Could you live on $35 a day?

[semaphore]

AU$18 US$19 EU14.50. (for single students)

Easily. My current daily food budget consists of 1x instant noodle (=$1), 2x instant coffee (=$1), some shortbreads (=$1) and some strawberries (=$1.5), to the tune of ~$5.

...I should probably do something about that.

[Kasierith]

Easily. My current daily food budget consists of 1x instant noodle (=$1), 2x instant coffee (=$1), some shortbreads (=$1) and some strawberries (=$1.5).

...I should probably do something about that.

I can't eat ramen, at all... feel very sick halfway through eating one. Maybe its a cultural thing.. not used to having overwhelming amounts of sodium at once.

[Rukentuts]

This is the internet man, no updating, it didnt happen.

My ride yesterday is actually uploaded on the internet. Just...not here >_>

I just keep that shit private because it's mapped with my GPS bike computer and I don't necessarily like the idea of throwing my home / work location and the routes and times I take out to every internet stranger.

[Ichifails]

No, not if you count electric, water, gas, etc...

Actually I have no idea how much stuffs costs over there so my post doesn't mean anything...sorry.

Are you bloody insane... the minimum wager for my country is 210$... that's 7$ a day (14$ for 2 working people) and I know a lot of them that live off that and also have children.
Food is as (if not more) expensive as other countries.
36.75$ /day for 30 days = 1102$/month = 6.88$ for a normal working hour.

The MEDIAN wager in my country is 3.2$/hour(6.4$ for a family). That sounds like what the median citizen makes here... and they get that without working. You get to that point if you are lucky here so most people will live off far less for almost their entire life.

[Rukentuts]

I can't eat ramen, at all... feel very sick halfway through eating one. Maybe its a cultural thing.. not used to having overwhelming amounts of sodium at once.

Do / did kids at your school have a weird obsession with dumping their ramen in the drinking fountain? That alone made me move out of that dorm; was fucking disgusting to look at much less try and get some water.

[Kasierith]

Do / did kids at your school have a weird obsession with dumping their ramen in the drinking fountain? That alone made me move out of that dorm; was fucking disgusting to look at much less try and get some water.

.....please don't reawaken horrible memories.... my freshman year had quite a few factors in it that made it hell for anyone with OCD.

[Kurioxan]

Easily. My current daily food budget consists of 1x instant noodle (=$1), 2x instant coffee (=$1), some shortbreads (=$1) and some strawberries (=$1.5), to the tune of ~$5.

...I should probably do something about that.

As a person studying nutritionist theory that just made me cringe a bit, as a person who loves to cook and make good food, it made me cry :P
you poor poor thing, makes me wanna get to your place and cook you some good food

---------- Post added 2013-01-03 at 04:25 PM ----------

I can't eat ramen, at all... feel very sick halfway through eating one. Maybe its a cultural thing.. not used to having overwhelming amounts of sodium at once.

I also cook some mean ramen :P
Pot noodles are awful though yes, but real ramen is yum.

[Xanjori]

Easily. My current daily food budget consists of 1x instant noodle (=$1), 2x instant coffee (=$1), some shortbreads (=$1) and some strawberries (=$1.5), to the tune of ~$5.

...I should probably do something about that.

Just add beans on toast, beans on toast cures all things.

[Deleted]

AU$35 US$36.75 EU27.90 (EDIT: for families)

AU$18 US$19 EU14.50. (for single students)


FULL STORY (sorry it isn't the official report but it stats the facts well enough)

Recently in Australia there was an all around reduction change to welfare benefits in which parents were set up to lose up to AU$110 in child payments when the child hits 8, this plan is to get back the employment. The base payment to "newstart" has been reduced so that a person out of work would be left with $35 a day to live which includes everything the person needs to live.

The government has admitted living on this would be difficult but again stated it's designed to get people into the work force which can be very difficult here. The story is about a government official saying she could live on $35 a day. She current earns ~$6300 a week, 25 times the amount she thinks she could live on.

I was wondering how this would be possible with the other currencies and could you live for several years on these payments.

P.S Story is a few days old but search found nothing so sorry if it's been posted before.

EDITED: to include single people because I didn't factor in this is mmo

I'd just barely scrape by with that as a student in Sweden. I would be eating really cheap stuff and would have to go around in second hand stores for clothes though. I do think that we have slightly higher expenses here than in au so doesn't seem 'that' unreasonable but it wouldn't be a happy life either.

[semaphore]

I can't eat ramen, at all... feel very sick halfway through eating one. Maybe its a cultural thing.. not used to having overwhelming amounts of sodium at once.

I guess I'm more tolerant of that. Though what I like are those imported Asian noodles that our supermarket sells; the flavouring tastes a lot better. Compared to the local brands that seems to be basically salt plus even more salt and some disgusting synthesised chicken.

Cooking it in a frying pan and eating it like fried noodle also works

[Deleted]

If you exclude rent charges, then you could definitely exist on £35 a day, but I wouldn't call it living.

If you include rent (£700 per month / 23.33 per day) though, you would need to claim some sort of benefits to help out.

