Money, money, money...

[beautifultyrant]

Update, dunno how brief I'll end up being. But I am now, finally, settled into Canada. I found a place at the end of last week and moved in on Friday. It's actually right at Yonge and Bloor on top of the Marriott. One might ask how a poor, starving student can afford such posh accommodations, but I am now not only just a poor student, but I am a

Comments

[kisekileia]

I'm assuming $20/day is not including bills?

[beautifultyrant]

The only bill I have is internet and, possibly cable. I'm including that in my rent. I haven't yet figured out if I can get/afford a cell phone. I need a phone, but I possibly cannot afford it and can live off of email. We'll see.

[kisekileia]

Skype lets you do outbound calls to regular phone lines for $3 per month. My phone (a cell) doesn't really work in my (basement) apartment, so I pay the $3 per month so I can use Skype to make outbound calls from home, and then check my cell voicemail/make cell calls when I'm outside.

[mario05]

Depending on the service, you could probably check your cell VM from Skype as well (with both providers I've had, you could call your own number and hit either * or # to enter your code and listen to VM) - not sure if that's true for Canadian providers or not.

[unclesully]

wow, budget fun, good luck!

Is The Vegetarium still running at The International Student House? You could eat really well there for hella-cheap on campus.

[crumblingredsky]

Ah, welcome to being broke, yes, yes. It can be fun, i mean, less nauseating. You start to get really excited at good deals and bargains.

[kisekileia]

Oh...if you need any household goods (which you may not given that you're in a hotel), I suggest Honest Ed's. I got some great deals, including a set of 24 glasses for $10, when I was buying kitchen stuff.

Also, groceries-wise, you will get the most food for your money if you buy your food as close to its raw state as possible. That necessitates plenty of cooking on your part, though. I'm too lazy to do as much of that as I probably should.

You could consider changing your budget to $150/week instead of $20/day. That would give you a slightly larger amount of money to spend and much more flexibility on when to spend it.

[beautifultyrant]

Not technically in a hotel, just the apartments above it, but yes, it's fully furnished, so I don't really have to buy stuff, thankfully.

As for groceries, yeah, I don't mind cooking, but even getting stuff in it's raw state (chicken, produce, any meat other than pork) tends to be very expensive. I need to learn how to do this juggling thing.

As for the 150 a week suggestion? I actually like it. I might end up changing my thinking over to that way instead of 20 a day. Still debating, but it's a great suggestion. Thank you!

[ruadhnait_aoife]

I'm sorry I missed the part where you can't cook at home?? huh?! WHY!?