Lived in a backpackers in KNX for a long time! Kimberley Croc, not sure what it's like now, but was 'decent' when i was there. You do get pretty bad cabin fever living out of a suitcase for that long though.
As per Darwin, i lived in a rented room in the city. That was on a single drivers wage too. I picked up another job as a waiter for the weekends/certain nights. Once you get on the twins, you can normally pay rent and enjoy at least one night of the week.
Enjoy, great times ahead.