more details on prices and living
costs for every Australian city. Check also prices
of Courses in Australia in our Course
Guide.
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Important
Notice: yesaustralia.com has changed in January
2007 into a newer and more comprehensive
website www.portaloceania.com
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