I was on two week visit in South India (a very nice place). That’s my second travel in this area, but now for the first time I paid special attention to the financial habits of the people there. The majority of Indian people have never been too rich but seem to manage living a healthy and happy life. I’ll share few of the most probable “secrets” that they use for that.
People in South India eat rice
I know many frugal bloggers suggest eating more rice since it is a cheap and healthy food. People here take it to the extreme – they eat rice every day. The typical meal of the locals consists of plain rice, gravies and chillies. In the casual restaurants it’s called exactly like that – just “meal”. The people are given a big plate and one guy walks around the tables and gives rice to everyone who has paid for a “meal”. You can get as much rice as you want. The price of the meal in most places is 35 rupees (currently $0.8).
I was not very keen on their everyday meal, but due to the huge variety of other rice based meals I was able to eat rice each other day without getting bored. In most cheap restaurants you’ll find all kinds of rice:
- Fried rice which can be fried with chicken, egg, ginger, vegetables, spinach, fish or prowns
- “Biryani” rice – a spicy rice meal usually veg or with whole boiled eggs, chicken, mutton, paneer (Indian cheese) or fish
- Typical Indian rice – ghee rice, curd rice etc…
Just plain boiled rice is sold everywhere on kiosks so you can get it home and use with your own gravies. In the stores people can find 20kg sacks of rice for about 700 rupees ($16-$17).
Now on the video below you can see how they cook the rice in one “dhaba” (a cheap restaurant).
People eat mostly vegetarian food
A large part of Indian population are vegetarians. Usually their diet includes diary products, but there are many vegans as well. On top of that even the non-vegetarian eating people usually eat the typical veg “meal” described above at least once per day. So the overall consumption of meat is not high at all. Obviously along with the low food price that makes feeding a typical Indian family an affordable task even for these who receive really low income.
It seems that this diet is quite healthy because you rare see overweight people.
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The families live together
The typical Indian family does not consist just of a couple and their kids. Many Indians live together with their parents and their brother’s and sister’s families. This means that most homes are inhabited by 8-10 people.
Most of us may not feel comfortable living like that, so am not advocating this. But it’s yet another way for Indians to cut their cost of living. However the primary reason for them doing it is not to save money. It’s just that their culture keeps healthy relations within the family members which use to support each other.
People ride bikes
One motor bike usually can go 50km (31 miles) with a litter of fuel. This is 3 or more times better than what most cars do. People in India ride motor bikes everywhere and as you can imagine their transportation costs are much lower than yours if you drive a car.
Here is a typical parking in Hyderabad, South India
Don’t forget that one bike can transport two people (well, in India it can handle a lot more than that), so even if you are carpooling you are not as frugal in transportation as them. Their use of bikes also reduces the traffic jams although that doesn’t seem to help enough at all. Watch this short video to get more idea how their roads look like:
Indians just live simple
Along with all that was said above, Indians just live simple life without feeling it as frugal. They just don’t seem to need much more than their everyday rice, “tiffins”, a piece of banana, a tap water (you should never drink it unless you are an Indian too), and a place to sleep. When we were going to the supermarket together with some Indians, I noticed they don’t have our European habit to hang around the rows and wonder what else to buy. Most of them just go inside, buy whatever they have planned to buy, pay and go out. Most of them don’t even go to the supermarkets often that’s why most of the stores there are much smaller and supplied with less variety of products than what we are used to see in Europe and USA.
If that draws too rural picture in your imagination, I need to add that they go to the malls and movies from time to time, play PC games etc. normal things that people in the West do. But most Indians don’t go to bars or expensive restaurants and don’t drink alcohol which of course is another way to save a lot of money.
The lifestyle of people in India may or may not fully suit you but nevertheless you can learn from them to manage a simpler life with less stress, less consumption and, it seems that, more joy.
That’s just it, it’s a ‘lifestyle’.
Simply said (blogged), Harder to do!
The article just got published in an original carnival here: http://www.stoptheride.net/2008/07/abcs-of-money-carnival-of-money-stories.html
Make sure to check the other stories, pretty interesting.
