Make the most of your money
By Alpana Vij
DRAWING out a household budget plan constitutes the most important chore of the woman, be it a homemaker or working lady. Upon taking charge of your family finances you have to be totally committed and it can be real fun to find innovative way to spend less in the future. It’s a real educational process. Are you ready to take up the challenge?

What women are buying
By Punam Thakur
A woman in India spends most of her shopping time buying grocery items for her home, right? Almost, because she does spend a lot of time making sure her family gets a good meal, but she also spends a wee-bit more time buying stuff which has nothing to do with her role as a home-maker.

Make the most of your money
By Alpana Vij

DRAWING out a household budget plan constitutes the most important chore of the woman, be it a homemaker or working lady. Upon taking charge of your family finances you have to be totally committed and it can be real fun to find innovative way to spend less in the future. It’s a real educational process. Are you ready to take up the challenge?

When women think about budgeting, we usually visualise depriving ourselves and painful savings. But budgeting actually helps us to spend more on the things we want to have, by paying more attention to our choices. Making a budget is actually simple mathematics. The amount of money you spend should always be less than the money earned.

Based on your realistic experience, a budget is like a set of instructions, and is not just paying your bills. It involves short-and-long-term decision making, by analysing your family’s fixed and variable living expenses.

It has been rightly said– "A penny saved is a penny earned." So the more you save, the more you make and the more you can spend. Learn to manage your money. Learn tips for managing your credit and making your financial plan.

Rent

Utilities (electricity, water, gas)

Property and road tax

Telephone

Transport to work

Car/vehicle insurance, fuel, repairs

Loan Repayments

School/college fees plus tuition fees

Medical and health care

Life insurance policies

Household purchases

Grocery

Domestic help (including gardener)

Clothing

Dry cleaning and laundry/dhobi

Electrical appliances

Furniture

Home repairs

Entertainment

Travelling and holidays

Eating out

Cassettes, CDs, software, books, periodicals

Birthday, anniversary, wedding presents, gifts

Savings and investments

Monthly salary

Freelance income/part time work

Interest on savings

Income from investments

Pension(s)

You can use basic budgeting and sample ideas to reduce your monthly expenses and reach your financial goals. First, list all sources of total income. Second, list all your fixed expenses and subtract them from your total income. So the balance amount is what you have for variable expenses.

Use a small notebook or money diary to keep a record of your spending. Write down every purchase you make, with cash or credit card. Carry it every where with you to stay current. Do this exercise for at least one month. Be very specific and avoid having a miscellaneous column.

To make a budget work, you need to have an honest record of your spending. It will help you to identify and list potential cutbacks.

After tracking all your spending habits for at least a month, look to see where you can reduce your spending. Look at your bills and see how you can reduce them. Do you need all those newspapers or extra magazines which no one is reading? Have you spent to much on cosmetics lately? You could switch over to more economical or home made remedies e.g. instead of face wash use Besan and curd as a scrub. Is your phone bill too high? You could reduce the length and number of your calls. Or switch over to emails and writing letters. Are you spending too much on eating out? Spend some hours researching on how to shop your grocery more economically. Write down areas where you feel you can cut down and then refer to this list whenever you have the urge to over spend sounds difficult?

Is there an area where you would like to reduce but don’t know how?

a. Investigate insurance costs, credit card interest rates etc. and switch over to the less expensive ones.

b. Prioritise what you want to spend your money on if you ever want to accomplish anything with it.

c. Never shop with a friend who spends more than you do.

d. Avoid buying on impulse.

e. Pay off your credit cards every month. Use these cards only for making major purchases.

f. And even for major purchases, don’t buy in haste and repent later. Before finalising make sure that it is a legitimate purchase.

g. Carry home made lunch and snacks to work, as much as you can.

h. Set up menus and plan your meals ahead of time.

i. You could freeze vegetables and use them whenever you are too tire to cook and have the impulse to order meals/fast food and your door step.

j. Shop with a list and stick to it.

k. Buy in bulk.

l. Entertain at home.

m. Before going to your bank, plan ahead regarding how much cash you will need.

n. While on a holiday, carry travellers cheques instead of extra cash. You’ll think twice before cashing them.

o. And don’t forget, buying on sale is still buying!

Frugality takes time and effort. Don’t over whelm yourself, pick one area a month, and change whatever is possible. As you accomplish your goals, reward yourself, for example, sit in the garden, play some soothing music and spend time reading a good book–– borrowed from the library, of course !!!

