xor

Are you asking us to help you steal a seat from someone who actually wants to get a PhD?

I'm also curious about this because one of the housing options I'm looking at would leave me with about $9500 left of my stipend per year (counting health insurance/electricity/cable/laundry/etc already paid). So the $9500 would only have to pay for gas and food, basically. Also, the said housing is on campus, so gas wouldn't really be an issue except for going somewhere off campus.
 
So then it comes down to $9500 (or $790 per month) for food, and a small amount of gas. Is that doable in South Bend???

It should be more than enough unless you're eating out every day. I live in DC, which is significantly more expensive than SB, and I spend about $60/week on groceries and eat out maybe once or twice a week. I would say i spend $30 eating out per week, so let's call it $90/week = $360/month. South Bend is significantly cheaper--you should be able to have a lot of residual income. Now, if you're going to never really cook and eat lunch out every day, it's a bit more grim.

I would say you can probably find a decent place to live in South Bend for around $500-$600 per month. Tack on maybe an extra $50 for utilities. So for living it's possible, but you may need to use some of your spouse's income for food. $10k is really not a lot to live off of anywhere in the world. If you have a car and don't mind commuting, you can probably find a much cheaper place nearby (e.g., Niles, MI, which is 20 minutes away from campus). Of course, this probably will add to the cost in terms of parking fees, and I'm not sure how much these cost at ND.