Hi,
I’m an Indian, and I couldn’t resist saying that you’ve portrayed an average Indian’s life very well. I could just see myself in all the points that you made, Vegetarian, riding a bike ( a bicycle in my case), teetotaler, living with parents and siblings (in-laws in my case).
Thanks for looking beyond the obvious in India.
Just want to add a few more things to your story based on my experience:
Rice is a staple in southern India, however in North India wheat is the staple food. The north Indian’s eat Chapati/ Roti ( you can think of it as a thinner pita bread) which is baked on iron skillet. They eat it alongwith some curries, entries made of vegetable. As with rice it has a lot of variations like tawa roti, Naan, Parantha ( Chapati, filled with some vegetable). Since wheat price is at par with that of rice, it doesn’t make any difference to the cost. However, asking a north Indian to go without roti for a prolonged period will be considered a form of torture 🙂
Most Indians can’t maintain cars because the cost of gas is much higher than what it is in US. Even with bikes a middle class Indian commuting and avg 20 Kms a day will end up paying about 6% of his salary in just commuting. Assuming he earns 10000 Indian Rupees. Thats a lot of money, and gas prices have always been on the rise. So even if many Indians can buy the car, they simply choose a 2-wheeler because they can’t afford the gas. Thats why it was a big cultural shock for us when we first came to US and saw people driving to 3 different stores just to get the difference of a couple of dollars, in India you’ll end up paying more for the gas if you do that.
And living with parents means a lot of emotional and moral support ( well, in most cases), free babysitting and lot of help for both the children and the parents. I just love this concept but sadly it is on decline nowadays.
There’s also the vacation part of the story, Vacations are not really a status symbol in India ( unlike a big house or land) and family vacations rarely go beyond the annual visit to grandparents or relatives, going to weddings and other social dos. I don’t really think it is good, but thats how it is in most middle class Indian families. Indians are just not into blowing money on expensive vacations.
Wow, that’s a great comment, thank you. Ya, I had plenty of roti, chapati and naan even there, but most people preferred rice.
My impression was that 10,000 rupees is a bit low salary even there? The newbie tech guys and girls were getting that much in Hyd, but then they quickly go up to 30k or so as their experience grows.
@admin
Yes! 10,000 is a low salary from standards of India even and with the rate at which inflation is going up, its hardly sufficient to make ends meet for an average family of four. But it is also true that a lot of Indians begin their career at this level. Specially in public sectors salary is quite low ( which people still prefer because of the job security it brings). If we are talking about average, we’ll have to look beyond Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad which are exceptions rather than the rule. The paychecks are bigger in these cities but so are the expenses. Anyway, for the sake of argument we can assume that the salaries are 15K/20K but my point was that the cost of gas is still very prohibitive. After coming to US I have learnt that if something in US is 3 times its cost in India, it is cheap and I can buy it without thinking twice. ( Except electronic goods, of course). But when I compare gas, I find that it is cheaper than in US than in India. Given the income difference, it becomes a huge difference. Thats why all this talk about gas becoming very expensive in US doesn’t make much sense to me.
Regarding rice, I believe you have the cause and effect all mixed up — Indians (and many other south/southeast/east Asians) eat rice because it was the grain which is most suitable to grow in that climate and can be easily stored.
The health aspect of it is a very recent and Western-centric view. In fact, other grains or carbs are probably no less “healthy” if you cook it the way rice is (mostly) cooked in Asia–with just water and maybe some spice. Compare that to the many ways potatoes are usually cooked: mashed (usually with butter and cream), baked (then add butter, sour cream, and bacon bits on top of it), or deep-fried (all the oil soaked up by the potato). It’s easy to see why rice is “healthy”.
With regard to vegetable vs. meat consumption, you have realize that meat is much more expensive than vegetables in most, if not all, places outside of North America. In fact, food in all forms are generally much cheaper in North America when compared to the average family income. I’m sure Americans would cut back on meat consumption if a regular pot roast dinner for a family of 4 costs $150 to make while a mostly vegetables meal cost $20.