[Kaneth]

Well, $35 per day is roughly 12,775 per year or 1064 per month, if you go by total days in the year and not just working days. Here in the states, a single person with extremely frugal living could probably get by. A lot of it depends on where you live. Getting only 1064 per month pretty well negates you from home ownership or even buying a car (you could probably buy a beater that's going to cost you more in repairs), so then you're limited in places you can live. If you didn't need a job (aka the 1064 was your only income), then you could live in a rural area and rent a place for about 400 per month. Leaving 600 per month for various expenses, which is actually pretty doable.

However, a completely single person in the states isn't going to qualify for welfare (again depends on where you live). So, you have to factor in having a child. So, you get 1064 per month to help supplement the income. So, if you can get a job at about $7.45 (which I believe is minimum wage here), then you make roughly 15,500 per year. Couple that with the nearly 13k per year from assistance and you're at around 28k per year (this is all gross no taxes/benefits taken out). For the sake of the argument, let's say you live in a one bedroom apartment, and you give the room to your child while you sleep on the couch. A place in a decent area (mostly crime free) will run you around $600 per month. So about 7,200 per month. What's going to kill your expenses is child care. In the district my daughter goes to, the before and after school program runs around $17 per day so 85 per week roughly. That's not too horrible for child care. Except for the days when school is closed or they are off for the summer. Then child care will roughly cost you 30 per day or $150 per week. So, 400-600 per month for child care seems like a pretty fair assessment. So 3200 for 8 months in school and 2400 for the 4 months they are not in school, so like 5600. So this brings us down to roughly 15k left for the year. Gotta figure in grocery, and eating mostly healthy since you have a child, will probably run 300 per month (maybe less depending on what you get). So this brings us down to about 12k left for the year. Which will need to cover bills, clothes, medical expenses, a little fun time, etc. Completely just estimating costs given prices of stuff in my area (town in a metro area, but just rural enough to not be completely overpriced with decent job opportunities in town so you don't have to have a car).

It's probably doable. It would be really tight, and you would have to be creative as all get out, but it's mostly doable. Of course, you'd have to find a job that's M-F with daytime hours, which can be tough if you're in a situation where you need welfare. Sadly, any major economic emergency (job loss, food costs hyper-inflating, additional child care costs, emergency medical bills) would result in you going into a dire situation. If it was just me and my daughter placed in that type of a situation, I know I could do it, but I would hate life and I would hate that my child would have to go through something like that. Which makes me super grateful that my wife and I work in a field that was mostly recession proof (medical field). However, I have an contingency plan if either were to lose our jobs for any reason, which basically consists of cutting any and all luxury costs (aka netflix, multiple mmo accounts, etc).

[Kurioxan]

Do / did kids at your school have a weird obsession with dumping their ramen in the drinking fountain? That alone made me move out of that dorm; was fucking disgusting to look at much less try and get some water.

Oh good, it makes me remember the smell of fermenting rice that idiots dumped down the sink and stayed there for the weekend, everything you learn at college you can learn at home, expect one thing, how fcking disgusting some people are.

[semaphore]

As a person studying nutritionist theory that just made me cringe a bit, as a person who loves to cook and make good food, it made me cry :P
you poor poor thing, makes me wanna get to your place and cook you some good food

But... there's strawberries! That's healthy right

[Rukentuts]

.....please don't reawaken horrible memories.... my freshman year had quite a few factors in it that made it hell for anyone with OCD.

That was freshman and sophomore year until I moved out. I don't know what the fucking obsession is with dumping shit in a drinking fountain...I still see gum in some on occasion.

[Kasierith]

I guess I'm more tolerant of that. Though what I like are those imported Asian noodles that our supermarket sells; the flavouring tastes a lot better. Compared to the local brands that seems to be basically salt plus even more salt and some disgusting synthesised chicken.

Cooking it in a frying pan and eating it like fried noodle also works

I've tried those before as well, but I dunno.... instant food just doesn't sit with me well.

But... there's strawberries! That's healthy right

I had a sudden image of you pouring tons of sugar on them, to remove their healthiness out of spite

[Rukentuts]

not used to having overwhelming amounts of sodium at once.

I'll have two packets of soy sauce!

Plus, I have to salt my fries. The increased blood pressure must help push the fat through my arteries.

I had a sudden image of you pouring tons of sugar on them, to remove their healthiness out of spite

We just dip them in liquid chocolate.

[Reeve]

That was freshman and sophomore year until I moved out. I don't know what the fucking obsession is with dumping shit in a drinking fountain...I still see gum in some on occasion.

In my freshman dorm, someone decided it would be cute to take his feces and smear it all over the walls of the communal bathroom.

[Rukentuts]

In my freshman dorm, someone decided it would be cute to take his feces and smear it all over the walls of the communal bathroom.

We had someone take a shit outside our neighbors door.

My only crime was: once after a feud about his loud ass music my neighbor left his rotten milk outside my door. So I took it and dumped it outside of his.

[Reeve]

I can't eat ramen, at all... feel very sick halfway through eating one. Maybe its a cultural thing.. not used to having overwhelming amounts of sodium at once.

I eat ridiculous quantities of sodium. Pretty much everything I eat has to be salted. Somehow I still have really good blood pressure.