Sydney on the cheap

By PR // 16 February 2010 // Comments: 0 // Related Categories: markets, Nightlife, sydney

For most travellers Sydney is more expensive than their home countries so here’s some advice about cheap shopping, eating, drinking...

Food:

In Chinatown you can find restaurants from most Asian countries and the prices are really cheap. Paddy’s market is also located in Chinatown and here you can buy discounted vegetables and fruits in the afternoon right before 5 o’ clock when the markets are closing. 

There are lots of food courts in Sydney and usually they sell discounted food right before they close at four o’ clock as well. You can get Chinese food for 5 dollars instead of ten and so on. If you are a sushi lover like me, some smaller sushi places also have discounts in the afternoon. 

And last but not least, junk food is cheap in Sydney as well. It’s way too cheap because then you end up buying it too often! 

Going out

When you want to go out it is much cheaper if you go during a weekday or Friday. Saturdays are pretty expensive so go out on Friday instead. On Saturdays you usually have to pay cover charge to get in to a club but on Fridays there is usually no fee. 

The clubs on George Street in the city centre are cheaper than the clubs in Kings Cross. They might not be as good as the ones in Kings Cross but they are much cheaper!

Shopping: 

In Paddy’s market in Chinatown you can also buy cheap clothes, jewellery, make up and much more. There is an incredible amount of stuff for sale there and it is usually very busy so try to be patient!

There are a number of cheap clothing stores that you can find almost anywhere in Sydney. Here are some examples of them: Ally, Cotton On, Supre, Forcast, Paper Scissors, Bardot, Dotti, Jay Jays, Chica Booti... If you want to buy cosmetics, Priceline usually has a lot of discounts.

There are also two shopping centres with factory outlets where stores sell discounted stock. These are Birkenhead Point and DFO (Direct Factory Outlet).