Covid -19 pandemic has changed the entire lifestyle of people across the globe. Now the way of living and doing things are much different from the normal life. You can find many changes in your lifestyle as now you are the less stressed, relaxed and same time you find that you expenditure pattern of daily life has entirely changed. Many unwanted expenses have no existence due to this new lifestyle.
Moreover, it is evident that once we come out from home, it shell-out money from our pocket and as many time we cross our home threshold and will get the burden of some or other expenses whether it is for necessity or unwanted expenses.
Are you finding any changes in your expenditure pattern during lockdown ?
The major change in our lifestyle is that this lockdown is not allowing us to come out of our door and due to this the probability of daily expenditure has come down drastically. We are coming out from home for essential things only. If you observe you will find that your basic requirement or needs are limited as compared to extra expenses which we were generally doing for fun, socializing and entertainment.
To start with, our major part of the very basic expense is food which has increased bit form normal life but as other expenses have ceased so increment in such food expenses hardly affects our monthly expenditure. Another very basic expense is house rent or EMI for own house or EMI of goods. What expenditure we are doing during lockdown period, these expenses consider to be a necessity.
What other expenses have ceased due to lockdown ?
Other than basic expenses we are doing many small expenses which are creating hole in our savings in which few expenses are unavoidable. These expenses are salient during lockdown.
Transportation – For going to the workplace we are spending around 1k to 4k per month on transportation or as fuel and this is varying due to distance to the workplace from our home. This expenditure was essential to go to the workplace which cannot be avoided but during lockdown it is salient. If we are working from home then it is our net saving.
Restaurant, eat-out & outing – It looks small expenditure but every weekend it’s shelling out money from our pocket. Even on weekdays some time we order food from outside. Now due to Covid-19, we are avoiding outside food and at the same time, it’s also not available. The average expenditure per month was 2k to 5k per month and now it has reduced to zero. Although it is important to enjoy life but not come under our necessity.
Shopping – This is one of the major expenditures per month which most of us are doing and while buying generally we do not have any control due to offers, attractive products and many more reasons. This will easily make empty our pockets and sometimes attract loan EMIs against purchased goods. Now this head of expenses has also reduced to zero.
Socializing – Many of us are spending time with our friends and such get-together always attracts some of the cost either food, outing expense for meeting or gathering. Also, party culture has stopped which is actually saving a lot of money.
Gyming & Fitness – Many of us are spending on fitness, yoga or aerobic classes. The expenditure per month for the same was around 1k to 2k per month. This also one of the regular expenses every month which many of us are generally doing which now comes down to zero.
Extra-curricular activities – This cost is mainly related to kid’s activities like hobby classes, sports classes or any other such activities related to extra learning. Although many things are available for learning over the web but still people use to spend money on physical learning. This was regularly shelling out pocket every month. This also comes down to zero now.
Traveling the places – Most of us are regularly traveling the places either for weekend holidays or visit a native place or attending a function of relatives/ friends. Now due to lockdown and social distancing, this has also come down to zero which is saving a good chunk of money.
These are the few major expenses that come down to almost zero and now you can compare the present expenses you are doing during lockdown with expenses you were doing before Covid 19 pandemic. You can see the big fall in expenses which show that our basic needs are limited and many wanted/ unwanted expenses are exhausting our earnings & savings.
This lockdown time is the best time to analyze the bare minimum expenses which can help us to calculate the money required for our basic social security. This should be the real valuation of the bare minimum fund required per month to run our monthly family expenses.
