Money Making Schemes

Nagesh answers:

Look into yoga or meditation or self-hypnosis. They can help a lot.

Nagesh answers:

Depends on what you plan on doing and where you feel like dining. You could go to a fast food restaurant and pay about $ 12 for both or you could go to steak house and pay up to $100 a plate. However, if you want something in between you could find a good restaurant for about $25 a plate including drinks. If your really crunching pennies though, don’t buy drinks at a restaurant. Go to a liquor store and drink it in your room. There are alot of restaurants that are BYOB too. If you go a little further north in Lincoln Park (it’s still Chicago) you’ll find prices alot more reasonable. There are a couple colleges in the area and the neighborhood is alot younger and you’ll find most people are not from Chicago but somehow or other now live in Chicago. Downtown Chicago you’ll find alot of tourists and buisness people coming or going to work.
As for shopping, it depends on what you want to buy. A good pair of jeans $50. Gym shoes $90.
If you plan on going out I recommend Lincoln Park area. Like I said the crowd is younger – also college students- and drinks are less expensive. Places downtown Chicago will most likely charge a cover ($20) and 1 beer $5 mixed drink $10. Cabs run all over the place so don’t be afraid to wave one down. It’s the best way to get from one place to the other even for locals considering there is not much parking around. Lincoln Park is about a 10-15 min. Cab ride. Happy travels

Nagesh answers:

This meal has the advantage of being fast, dirt cheap, vegetarian and reasonably nutritionally sound.

You will need:
-One package of Ramen noodles (either standard or organic varieties will do).
If you are a vegetarian the “Oriental” flavor of ramen sometimes contains no animal ingredients, it depends on the brand (Oriental Ramen is not vegan but the Thai Kitchen brand in the picture usually is!).
-About a rounded 1/2 cup of a variety of frozen vegetables.
Some I have used in the past include: chopped spinach, green beans, peas, chopped carrots, corn, edamame. If you have fresh veggies on hand, those work even better.
-Soy sauce and/or miso
-an egg

Optional
-Garnish: sliced garlic, green onion, cilantro, pepper, hot sauce

Boil yourself 2 cups of water to cook the noodles.

I probably don’t need to say this, but you never know: open your package and find the little seasoning package and pull it out *before* you dump the noodles in. Seems self evident, but fishing a melting seasoning packet out of boiling water is not fun. So look before you dump.

Here’s the unconventional part:

Once your noodles are a little over halfway cooked, (still al-dente) dump the cooking water out and drain the noodles. Put another 2 cups of water on the stove.

(Hey you just discarded a lot of gross starch and a fair amount of fat!)

Put your noodles back into the second batch of water.

Add your veggies (frozen or not) now, and let them cook a bit while you work on the egg.

Take an egg and break it into a bowl, scramble it well.

Once your soup has returned to a full boil, slowly pour the egg into the soup in a slow stream. Move the stream around the pan to get little ribbons of egg that cook quickly in the boiling water.

Add some flavoring from the packet (not too much, yuck) , or make your own with some soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, vegetable bouillion, etc. Etc.

Now you have a good source of protein and some vegetables in your ramen ( you probably feel healthy already).

Pour your delicious ramen noodles into a bowl! Since you only used a bit of the flavoring packet, your noodles might need a little something. Add some miso paste, tamari sauce, chili sauce, sesame oil, green onions, or other healthy flavoring.

Now eat them! Hope I helped you…. 🙂

Nagesh answers:

Try babysitting, pet-sitting, walking dogs, housecleaning, personal shopping, and other odd chores. You can also try washing cars, mowing lawns, weeding gardens, and shoveling snow. All these things pay better than the fast-food job I tried when I was 15.

Also, if you can, try one or more of these groups to save money:
http://BarterSwitch.com
http://Freecycle.org
http://ReuseItNetwork.org
http://TradeAway.com

Nagesh answers:

Please excuse the pessimist above!!!!!

Your major expenses will be food and transport.

You looking at about R20-R40 for a local minibus taxi for a trip to the stadiums and around the major centers.
R40-R100 for a private taxi

unlikely to get a decent take away meal here for under R40 (burger, chips and coke 340ml).
If you really tight and prepare meal at you accommodation, like sandwiches and the like you can get by on about R20/day assuming you can refrigerate stuff like cold meats, cheese and other stuff you’d put on rolls/bread.
I’m not sure if all prices are gonna be pushed up during the World cup or not…wouldn’t be surprised though… Oh try to avoid buying anything at the stadiums thats super ripoff!! But then again not sure if they’ll let you take anything in!

Check out https://www.mrdelivery.com/mrdelivery.php for various fast food and restaurant prices. The most common fast places here are steers, nandos, KFC, wimpy, debonnairs macdonalds(gross!!!!)

best way to save get friendly with a local to show you the ropes!

Good luck