52 April 6, 2008 THE SUN-HERALD 53

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EXTRA EXTRA
Cut up your credit
On your bike. Walk Cut your energy card. Use cash Make a budget and
to the shops, ride bills by a quarter. instead and you’ll consider where you Visit the library for
your bike to work Open the window, become much can save. Are your books, buy
and use public line-dry clothes, more careful. pay TV and household items at
transport for one turn off lights. internet packages garage sales, try
month. Then costing too much? op-shops for ‘‘new
consider whether Libraries have free clothes’’.
you really need a internet. Consider
gym membership. a prepaid account.

Pay bills by direct

debit, then take
out only the cash
you need for food Keep a price book.
and transport. Prices vary
dramatically.
Asian
supermarkets do
good deals, so
make a monthly
trip and do without Careful with
if you run out. quantities. Buy
half as many
bananas and buy
veggies with
staying power:
Grow your own. cabbage, carrots,
BYO at work. Easy Lettuce, herbs, pumpkins and Plan a weekly
to fritter away spinach and beans Eat more veggies. beans last longer. menu and buy only
$50 on lunches are easy to grow Be sparing with what you need. If
and coffees, right? and attractive in meat and try lentils you run out, tap
Pack up leftovers the garden. and beans instead. Buy generic. You the pantry.
for lunch, and keep Use frozen veggies can’t tell the Reward yourself,
dried fruit and and buy fresh only difference with but carefully. Buy
nuts in snap-lock in season. staples. good cheese on
bags. ‘‘quick sale’’.

Tryingtoliveon$100aweek
W
ith my Next day, at a free barbecue DAY DAY video shop is cheaper for email than leftover lentil soup for lunch. Break and assorted vegies dying in bottom
mortgage
payments up
>IN FOCUS lunch at a church in Wollongong,
there’s Tanya, another 50-year- 0 Sunday 2 Tuesday
the library. Spend $4 for four hours
on the internet and spend an hour
vow not to use car and drive five
minutes to shops to top up groceries.
of fridge. Needs parmesan cheese.
Resort to barbecue sauce instead.
by almost
$300 a
old divorcee who once lived on
lattes, smoked salmon and Spend $140 on hosting Easter Another trip to Sydney – groan.
in the library reading
newspapers. Search through ‘Shaun’s Spend $1.25 on chick peas plus $2.60
for two tomatoes, an onion and garlic.
Make plans to spend evening at a
short film festival. Put $5 in the car

ERIN O’DWYER decided to slash

month, and a prosciutto. She would like to try Sunday barbecue. Return peak-hour ticket will set me books, CDs and DVDs but too Stop into bottle shop for wine tasting; and spend $5 on a ticket. Boyfriend
tank of petrol
worth about $15 extra, I set
the Wednesday lunch at the
community centre but cannot
Spend $70 at deli fruit shop to
buy salad greens, strawberries and
back $17.20 so catch lift with a friend.
Ditch usual breakfast on the run
boring to mention. Leave
empty-handed.
lived on try a $20 pinot noir from WA. Politely
refuse to buy and leave store empty-
spends $3 of my money on a program
and looks sheepish. I tell him he has
myself a challenge. To live on
$100 for one week.
her spending but found the afford the $2.50 round train trip.
She allocates $10 to transport
gourmet snags, crackers, cheeses
and dips.
and eat porridge, yoghurt and
sultanas at home.
Spend $23 on groceries –
staples like rice and couscous soup kitchen handed. Stop by video store to check
out weekly rentals. Cheapest DVD is
to pay me back. Feel like a cheapskate.
Film quality is questionable. Leave
True, it might be an artificial
experiment. I have a pantry full of reality of scrimping every day and $45 to food from her weekly
pension. She tries to eat well, and
Spend another $70 on wine,
beer, bread rolls and a hot chicken.
‘‘Paper bag’’ my lunch too. Eat it
with said friend at eastern suburbs
plus watermelon, bananas
and a few vegies. Splurge on handouts for
$4.40. Go home to check out TV guide.
At home, turn one large pumpkin
at intermission and drive home.
Park by the beach to watch the
food and shell out hundreds of avoids the sausages served up Leftovers fill a few takeaway cafe. Scramble enough change for a salmon roe dip ($3.60). into two meals and vegie burgers with passing storm. Better than anything
dollars each month on essentials
such as phone, electricity and
tough and the novelty of today.
How does she do it? A
containers. Hope it might carry me
over into the week. Demolish half
coffee ($3) and surreptitiously eat my
lunch at the table. Strawberries, salad
Choose home-brand kidney
beans and go without OJ. Visit 10 years.’ kidney beans and couscous and sage
(again) from garden. Dishwasher is
on TV.
Total: $14.90
insurance. Then there is gym
membership, the odd pedicure hunting down free food 300-gram kangaroo steak
makes three lunches – a
for dinner.
Take $100 out of bank and vow to
and half a vegie burger – the last of
the barbecue leftovers.
bottle shop for cheap red (two
bottles at $6.50 each). Entire trip
broken but can’t afford repairs.
A friend drops round to trim my
Remaining: $1.40

