Three years ago I was living in the middle of nowhere, on an income which, after rent, usually left me with between a hundred and two hundred dollars a week for utility bills and groceries.
Financially, the situation has not much changed. I can be fairly certain that, until December, my income will be rent plus a hundred and forty-seven dollars a week. Bills are up, because it's so much colder in Melbourne, but rent is (for the time being) still a wee bit less than I was paying in my sunny seaside purgatory.
Of course qualitatively my life is incalculably better now. It is so much easier to be broke in inner Melbourne. Almost anything I might want to do is at or near zero-cost and within walking distance (or a $2.50 concession fare tram ride away).