Last week I read this article in The Times of India dated  July 7, 2014 which mentioned the following:

“Those spending over Rs 32 a day in rural areas and Rs 47 in towns and cities should not be considered poor…”

Not quite realising what I was reading I finished the article. But what I just read stayed in the back of my mind. Somewhere around lunch I got out my calculator and converted the amount back to Euro’s. It helps me to value the amount of money – I’m still not fully used to deal with Rupees and convert back and forth on a daily basis.

Anyway, with the current rate (Rs 70 = 1 Euro) this came to 67 euro-cent.

My brain just stopped working for a moment…

A litre of milk costs Rs 39. The biscuits I munch away everyday with my cup of chai are Rs 10. I had no clue and had to check for the price on the pack. Now I have the closet open and I start checking the prices of everything in there.

Not to bore you with the numbers, but the some of the fractions is more than Rs 47 – much more.

But we are two. Pfff, what a relieve. Maybe it is not that bad yet, Rs 47 x 2 = Rs 94 a day. Which makes a total of Rs 1429 for the whole month. I got curious how much our monthly expenses are.

“Deepak, how much is our electricity bill per month?”

“Why do you want to know”

“Just curious.”

“About Rs 1000 a month. It depends.”

“Hmm, ok. And water?”

“Water is a fixed fee”

Such a relief, at least we are not paying per litre of water. Something started scratching me in the back of my mind. How can someone survive on only Rs 47 a day? Or in our case Rs 94. To me it seems impossible, but not according to the Rangarajan committee – so who are we to contest this. Let’s give it a try.

Deepak and I decided we will try to reduce our expenses as much as is realistically possible for the month of April and see if we can stay within the budget given by the Rangarajan committee. We do have to make some sacrifices – but hey – all for the bigger goal.

To be continued…