$30 a week: How to eat on a supertight budget.

I think one universal reality for students is the fact that life is just expensive. Most students find balancing both a decently paying job and full-time studies at university a pretty intense venture, students usually end up cutting a lot of corners – the first being the quality and variety of food that we put in our bodies. Another reality is that most students can’t cook. No, hot pockets or frozen pizzas don’t count (who knew a stovetop was so daunting?). Takeout dinners or fast food become the norm, and is usually the priciest option!

Have faith my troubled and financially starved reader, there is an answer i.e. cooking at home. While the prospect of turning on the stove and chopping some vegetables seems daunting, the idea of coming home after a long day of work or study and then preparing a meal is positively ludicrous. And on top of that, you have to go to a grocery store and get absolutely robbed by expensive produce/meat. The cereal aisle or McDonalds looks pretty good right about now.
But! There are both cheap and tasty options that don’t require too much time or preparation, if one is willing to look.

In Sydney, you’ll probably find straight away that prices in this country border upon extortion (although people do make more money). I bought a pack of gum at the airport so I could get some change and was charged $2.90. Ouch. Same business at the grocery stores – basic amenities costing double what they would go for back in Canada. So what does one do? Well, as we (my housemates and I) found out, you get a 10% discount if you show your student card at the grocery store near the university*. Also, another pretty cool place near the school and in the center of the city is called Paddy’s Market. This little place, located inside Chinatown, is where a student on a tight budget can get really good local produce for substantially cheaper than outside. There are probably cheaper locations in Sydney, but for our purposes it’s great. Plus, the benefit of it being a market is that you can often haggle for goods and be reasonable guaranteed of its quality since it’s all locally sourced.
We managed to pickup a decent amount of fresh fruits that we’ve been blending into nice fruit smoothies with and drinking everyday. Which brings up another pretty useful way of cutting down costs for the average student(s) – splitting the bill. If a house shares the load with regard to groceries, you will find that a $200 grocery bill split 6 ways amounts to $35 a head, which can usually last you a very long time, if you buy the right stuff. Although this could turn into a pretty ridiculous rant about how food culture in North America is ruining the lives of people who develop bad habits and end up ruining their health, I’ll avoid preaching and just end off by saying that even in a ridiculous expensive city, if you know how to cook and know what to get, you can eat a pretty decent/tight budget, and eat well.
Here are some pictures of Paddy’s Market which is a 30 minute walk from my apartment.
My apartment:

To Paddy's Market!

And here was our "splurge" and we bought some delicious Tasmanian Salmon, with recipe courtesy of Curtis Stone.
*This was later discovered to be a myth that the evil grocery chain Coles used to lure us into their den of evil.