@TAB
oops. Sorry you and @catladybookworm
I too was on new start for several months. But finally got a job cleaning toilets and then got my present job.
The only way to live on New Start is if you live in a boarding house. There you only have to pay rent and not gas, electricity or water etc. Plus most people who live in boarding houses eat for free at local churches etc. It's an ok life for a single male, but I always felt sorry for girls who would stay there from time to time. Except for one girl, she was a nurse from Bathurst, and she only used the room when she worked in Sydney. I think she and me were the only ones who never took drugs or alcohol.
I remember one girl, she was on ice for her whole stay there, she was always having constant arguments with her fridge, she ended up getting kicked out because she stopped the automatic payment of her rent and used that money for more ice. She use to chuck CD's at us when the Salvo's came and set up the BBQ every Wednesday. She was trying to be nice by sharing her music with us. The manager of the boarding house, he called the government for help, but they said she wasn't bad enough to need help, so she was kicked out. The last time I saw her, she was literally in the gutter at Kings Cross, talking to herself, inbetween two parked cars. I wanted to help her, but just didn't know how.
Sorry got side tracked. Back to New Start.
But after I bought my little house and couldn't get a job, half the town I live in is unemployed, New Start was no where near enough to live on for even a boarder line ok life.
Just wondering do you live near any chuches or anything. They are a good source of free food and tea and coffee. It took me years to save enough money to buy my house. I subsidised my existence by eating at churches etc. My house cost $80,000 by the way, so I'm not rich. And it was all I could buy because no bank would lend me any money. When the everage income is $50,000 plus and all you earn is about $25,000 a year, banks don't want to know you, even if you are the best saver of money in the world.
Anyway, hope you get a good job sooner rather than later.