What to expect from a PhD?

Or just learn how to cook.

Seriously if you can make a ramen cup you could cook rice and beans. Hell buy some flower and a few eggs and bam you can make yourself a shitton of ramen. Seriously you can eat cheap without eatting crap.

PhD student, first year. My stipend is 13.2k.

PhD stipends tend to be a lot lower in my field (ecology) than others.

Almost everyone that I know with phds (spread across a bunch of very different fields) lives ok, not good, not terribly, unless they have a side hustle. Sometimes it's part time consulting in their specialty, other times it's doing something like real estate, but the ones who are doing very well do not just have their one job.