and new-release DVDs. 100-gram portion served with live on this for the rest of the week. Arrive home starving. Find stale takes four hours. Realise living garden hedges. Can’t afford to buy
But with almost every quickly wore off. home-grown lettuce and basil corn crackers in pantry and eat with cheaply is time-consuming. him even a six-pack of beer. Offer him
DAY

acquaintance experiencing some

kind of financial stress, I decide
leaves. Dinner is a cup of lentils
and some frozen steamed
DAY remaining fetta cheese.
Make chicken broth for dinner. Add
For dinner, add chopped carrot,
mushrooms and lentils to last of
Feel guilty when I think what I
usually live on. Realise living cheaply
my $6.50 red. We enjoy it in the sun.
Friday night too boring to mention.
7 Sunday
to make it as real as possible and
start by cancelling my
regularly sees up to 80 people.
Others work in the centre’s
suburbs and lived the high life in
an inner-city terrace.
vegies. A container of soy milk
lasts two weeks, as does a tub of
1 Monday half an old capsicum for flavour, plus
herbs. Shopping must occur soon (and
chicken soup.
Total: $45.60
can be humiliating.
Go home via newsagent. Choose
Realise only way to save money is not
to do anything.
Can’t afford a newspaper or a coffee.
Can barely afford to call my mother.
newspaper subscription and gym garden to reduce their food bill Now in their 50s, divorced, yoghurt. Blow the budget on a trip to Sydney. I’m out of toilet paper!). Remaining: $28.90 cheapest birthday card for my sister Total: $3.85 Turn nose up at speckled brown
membership. Then plan a weekly with free vegies. penniless and struggling with ‘‘What I really miss is a flat Spend $15 on petrol plus $7.50 in Total: $3 ($2.95 + 50 cent stamp) and one Remaining: $15.70 bananas and plunder the freezer for
menu and a few nights out. (It Robyn listens patiently to my chronic fatigue syndrome, they white,’’ she says. ‘‘Well actually, tolls. Vow not to use car again. Remaining: $74.50 DAY newspaper ($1.30). old bread rolls for breakfast.
turns out one is the limit.) project, then sets me another live in Housing Commission units a decaf soy flat white.’’ Food is taken care of, thanks to Spend afternoon looking forward DAY Barbecue home-made vegie
Next, commit to text
messages and local calls, email
challenge – come and talk to
people who really live on $100 a
and survive on a weekly pension
of $259. They are well-spoken,
Then out come Julie’s words
again: ‘‘But I’m the happiest I’ve
brunch with a friend who spares no
expense. I dig into eggs benedict,
DAY 4 Thursday to $6 roast advertised at local workers’
club. Arrive to find cheapest meal on
6 Saturday
burgers for lunch and serve with
brown rice, yoghurt (very dodgy by
from internet cafes, take fewer
showers and drink cheaper wine.
week. They don’t eat three meals
a day and they don’t go out.
wear fresh lipstick and are well
dressed (in op-shop clothes).
ever been,’’ Tanya says.
‘‘Because life is simple.’’
home-made quiche and a fruit
platter loaded with lychees, starfruit
3 Wednesday Bypass regular cafe breakfast and
make scrambled eggs with tomatoes,
the blackboard special is $17. Walk
out, embarrassed. Go home and make Plan to blitz garage sale for new wine
now) and (very small) chicken breast
hiding at back of the freezer. Save
First, I ask my local purveyor of On Wednesday, I do just that, ‘‘When I think how I used to live That day, my $100 seemed and pineapple. Buy day-old croissant ($1). mushrooms and sage from garden. giant pot of sweet potato and lentil glasses but wake up too late. Spend leftovers for dinner. Vow never to cook
