u/scarlett_decoction

I was having discussion with friends where they were talking about guys getting free upgrade in hotels or discount in bars because they were good looking. And about job placements getting affected by how pretty someone is.

And also the people that don't naturally look good have to spend a lot of money to look better.

Like someone starting to bald in their 20s has to spend on minoxidil and other medication. Or someone with lot of acne has to spend lot on skin treatment or products.

What do you think? Does it really affect financially that much?

I just got offer letter from my dream company. This year has been dream for me. Start of this year I was having salary of 6 lakhs per year and got 12 lakhs salary job in january. Now gotten offer for 27 lakhs salary in same year.

I have got chance to reset my mistakes in life. I bought car few months back and have 16 lakhs loan and emi 25000 for 7 years. Father have 8 lakhs of loan and I have to pay it.

Now I will try pay everything in 2 years only and not take any more loans.

Never thought I will be able to pay all loans. Father is more happy than me because his loans will be paid fast now.

Last 6 months it was so difficalt to breathe because of so much loans.

I grew up in a lower middle class family that judged people on their clothes, vehicles, status and whatnot

If someone wore faded clothes, my parents treated treated or called them beggars. If someone had a cheap car like maruti 800 or alto or wagonr, again they used to call them poor or beggars.

The thing is my parents have less net worth than poor or beggars because it is in negative. Whenever I pointed that out I use to get screamed on.

Now I have grew up with same mindset. And I judge people based on what they do or wear or buy to even what they eat.

How to get rid of this mindset? I have tried, but I am not able to. Even though I try to be frugal and do the same things that I judge others on

I met 3 girls whose families sent us marriage proposals till now. The dates are always good. Sometimes too good and get to physical things. But whenever we finally talk about money, I get rejected.

No one wants to be frugal. Everyone wants grand weddings and lavish honeymoon trips to foreign places.

And I am here with 15 lakhs loan on car and living paycheck to paycheck. I have only 1 lakh savings and my dad has 8 lakhs in loans which I need to pay too.

One person even suggested to me that both families can take loan for big wedding and after marriage we can take loan to go on foreign trip.

It has been 3 years since i went on any trip because i cant afford

Should I just give up frugalness and get married and then try to convince slowly?

I have to immediately worry about paying my car loan of 25000, rent of 25000 and monthly insurance premium of 6000.

Out of my 1 lakh salary, 56000 is gone before the first 3-4 days of the month.

Then there is food costs of 10000, petrol of 5000, and utilities of 3000 atleast.

Thanks to all of this, by the end of the month, I have only 20000 saved.

For the last 6 month after working so hard for 10 hours each and every day and sometimes even on weekends I have saved up 1,20,000.

Sometimes I feel what is the use of all of this. I can't even take leaves because my company doesn't approve them.

My dad has 8 lakhs of loan that I need to help repay. I have not been helping him because I myself have very little money saved.

If I lose my job, I will lose my car and I will be kicked from my rent house.

Every month I see my salary being sent to bank account, I feel bad. I am spending my 20s working all day every day and even on weekends sometimes just to save 2 lakhs over the course of a whole year.

Just 5 years left in my 20s. If I save this 2 lakhs every year, then I can pay off my father's loans by the time I become 30 years old.

What a sh1t life to live

As someone sitting on fence to be childfree, i was seeing child free india sub and I see that finances are always a factor in someone choosing to be childfree.

Should finances play such a big role in deciding whether to be childfree or not?

I don't actually see and wealthy people choosing to be child free. It is very rare if it exists compared to the rest of the country.

That makes me think, is everything we do in our life defined by money and our need to earn it? Do we rationalise that we have free will even though we dont?

How are people able to afford to buy things when everything is so expensive? And how are things priced so expensive in a country where only the top 1% have disposable income?

How are poor people able to afford mobile network of 3500+ rupees yearly? How are they able to buy phones costing 20000+? Petrol is 115 rupees per liter. Even 2 wheelers are expensive to run at this pricing.

How are people able to survive the cost of living of 25000 in a city like Bangalore where the average income is less than that?

Yesterday Apple released iphone 18 pro for 1.65 lakhs and iphone duo for 3 lakh rupees. They also increased the price of the existing iphone 17 to 1 lakh rupees.

Until last year, even average people could buy iphones, atleast on EMI. you could get something for 55-70K.

But now everything is priced so premium. It is almost like a status symbol again. And people are somehow okay with the prices.

Everyone around me seems to be excited to buy iphone duo for 3 lakhs. some of them want to travel to other countries to buy if for cheaper price. I don't understand what is happening!!

How are people able to afford such expensive phones? People who never cared about folding phones are also interested in it now. Why did they never buy other company folding phones? Samsung ones were less than 1.5 lakhs. And instead want to spend 3 lakhs on iphone duo.

