Shopping – street shops
If you will need some furniture or anything for your household and you do not have enough money you might like to get some things for free from the streets during so called “clearance days”. People simply place useless household items in front of their houses and waste companies collect it and take it away. But if you are fast and do not hesitate too much you can get nice TV, sofa, microwave or even washing machine. It is not rare that those things are fully functional. they are just useless for people who buy modern up to date household commodities.
Regular shopping – give me a discount.
When you decide to spend a bit of your savings and you want to buy something like a digital camera or computer, be clever and do not buy it in the first shop you visit. The price differences are huge.
Over here in Australia you can negotiate the price almost everywhere. A discount of up to 150AUD on a digital camera, that originally cost 800 AUD is achievable as long as you tell the seller that you have found the same product much cheaper somewhere else. The shop assistant may ask you for exact price and he can sell it to you even cheaper. Chinese merchants are particularly good to deal with. You can buy computer priced at 2000 AUD for just 1600 AUD so do not hesitate to negotiate an attractive deal. Everybody understands the word “discount” over here.
Health problems - where to go and who to see.
If you plan to stay in Australia for longer, you will inevitably suffer little illnesses or tooth aches. What should you do in such cases? The best thing is to visit a public Medical Center or even Private Medical Center but check service prices before you go any further. You might be asked to pay 50 AUD while your friend across the way will pay only 30 AUD for the same service. Please keep in mind that Medicare will give you only part refund of your medical expenses for example if you paid 30 AUD you will get refund of 22 AUD. If you pay 50 AUD the amount of refund stays the same.
You can also find General Practitioners and Dentists form your home country who have been living and working here for years. This is really advantage to talk about health problems in your native language. It is obvious that your home country medical practitioners understand your needs and requirements much better.
What mobile network?
Many newcomers in Australia have a dilemma what mobile network to choose. The choice is as follows: Optus, Vodafone, Orange, Telstra…. It is necessary to watch prices and special offers but the most favorite among Slovak students is the Optus network.
It also depends if you need mobile with contract and monthly bills or just mobile with prepaid card. For most students prepaid card is fully sufficient. If you own a mobile phone do not forget to bring it with you. All you will need to do here is to buy prepaid card with SIM card and register your phone.