fine wines for his advice. taking the train and walking. It’s in Sydney,’’ Julie says. ‘‘I used to shockingly luxurious. But by An out-of-town friend springs for Buy day pass from railway station Take train ($4.60) to Wollongong for soup for dinner. Add spinach from the morning at the beach instead (it’s free!) anything with pumpkin again.
(Everyone has a vice.) He a 20-minute round trip in the car, be up there and now I’m down week’s end there is nothing left in two bottles of champagne. It’s the ($4.60) and take train two stops for free barbecue lunch at Lighthouse garden. Watch free-to-air TV. Get Splurge on chocolate croissant ($2) and Plan to hang out at pub in afternoon
recommends $6.50 De Bortoli but a two-hour return journey here. It was very hard to come the fridge. best I eat all week. free lunch at community centre. Church. There is seafood salad, a frustrated by ads and go to bed early. newspaper ($2.30). Can’t afford coffee. and listen to a touring US blues band
Cabernet Sauvignon. I usually using public transport. here the first time.’’ Living on $100 is tough but not Scrounge fridge for dinner. Sit down beside Julie and Carole, Greek salad, chicken patties and Total: $9.35 Make plunger-full at home and sit on but can’t afford beer ($2.80) or pool
spend more than twice that, but Nervously, I walk in and queue What does she miss most? impossible. It’s a challenge Leftover chicken and salad on two divorcees on disability support sausage sandwiches donated by the Remaining: $19.55 veranda – happy days. table ($3) so stay home.
discover it’s actually not bad. for soup alongside elderly Manicures and pedicures are making food last and exciting to toasted bread rolls. Am extremely pensions who survive on $259 a congregation. I’m too embarrassed to Eat leftover pumpkin curry for Drink tea and read a book on
Really. pensioners and young mums. equal first. Then shopping and hunt out freebies, but if you love careful with the fetta cheese and week. Swallow my pride to join them whip out my laptop to use church’s DAY lunch. Spend the afternoon walking veranda. Check wallet. Have $1.40 in
On to my community centre. Next to me is Carole, a former eating out. She can’t afford a car eating out and enjoy a nice bottle return the chicken carcass to the and 80 other elderly pensioners for free wi-fi hot spot. Meet Shaun, who along the headland. Ignore craving change left. Check cupboards.
The manager, Robyn, puts on a
free three-course meal once a
nurse who once lived in a five-
bedroom home in Wollongong.
or a credit card. ‘‘But you know,’’
she pauses and smiles, ‘‘I’m
of wine, think again.
My aim for next week? Take
fridge. Tomorrow there will be
chicken broth.
minestrone soup; salad, a sausage, a
chicken kebab and ice-cream for
tells me he lived on soup kitchen
handouts for 10 years. Tanya, another
5 Friday for hot chips.
Have forgotten to remove vegie
Almost bare. Thank goodness
tomorrow is Monday.
week. She started 12 months ago Her friend Julie once ran a actually happy. I don’t worry out $150 – no ifs or buts. And I Total: $22.50 dessert. Carole gives me a lift to divorcee, tells me she spends $45 a Water melon with (very questionable) burgers from freezer. Make Moroccan Total: zero
with 20 people. Now she business in Sydney’s eastern about all that extra stuff.’’ actually think I can do it. Remaining: $77.50 shopping centre. Julie tells me the week on food. yoghurt for breakfast. Two plates of feast from couscous in the cupboard Remaining: $1.40
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