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How do climbers survive on a limited budget 21-Jan-2010 At 3:53:53 PM J.C.

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In my glory days, all those years ago... :P
I found the best way was to find a strip of bakerys/cafes on a main street and work your way along, pretending to read the menu while scoffing complimentary samplers until you got too many dirty looks & then moving down to the next shop. then hit the loading area of all the same shops at the end of the day & raid their huge bin bags of perfectly good food that didnt get sold.
another favourite, thanks to the hobart climbing gym (since i was doing the solo mish down there for a little bit, and it was often raining. thanks to the friendly staff there for putting up with me. [jac, pass over this next sentence] also thanks to the gear shop girl, kate i believe her name was, simply for being so damn cute) was to crash out on the bouldering pads and read magazines while tucking into the cupasoup & instant coffee in the cupboard downstairs. I flippen hate coffee but somehow it went down in a gulp every time during that trip. later in that same trip I had set up camp on the organ pipes when an adventure race came through ('06 XPD) and I inherited a big container of pancake mix from one of the teams. unfortunately i didnt inherit anything to cook it with, so down it went with cold water and some cocoa powder. yummmy.

when i had a bit more budget & was doing the longer term thing in the blueys, i'd buy myself a tub of peanut butter and a loaf of bread ('french hot bread' in katoomba) each week & tuck into it outside the victory while bumming climbing partners. actually that sounds very wrong, i wasnt bumming them, just trying to scab a belay. for serious.
on that particular diet it got to the point where I was falling off things on second that I could normally happily solo in sneakers so I started getting cash by doing odd jobs for climbers... one that sticks out in my mind is carrying 3 or 4 packs out from bowens creek in my weakened state for $20 from some queenslanders. i bought myself a massive bag of rice & a beer.