A Gurgaon-based couple has broken down their monthly expenses to show “how salary today competes with lifestyle inflation every single month”. Gagan Saini, a brand manager at MuscleBlaze, shared an Instagram video last week where he explained how he and his wife managed to jointly spend ₹1.59 lakh in the month of March.
“This is how much we spent in March month as a newly married couple living in Gurgaon,” he said.
Breaking down ₹1.5 lakh expenses
The biggest portion of their monthly expenses went towards rent. The couple lives in a 2.5BHK in a gated society of Gurgaon, for which rent and electricity bills together come to around ₹50,800.
In March, Saini’s brother-in-law stayed with them for a bit, so the grocery bill reflected expenses for a third person. “Groceries for three people was around ₹27,702,” said Gagan Saini, adding that his share of the groceries spend was ₹13,851.
“Cook, house help, and car cleaning was ₹8,905, because we can’t survive without them” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“Cook, house help, and car cleaning was ₹8,905, because we can’t survive without them” he added.
{{/usCountry}}In the caption, he added: “Convenience expenses like cooks and house help buy back time and mental bandwidth, time saved on chores can be redirected towards work, health, hobbies, in my case, content creation.”
Petrol and cabs took another ₹6,200 of the couple’s monthly budget.
Side hustle and other expenses
For Saini, his side hustle of content creation is turning into another business expense. He explained that he and his wife spent over ₹38,000 on his laptop’s EMI and fee for their video editor and manager.
Like other expenses, this too was shared — with Saini’s share coming to around ₹21,000.
“Subscriptions like Netflix, mobile recharge, Gmail storage, ChatGPT and Wi-Fi was ₹2,900,” he added.
A spontaneous 2-day trip to Rishikesh cost the couple another ₹22,000 in the month of March.
On top of that, they spent ₹5,000 on household expenses like furniture rental, AC repair etc. One day of eating out took another ₹3,500 out of their monthly budget.
As a newly married couple, they also had to pay their wedding photographer. This, along with gifts and miscellaneous expenses, ate up ₹28,500.
₹2.2 lakh as investments
All in all, the couple spent a total of ₹1.59 lakh in the month of March. This did not include the money they saved and invested.
Saini said they invested a total of ₹2.20 lakh in March as a married couple.
“Apart from all this, we also invested 2,20,000 rupees in March, in which my share was ₹1,60,000.”
He ended his post by advising everyone to track their expenses to manage money. “The reason I’m creating this video is because seeing how other people manage money has genuinely helped me make better financial decisions myself. Not from a comparison perspective, but from a data perspective,” the Gurgaon-based corporate employee said in his caption.
“I’ve consciously reduced random shopping, ordering food and unnecessary eating outside. Most recurring expenses look harmless individually but massive collectively that is why budgeting controls cash flow and helps in investing in long-term wealth,” he added.