Trip Ideas
Change Forum
Can $400 (American) pay for rent, food, public transit, basic living long(ish)-term in Melbourne or would that mean you're scraping by?
Book Your Next Trip
Check hotel rates and airfares around the world.
Find a great deal?
Tell us about it.
Hotels
Flights
Packages
Cars
Cruises
Each website you select will open a new window in your browser.
Can you live on $400 a week in Melbourne?
4 Replies | Jump to last reply
|4 Replies |Back to top
|Sign in to comment.
Recent Activity
View all Australia & the Pacific activity »
- 1 Not just the crocs, snakes and spiders.
- 2 Help from Fodorites for USA Visa Waiver thingie
- 3 Need help: US outlets converted to NZ outlets.
- 4 aussie flights
- 5 Boat to the reef from Cairns or PD
- 6
Short Queensland Trip Rpt and some hints for US travellers to Australia
- 7 Campervan parks, reservations Oct/Nov., free camping ???
- 8 Australia for teenagers?
- 9 Best Milford Cruise Time
- 10 New Zealand North Island only??
- 11 NZ South Island in 6 days...is this itinerary do-able?
- 12 Hotel chains, recommendations
- 13
16 days all over New Zealand
- 14 Australia Wine Country
- 15 Lily Bank, Cairns herigatge Trail for Stratford.
- 16 Geelong for overnight before GOR?
- 17 Cairns Dengue Fever
- 18 Whitsunday Recommendation
- 19 New Zealand. Are reservations difficult during last half January
- 20 NZ Itinerary
- 21 Is ten days enough time for both North & South New Zealand
- 22 Maori Cultural Experience
- 23 Credit Cards and Cash?
- 24 Tourists peeing (and more) on Uluru: can it get any worse?
- 25
OMG!!!! A night with Australia's Sexiest People
Depends what the exchange rate is at the time.
... and where and how you want to live. Are you looking at renting a flat (apartment), sharing a house or hostel type accommodation?
The exchange rate is currently about AU$1 = US$0.92, so US$400 = AU$435. The AU$ though is currently forecast to each parity with the US$, perhaps as early as Jan-Feb 2010.
You won't be living the high life on that. A room in a shared house (typical student digs) close to the city may cost $130-150 pw, plus your share of utilities. Take-away food is more expensive here and you'd be advised to do a lot of your own cooking. Beyond that we'd need to know more about your preferred lifestyle.
Interesting that's just a bit more than an Australian Postgraduate Scholarship ($20,000 p.a tax free). Students end up with about $385 per week, which suggests to me it's possible but would be a frugal existence.