Frugal living in New Zealand

Since I was entitled as a student who didn’t have any permanent job when I arrived in New Zealand for the first time, I was only relying on my parent’s money to survive every month. At that moment I knew that I needed to find a way to be able to save some money and afford all my needs. Therefore, I have learned some tips and tricks in the last five years to get something cheap.

Food

1. Hunt for less expensive (cheaper) food

Food is most likely (one of) the most important thing in life, it's the fuel for our body and cooking is probably the most efficient way to save money, you can cook whatever you want with different type of ingredients. When I was a student, one of my tricks to get cheaper groceries was to go to a supermarket before they closed, approximately two hours earlier. What happened usually was the supermarket gathered everything that was almost expired, put it in one container / basket and dropped the price dramatically! Most of the time they dropped the price for almost 50%. The things that I bought were mostly vegetables, fruit, and meat which was normally labelled with special price. The initials brand of supermarket that I always go to is NW.

There is also a Saturday / Sunday market where I can buy the vegetables and fruits that are delivered straight from the farmers with a cheap price below what supermarket offers. The only thing this market doesn't have is the meat.

However, if I feel like being too lazy to cook which happens most of the time (LOL), I am out hunting for takeaways.
These are how I find cheap (last one is free) takeaways:

• Mobile App
  Burger King in New Zealand has an app called Burger King NZ. It has multiple daily, weekly, and monthly deals where you can get a full meal not more than $7 including a small burger for $2! At random time, it also offers a free burger deal which is very rare.

Next one is KFC, yes Kentucky Fried Chicken. Let's be honest here, who doesn't like fried chicken from KFC. I have even tried to make one and hopped it would taste like KFC, not a chance, not even close. KFC in New Zealand provides coupons that can be used through their website. If the customer are not satisfied with the coupons, there are always something to pick from their Value Meals which starts from $6.
Groupon New Zealand and TreatMe have also different deals on their website. Many of them are really good deals which come from very expensive restaurant or cafe. But not like Burger King or KFC, most of their deals start from $9 and even more.

• Food Takeaways
  Now, mobile app or website might be handy but sometimes something psychical is more appealing. A Turkey's place called Abrakebabra has a slice pizza for only $3.50. Since I am a hungry person, I usually get two for $7, so filling. The other places that is pretty cheap is J&M Fastfood, this is my go to place since it's pretty close to my uni and work. In the afternoon during 2-6pm on Mondays – Fridays, they drop the price of their Smorgasbord (buffet style) that is sold in 3 sizes.

For a small container we can choose 3 different types of food for $5.50, the next one is medium container with 4 choices for $7.50 and the large one with 5 choices for $9.50.

2. Free Food

This looks like a mission impossible until I find out that I can find a free left over food from a cafe. Some cafes usually have certain amount of fresh food that need to be sold within a day and can be taken home if only no customers want to buy it. What I normally do is making myself brave enough, less awkward, less homeless looking, less desperate to ask them if they still have the leftover food. The chance is 50/50, sometime they do and the other times they don't. I won't mention what cafe that I have been to, because it will create a chaos if anybody knows it, hahaha!

Accommodation

Get a close and cheap place to your work or university

The benefit of this is to keep you motivated to go to work or study. Imagine if you live quite far away, you will need to catch a bus or walk for a good few minutes, by just thinking of that, it feels discouraging. I used to live in a place that is very close to my university (when I was studying) and was still close enough to my work (15 mins walking). It's not only close, but also was surrounded by restaurant, takeaways, and supermarket (this is very important for hunting for less expensive groceries).

As I mentioned before, I was relying on my parents money, receiving fund every month from overseas when I was a student. The currency conversion wasn't that good. So I needed to find a cheap place to live, luckily I found a place on TradeMe for $119.50 per week! Yes $119.50 per week (not including expenses). A decent place, although it’s quite old (classic Wellington) and was shared with 4 other people (nothing to complain, since it's in the city and close to where I was studying).

Second hand place

This last part is about stuff that I got from second hand place called Salvation Army which sells all second hand goods from clothes to furniture that are really cheap. Once I bought chairs, an alarm clock, and afrying pan from this place and all only for $5! Salvation Army is not the only place that sells second hand stuff, there are a lot of community store. If you browse around the famous Cuba Street, you will find a few of them which sells some unique stuff that can't be found in the other places.
Look out for garage sale as well. Sometime I pass someone house that sell a bunch of stuff in their garage, so be aware. If you are lucky, you might randomly see stuff being thrown at the pedestrian walk and most of the time this stuff is free and can be taken away without spending any pennies.

Another way to look for second hand stuff that are cheap in New Zealand is through a website called TradeMe. This website basically is the place where you can sell or buy a new and second hand stuff. One of its feature is for people to bid on an item (could be new or second hand) and if you are lucky, you will get a very good price compare to the shop.
The other ways is to join a group in Facebook, there are heaps of selling and buying group here in New Zealand. In Wellington is called Vic Deals (Victoria University Deals), it is supposed to be only for Victoria University students who want to sell and buy item, but it becomes to be a Wellington wide selling and buying group.

That's how I survived in the first few years in New Zealand, when I was a student. Everything I have might be cheap but they are in a good condition or fresh. There might have been a few tips that I missed. I will keep updating this post, so stay tune. Ciao!