The following are some approximate figures when chalking out a monthly budget and should be changed as per specific requirements

(they don’t add up precisely to 100 per cent)

Housing, 20 per cent to 25 per cent; Food,10 per cent to 15 per cent; Clothing, 6 per cent to 9 per cent; Transport, 5 per cent to 10 per cent; School & Tuition Fees, 8 per cent to 10 per cent; Entertainment/vacation, 6 per cent to 8 per cent; Medical & health, 5 per cent to 6 per cent; Insurance, 4 per cent to 6 per cent; Gifts, 1per cent to 2 per cent; Savings, 8per cent to 10 per cent

A woman in India spends most of her shopping time buying grocery items for her home, right? Almost, because she does spend a lot of time making sure her family gets a good meal, but she also spends a wee-bit more time buying stuff which has nothing to do with her role as a home-maker.

On an average, a woman spends one hour and 15 minutes every week buying non-grocery items and one hour and nine minutes every week buying foodstuff for her house. These are the findings of a recent study done by KSA Technopak, a leading management consultancy firm with an exclusive focus on consumer goods and the retailing sector. KSA Technopak, which is a 50:50 joint venture between the US based Kurt Salmon Associates (KSA) and Technopak of India, undertook this study to estimate consumer’s time and money-spending habits and to understand consumer behaviour, consumption and attitude towards apparel shopping.

"Women are generally perceived to be more of grocery shoppers, but the findings of our survey show that they are now spending an equal amount of time shopping for apparel, footwear and home appliances," says Hemendra Mathur, Senior Consultant, KSA Technopak.

The study was conducted in 20 cities and covered 10,000 men and women who were more than 15 years of age across a spectrum of social classes. The cities covered included Delhi, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Ludhiana and Lucknow in the north and Calcutta, Guwahati and Patna in the east. Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Cochin and Madurai were some of the cities covered in the south and Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Indore and Baroda in the west.

"An important finding of the survey is that shopping in India is seen as a leisure activity as opposed to the situation in America and Europe, where a majority of the consumers consider shopping a hassle. Since shopping is seen as a leisure activity in India, consumers prefer entertainment and eating out along with it. In fact, they want shopping, eating and entertainment options all under one roof," says Mathur.

It is however, the findings from upper class households with incomes of more than Rs 10,0000 in six metro cities that provide a greater insight into the spending habits of Indian women. For instance, in the one-month prior to the study, 71 per cent of the women from these households had bought personal care products. Coming a close second was shopping for grocery items (68 per cent) followed by books and music (58 per cent) and then eating out (53 per cent). On a low priority were entertainment (30 per cent) and spending on movies and theatre (33 per cent).

Interestingly, 93 per cent of the women shopped for apparel in the last one year and 92 per cent of the women spent their time looking for footwear. In apparel shopping for western wear, 27 per cent of the women bought formal shirts, followed by shopping for T-shirts (24 per cent). The women, however, did not buy these apparel items for themselves. Formal shirts were bought primarily for husbands (53 per cent) followed by purchases for children (18 per cent). Only 11 per cent of the women interviewed bought formal shirts for themselves.

The situation, however, is different in money terms. These women spent Rs 8,570 on buying consumer durables, kept aside Rs 7,915 for savings and investments and spent only Rs 3,664 for apparel and Rs 692 on footwear. Obviously, all the time that women spent shopping was not being translated into buying in real terms.

In another category, what the women bought for themselves varied from one city to another. For instance, among the metro cities, the per capita consumption for sarees was the highest in Chennai and Hyderabad and for salwar kameez in Delhi and Mumbai.

The study also shows some interesting findings about men. Instead of spending time on shopping, men preferred to spend time interacting socially with others (seven hours a week) as compared to women who spent only two hours and 8 minutes per week meeting others. Men also spent more time eating out (one hour a week) as compared to women (40 minutes per week).

The men covered under the study spent more time than women (one hour and 18 minutes), per week shopping for grocery items. The time spent by them on non-grocery items, on the other hand, was only 26 minutes per week. But men did not need too much time shopping for non-grocery items because by and large they shopped only for themselves. For instance, more than 95 per cent of the men interviewed bought formal shirts and trousers only for themselves.

If this study is any indication of changes in the buying patterns of women, manufacturers of apparel, footwear and consumer durables can be assured of a steady market in the years to come. (WFS)