Millennials Earn Less, Spend More on Themselves During the Holiday Season

Muskan, a 25-year-old photographer, has just ventured into this professional field. Her education field was psychology. But by the end of her masters, she decided to do away with it, and make a career in photography. At 25, where most millennials start earning and supporting their family, Muskan is still living off of her parents’ money. She tried being economically independent, but her expenses were simply too much and she was unable to cut down the standard of lifestyle she had maintained for so long.

With the ongoing festival season, booze, card parties, and upcoming vacations, Muskan found it difficult to keep her head above water. She realised that economic returns from this profession aren’t enough to support her lifestyle, and she had to ultimately approach her father for monetary support, something she doesn’t approve of herself.

Living the good life

Around 50% Indians spend around Rs. 500-1500 on clothing every month! Indian millennials are waking up to more brands everyday, with fashion trends swiftly changing, coupled with an increased brand consciousness. It is not difficult to fathom why their lifestyles are way over their monthly budgets. The pressures of being presentable on the  job are more than ever, and millennials are never ones to shy away from a challenge.

Holiday season leads to more spending, expenses on gifts, parties, drinks, and outfits. Holidays, festivals are mostly the time when financial planning goes for a toss, and every other individual struggles with spending decisions.

Before you know, it is end of the month, and you are frantically waiting for your salary to pay basic expenses like rent, groceries, transport etc.

Dynamic Career Paths

Folks from this generation are more willing to take the plunge more often and pursue their passion. We see a number of engineers becoming writers, civil servants giving up their jobs to pursue teaching, lawyers choosing to do public interest litigation work rather than working for a law firm.

While all of this sounds pleasantly surprising, the economic aspect of things isn’t very well taken care of with such switches. Starting a new career path without prior experience or knowledge amounts to almost no or meagre pay increments. We witness an increased dependence on credit cards, which ultimately leads to a huge statements that are difficult to pay off.

Holidays and its Hangover

The need and importance for a holistic education has risen. With every commodity hitting skyrocketing prices everywhere, education, tuitions and everything in between has started eating too much out of monthly budgets.

Considering the Indian holiday season starts from Diwali in november, and goes on till new year’s, a good chunk of spending can go unsupervised. With such a prolonged festival time, followed by holidays, budgeting can get overlooked.

Following the merry time is semesterly/quarterly submission of school and college fees.  With such an arrangement millennials looking forward to pay tuition fees of courses, colleges might find themselves in a puddle. However, a few financial constraints should never come in the way of  getting access to education millennials deserve.

Loans for short-term payment of fees should also be made available, to take the stress off of their backs. Although, there might be education loans for higher studies, such an option is hardly available on a short term basis for school/college scenarios. A few options such as – Fibe provides loans upto 3 lakhs in order to enable seekers to pay their college fees even with the holiday hangover just waning off. The loan repayment method is also easy, with the option of 3-6 EMIs available.

Where do millenials get the money?

Millennials generally tend to incline more towards experiences, gadgets and vacations, rather than savings. Therefore, parties, extravagant vacations and expensive gadgets take precedence with the “YOLO” generation as opposed to a retirement account or building up savings. This doesn’t leave much in their hands at the end, or sometimes even in middle of the month.

There exists enough literature on how detrimental credit cards are for spending habits, and long-term financial planning. In such cases, quick cash from Fibe works as the ideal solution. With the platform allowing you to shop from brands like Amazon and Big Bazaar directly by giving you a pre-loaded wallet, it’s never been easier for millenials to spend on themselves without trouble. With instant approvals and zero cost EMIs, there really isn’t much more to ask for.

How are you spending on yourself this year? Let us know in the comments!