This is so much inflation and i don't think prices will come down. Looking at apple, all the other phone companies will increase prices too for everything now

For me it has been a dishwasher from a company called midea from amazon. I buyed it for 16000 rupees and it saves a lot of time for me. I used to not cook anything before because I did not want to wash plates and all but now, it happens automatically.

What is something that feels expensive at first, but provides so much value for money?

With the recent releases of new ai from openai and anthropic, I am feeling really scared of what the future is going to be for regular people. Things that would take years to build will hundreds of employees are being built in days by single person now.

My colleagues who have the money to spend on AI are able to build things and gain income from that. But me who can't spend on AI too much feels like I am falling behind.

One of my colleague built a youtube channel faceless about science with AI and is earning laks of rupees from it. Another built a product launch software platform and is earning thousands of dolars from it.

My company is also firing employes because AI is doing everything now.

I feel like rich people are becoming richer with AI and poor people who cannot afford AI are going to become poorer because the rich people will cause more inflation.

My friends went on a 21 days europe trip a few days ago. They had asked me to come, but I could not afford it because it was costing 7 lakhs per person. All of them draw less than 6 lakhs salary per year. They have all taken personal loans for this.

One of my colleague bought bmw x1 for 60 lakh rupees. He gets 1.5 lakh rupees salary every month and spends 90 thousand on the car emi and other car expenses.

I have bought a seltos and even I feel I made a mistake. There is so much traffic that I have not used the car in many weeks. And the emi is 25000 out of my 1 lakh rupees monthly salary. It was a big mistake.

My close friend took lots of personal loans for trading and lost everything. He is paying almost all of his salary for emi and only able to survive because he is living with his brother.

Every expensive thing I have bought makes me happy for a few days and then I don't feel anything about it. But I have to pay off the emi for it for many months.

One one side if I buy something I eventually feel bad about it. On other side if I don't buy something it feels like why even work so hard for full day and not enjoy the money.

But one thing is clear that everyone around me is destryoing their lifes due to loans.

I see this weird thing happening in my office where my colleagues are constantly celebrating everytime rupee goes down in value

they say their US investments are going up because rupee is going down. And some people are getting paid in dollars for some small products they have built and things like that.

But I don't understand one thing. Prices of everything we import, like oil and phones and softwares and things like that, all their prices is going up. So expenses are going up. And all their money that is still in rupees is going down in value.

So why are they celebrating? And how to protect ourself from these price increases?

I come from a middle class background and I am just recently started doing good in my job and earning good amounts of money. Starting of this year i was drawing 50 thousand and now it is 1 lakh every month.

Recently I was dating a girl for almost a month. She had gotten out of a many years long relationship. And I think she just needed a way to vent.

For the first time in my life, I was able to experience the kind of fancy lifestyles that rich people have. She took me to fancy restaurants, clubs, we went on a trip, she bought me clothes, made me do many weird treatments to my face, nails and things like that. She used to drive me around in her mini cooper car, and also gifted me an iPad.

Last week her ex boyfriend came back and they got together again.

But what a month it was. Almost felt like I was in paradise.

Now I am back to frugality and eating maggi and paying emis. I was happy with how I was living before. But now that I experienced what others live like on a daily basis, I feel bad looking at my situation.

But what to do. Maybe some day...

If both people in the household are earning, then they would be sharing both household and financial responsibilities. But how does it actually work?

If one person is frugal and other person is not, then does the frugal person have to contribute towards the household expenses of the non-frugal person too?

I have a friend who earns 12 lakhs per year marrying a girl who is making only 3 lakhs per year. And we were discussing how should the expenses look like.

The girl expects him to contribute 80% of the living and lifestyle expenses while she contributes the rest 20%.

On the whole, it sounds reasonable and he was fine with it. But as the wedding date is just few days from now, he is getting doubts about it.

What if the girl wants to spend her entire 3 lakhs income on living and lifestyle expense? Does it mean my friend needs to spend his whole 12 lakhs?

He is frugal and spends only around 3-3.5 lakhs per year. And since she lives with her parents, her expenses are around 2 lakhs per year as her parents take care of a lot of expenses. Both are frugal by themselves.

If they start living together and he continues spending only 3-3.5 lakhs, then she will have to contribute about 75K. This 3.75-4L isn't enough for two people to survive.

Does it mean they combinedly need to reduce both of their standards of living until the girl starts marking more money? Or does the girl need to contribute more than her 20% fair share to the household expenses?

Since the girl's parents used to pay for most of her living expenses and after marriage she will have to manage living expenses too, she is complaining that her lifestyle will be a lot worse than it is before marriage if he is not willing to spend more.

They have both decided not to have a joint account for the first few years at least.

How do dual income households handle frugality?