Expat Life - Living on the French Riviera With a Student Budget

Living as an expat on the French Riviera may sound a glamorous life, but when funds are low and the finances dwindling, how can you keep up the lifestyle?

For me it was simple - I re-arranged my lifestyle from trendy London fashionite, living on the edge of Primrose Hill, to a new bohemian style of living on the budget on a student in the "artists ghetto" area of Nice Old Town. My French partner and I left the UK and arrived in Southern France in the summer of 2008.

When we first arrived, it was the height of the summer, and it felt like a holiday everyday. On our doorstep is the famous Cours Saleya Market Square, which has a wonderful vibe to it - cafe society. We often would eat out twice a day, maybe have lunch on the beach, then dinner out at night. However after a couple of exotic months we realised we were living way beyond our means and had to take stock before our overdrafts and credit cards were maxed to the limit.

I overhauled our spending, striping down to the very basics and worked out we could live of 10 euros a day each on food. We are fairly health conscious; so do not resort to frozen meals or ready-cooked supermarket dishes. I' started to cook a lot more, and even though we only have a hotplate to heat things, no oven or grill, we now are surviving and enjoying our food at home more than the over priced local tourist restaurants.

In winter lunches consist of home made veggie soup (tomato and basil with cream frais is the favourite) or some kind of egg dish. In summer this would be tomato and basil salad with mozzarella, or a salad nicoise with hard-boiled egg. We have a few simple pasta dishes, mushroom and bacon, mushroom risotto, or chorizo and lentil stew. Summer we would have warm chorizo and squid salad. To keep the carbs at bay we order a demi(half) baguette each day for 0.40euros.

The few British supplies we buy are Earl Grey tea and the occasional tin of baked beans. As we work at home, one thing we treasure is our daily jaunt to the local open-air cafe for an espresso. If its cold, we'll sometimes have tea and biscuits around 4pm, or pop round the local boulangerie and splash out on a tasty French gateaux.

All in all we are both much happier here and healthier. The air is so clean compared to London, and the wonderful relaxed atmosphere makes up for our student-type new way of expat life.