How I Maintain a Living From $600 Each Month
And put aside for traveling.
I’ve lost my job during the pandemic, and now I live from my scholarship. To be honest, maintaining a living from $600 goes quite easily for me.
In this article, I’ll share with you how I spend this ridiculously low amount of money and still keep a nice life standard. Welcome to the life of a minimalist.
Or is minimalist simply a synonym for poor?
I live in a shared flat
Rental costs: $390
This is the most important component. I manage to keep rental costs low, by living in a shared flat. But I think students are kind of supposed to live like this. Because otherwise, we’d be lonely. Living in a shared flat makes it possible to get to know new people and make lifelong friendships.
All in all, I really enjoy living in a shared flat with a good friend of mine in the suburb of Vienna.
My shopping list
Groceries shopping: $160
I usually spend my money on fruits and vegetables in the convenience store near us. I’m a vegetarian so I never buy meat. This reduces my expenditures quite a lot. On my shopping list, besides fruits and vegetables, you can find the following products: pasta, rice, lentils, milk, cheese, eggs, flour, oatmeal, olives, coffee, and sometimes yogurt.
I do bigger shoppings approximately 3-4 times a month.
The magic lies in the fact that during the pandemic I learned how to cook. I even know how to bake bread!
My additional expenditures
Clothes, toiletries, books, train tickets: $50
Most of the time I’m not spending any money on clothes, books, or train tickets. I use this additional $50 for unexpected expenses.
Regarding clothes, I already have plenty of them. Maybe they are not the trendiest, but I deeply despise fast fashion. My grandma always told me that your clothes don’t have to be new. They must be clean and whole. I decided to keep my expenditures as low as possible regarding clothing.
My toiletries consist of toothpaste, a soap, a shampoo, and body lotion. It’s convenient to be a minimalist.
Sometimes I cannot resist the temptation, and I order some books from amazon.
As my family lives far away from me, sometimes I travel home, and to do so, I need to buy the train tickets.
Most of the time, I simply put this additional $50 aside.
I never eat in restaurants
I stopped going to restaurants or street food locals at the beginning of the pandemic. For a long time, they were even closed. That’s why I learned to cook better, and I realized that I can spare a lot of money with this action. And as time goes by, cooking became a habit.
And to be honest, giving up on fast food makes me a lot healthier.
I don’t drink coffee in café houses
But I have a coffee machine at home!
My coffee is perfect. It tastes like Heaven was brought to the Earth with the purpose of waking me up. I love my home-made coffee.
And I spend like $5-$10 per month on coffee. So it’s quite a great deal.
I value experiences over money
Most importantly, I value experiences over material things.
I don’t have the urge to buy clothes, jewelry, or make-up. I think I simply learned to value the real things over products. Because in the end, that’s what will make our lives brighter.
The time we spend with our friends, and family. Swimming in the river is free. Dancing on the table in a pub is free. Going for a walk is also free.
There are so many things in life that don’t require money. I learned to live for those things.
A couple of years ago, I wanted to prove to my grandma that money does matter. So I told her a basic saying, that states it is better to cry in a BMW than on the bicycle. Her answer was astonishing. She told me that
‘Cry nowhere, and where you laugh does not matter. But maybe it’s easier on a bicycle’.
I think it’s very important to learn this.
