Wyatt Cobb, Global Business Institute: Sydney Spring 2025
My daily life here in Sydney will differ very much depending on what day of the week it is and where I am. I want to travel as much as possible, but I also have to do it as efficiently as possible, as I am on a budget. To help conserve my finances, I decided that I would only do weekend trips every other weekend. This meant that one week would be spent staying local to Sydney and doing the local visits to beaches, national parks, and museums all through public transport, which is free with my program. These weeks were the ones where I tried to be as frugal as possible so I could reward myself the following week. During these weeks, I would cook every single meal and avoid using any Ubers. Then, when the following week came, I would still try to live modestly by booking early flights to whatever my destination is and living in hostels, but at least I had the money to do so. These weeks it was harder to cook as I was out and about, and nor did I have the correct cooking supplies the majority of the time. I would also spend more money on things like Ubers, tours, or going out. This system of one weekend at home and then another traveling worked well for me. I felt that once I got back from the travel weekend, I needed some time to rest anyway, and that’s when I had the chance to save money by cooking at home and using public transport.
Even Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are different from Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. At the beginning of my week, I had all my classes and tried to do all my schoolwork. This way, I had an ample amount of time, once my school work was done, to allocate towards the long public transport commutes to my favorite places to visit.
I do all my grocery shopping at a store called Coles, which is a convent 4-minute walk away from where I live. At Pitt, I normally do most of my shopping at ALDI, but I do not go there because it is too far away. I also need to go to the grocery store around every 3 days because I share one fridge with 6 people, so I do not have a lot of space in the fridge. Otherwise, I would do larger, less frequent ALDI trips. When it comes to other sorts of shopping, I really don’t do any others. Although many others do. If I do go shopping, it will be something small to a place I am traveling to so I can get a small souvenir.
Lastly, another method that I have used to help me budget is I have create an Excel spreadsheet so I can keep track of all my spending. I am sure there are apps that do this for you and that this isn’t the most efficient way, but it is the way I know how. Every Sunday at the end of the week, I will sit down and track my spending for the week. Will categorize them as: Food, Travel, Night Life, and Experiences. Travel is strictly things like buses, Ubers, and flights. Experiences are things like kayaking or going to a zoo. This budgeting helps me get a better sense of where I am spending too much money or where I could maybe put a little more.
Here is a picture of me taking a 6 am flight because it was 100 dollars cheaper than the 9:30am flight.
Here is a picture of a rotisserie chicken and pasta with cheese meal that I make a lot. It is cheap and easy to make.
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