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Money

An Honest Guide to Living in a Big City on the Cheap

Here's how to have the best time you possibly can in the concrete jungle without money, turning to crime or selling drugs to children.

Photo by Bruno Bayley

Where the fuck has all the money gone, am I right? It felt like for a little bit, there was shitloads of money to go around. Everyone was getting a bit. Then some worried-looking newsreaders said, "there's no more money," and something happened with the houses and the NASDAQ and now we're all poor as fuck. What's that all about? Where's all the dosh gone guys? Help!

The cities are rough places, with street toughs lining the trash-covered pavements and bins full of wasps and Slush Puppies. It's a dangerous environ, and one that is increasingly difficult to get by in, as the net price of croissants rises to astonishing new levels every day. Luckily for you, megalopolis-dwellers and VICE readers, we have ways of helping you live on a budget in these concrete jungles, and have the best time you possibly can, without turning to crime and selling drugs to children so you can buy a 4K TV even though you have no furniture.

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WALK EVERYWHERE

I know, trust me I fucking know, but listen: the places you want to go aren't as far away as you think they are. I know walking sucks and you don't want to be freezing cold while you're trying to get to a birthday you don't even want to go to but the constant bus-ing and tram-ing and tube-ing will burn a hole in your pocket quicker than a molten bullet. Not to mention with the dawn of sickeningly affordable personal ferry service Uber, which is laziness at its absolute peak. A couple of miles isn't even that long – if you get a good pace on you'd do it in just over an hour. Leave earlier, enjoy the walk, get a drink on your own on the way there, chill out, read a fucking book or something, stop rushing around, Christ. Which reminds me…

Photo by Bruno Bayley

BRING YOUR OWN BOOZE TO THE PUB

Whatever pub you're going to: check what wines and beers they have which aren't on tap, and just buy a rucksack full of them from the cheapest off license you can find, and then take them in with you. This is an excellent way to get hammered on a budget, but also an excellent way to get chucked out by your ear and potentially get kicked right up your arsehole by an irate landlady. There is a moral quandary here in that you're not supporting pubs by doing this, and us drinkers should all support pubs as best we can as they're an important part of our cultural heritage and social life – but if it's one of those shit pubs that only has their nuts in giant airtight jars and charges over a fiver for a pint, then it can quite frankly go fuck itself and drinking your own booze in there is totally chill.

TIME YOUR SMOKING

There's a time in every night where people start getting very generous with their cigarettes. Usually it's at about 10:30PM, if you're getting pissed in a pub, and 1:30AM, if you're getting pissed in a club. Don't do the whole 'mate can I have a cig I'll give you a pound lol!' schtick cuz it's really fucking annoying and just makes people want to knock you out. If you're that fussed about smoking just nick a 'rollie' off of a timid-looking student type as they're always up for giving away their disgusting hampers of dried-out tobacco and their foul, execrable liquorice papers. It's a leap into the chasm, but sometimes it has to be done.

COOK A WEEK'S WORTH OF FOOD WITH A LOAD OF BELL PEPPERS OR SOMETHING

My mate started cooking peppers and stuff and making shitloads of it and making wraps out of all these cooked peppers. One day he made me one and it was really nice; much nicer than the normal fucking shite I throw gannet-like down my throat from Pret every day. If I was better at cooking and less of a feckless prick I would probably do this as well, but I'm not so I'm destined for permanent destitution. You're better than me, though, you could do it! I believe in you! Be my better, for all our sakes.

SQUAT

City rent is exorbitant as we all know. Now, I've never squatted in my life, and I never would, because it is a phenomenally squalid and disgusting way to live your life, and I think that if I ever found myself bedding down in a squat I would look at my own reflection and weep for hours and hours wondering in what way I had wronged Jehovah so that he punished me in such a filthy, putrescent way, but squatting might be right for you. There's loads of decrepit buildings with fuck all but a group of Spanish blokes with big dicks inside and I'm sure they'd be willing to welcome you inside as long as you bring money for acid and a bongo-fixing kit.

Now fly, my pretties, out into the world, and experience the cities as they're meant to be: with just enough money to get by, living from penny to penny, until you just fucking give up and go to Berlin in a huff.

@joe_bish

Read more from The VICE Guide to Finance 2016 here