What's it like being a quasi broke guy in Hanoi,Vietnam?

This may cost $3 NZD but it's not the most economical source of calories

They say Vietnamese street food is quite cheap.
You can get cheaper food... A packet of instant noodles from the grocery store is about 4-5x cheaper than your typical bowl of street Pho

How do I know this? I'm living it.

It's been week two weeks since that magical piece of plastic went missing.
 Since them I have been converting Indonesian and Malaysian currency to Vietnamese Dong, and although it causes mild mental grief knowing how much bad of a deal I'm getting, it sure beats starvation.

I'd say it's probably a strange sight when a western foreigner visits the grocery store buying up packs of the cheapest instant noodles he can get his hands on. The thought of a tourist in Hanoi who refuses to buy Bahn Mi rolls or Pho off the street on the basis of it not being economically feasible must be a relatively rare one indeed.

Mikilet - Colman. Instant noodles for the people. Starting at 2000VND per pack. A Bahn Mi roll off the street will cost anything from 15,000- 30,000 VND. See the difference? 

Canned tuna, not the cheapest source of protein but it's a nice oily treat. 

My diet hasn't been too bad although I wouldn't say it's the optimum diet for human performance. I am lucky to be staying in a hostel which serves a decent cooked breakfast, and even more so for the food which the staff have shared with me from time to time. Although it takes one month for the earliest symptoms of scurvy to surface, I believe that without my daily slice of tomato included with the complimentary breakfast, I would surely be on my way towards the pirate life.

After a few days into the diet I really began to start thinking about nutrition and how important it is to eat a varied and rich diet; which is why when I was offered the chance to eat coagulated chicken blood and liver, I jumped at the opportunity to do so.

In an effort to keep morale high I do splurge from time to time on luxury food items such as cans of soft drink or biscuits but for the majority of the time, my diet consists of boiled eggs, oatmeal, instant noodles, and every second or third day some canned tuna.

Treat yoself.  This bag of instant pasta cost me 10,000VND. That white thing is a duck egg. I ate duck eggs before realising I could get chicken eggs about 40% cheaper at another place. Duck eggs have more energy but chicken eggs have a better cost to energy ratio. Unfortunately I also lost my shoes while I was in the Philippines. In Can Tho, due to an inability to find shoes in the right size I settled on a fake pair of Converse Chuck Taylors which cost me around $10 NZD. I wasn't expecting miracles but was hoping they would hold up for at least 3 months by which point I was expecting to be in Thailand. (Believe it or not, Vietnam is not a particularly good place to buy shoes, especially if you have feet larger than US 8 and walk further than 1km every day) At the tender age of 3 weeks, my shoes began showing symptoms of premature ageing; the grip on the underside of the sole had mostly worn off, and by week 5, the soles has fully worn through. I try not to do too much walking as that would increase the wear on my shoes. I prefer to do pushups as it breaks down my muscles rather than my shoes.