Survival of the Poorest

Darwin's lesser known theory on how to survive on the lowest of low budgets. 

The first step to surviving on a budget is to focus your aims. What exactly do you need? 

For me, it's quite simple: food and something to pass the time. 

Great! Next, let's consider the cheapest ways to legally attain these means. 

Food is an easy, albeit not generally very healthy fix. Which makes me wonder, with health being such a big issue these days (or, you know, always), why do they make it so much more expensive to lead a healthy life style? But I digress. A good solution is the college diet - Ramen noodle. 

Of course, you're probably thinking, "Ugh! I thought those days were behind me!" But my poor friend, desperate times call for desperate measures, and sometimes desperate measures mean eating anything just because it's 50 cents a meal (that's right Americans, our lovely 10 cent ramen noodles are a whole 500% more expensive in Europe!). 



As an extra measure, I've also started drinking my tea black. And by started, I mean about 2 cups ago. It's ok.

As for something to pass the time, well that's different for everyone. Generally the internet will suffice for me (I'm an admitted internet junkie), but it also helps to have awesome friends sprinkled throughout the country who will send you entire seasons of some of your favorite shows on DVD. 

I've also gotten pretty good at Freecell. 

Then, of course, it's important to keep hope that your next blog post will be about all the fun things you're doing while living in another country and not just about how depressing your life is without money...