How to live on 1000 rubles a week? How much do utilities cost? Living wage and consumer basket

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

In a crisis and a noticeable increase in food prices, every second person in Russia is looking for ways to save on food. But is it realistic to live without spending more than 4 thousand rubles a month? Experts are sure that this can be done without undermining your he alth. You can read more about how to live on 1000 rubles a week in this article.

Spend no more than 1000 rubles a week: is it real?

Recently, more and more people are paying attention to how they spend their money. Everyone knows the fact that no matter how much money a person receives, he will always find something to spend it on. People who receive higher wages start spending it on better tea, gluten-free Italian pasta, better meat, etc. At the same time, the nutritional properties of the products themselves often remain at the same level, without significantly affecting he alth. If you structure your expenses and spend only a certain amount, then you can easilysave up for a vacation or a new gadget. Many people in Russia even receive wages below the subsistence level, so they are forced to approach their budget very rationally. The habit of saving on things and products can greatly help throughout life. Thanks to such savings, after some time you can buy a car or even buy an apartment. The main problem is that when saving money, we rarely see an immediate result, which is why we prefer the long-term perspective to momentary pleasure.

How to live on 1000 rubles a week? It is necessary to develop principles that you will follow regardless of your desires or mood. Many impulses to buy something delicious will have to be abandoned, and most of the food will be prepared several days in advance. It turns out that in order to save money, you need not only to know the price of bread and other products, but also to be able to manage your money and time in such a way as to be able to include shopping and cooking in the weekly schedule. The good news is that this is not so difficult to do - after some time, all these actions will become a habit, and you yourself will not notice how a decent amount has accumulated in your account.

Savings rules

There is a definite answer to the question "how to live on 1000 rubles a week": plan your budget. This simple action will not only allow you to determine the necessary items of expenditure, but also help you save on those things that you did not even think about.

• Keep track of income and expenses. Despite the obviousness of this advice, few people have the discipline to even write down their expenses every day. However, it will help you see exactly where your money is going and where you can cut costs.
• Buy clothes only on discount days, and use special applications to search for promotional products. For example, the "Edadil" application allows you to track discounts on the things you need in the nearest stores.
• Review the need for spending and boldly discard those you can live without. At first glance, it seems that without a glass of coffee in the morning, life is not sweet. But if you save about 200 rubles a day on going to a coffee shop, then in a year the amount from such "glasses" will reach 73 thousand rubles.
• Stay on budget. Even if it seems that buying a chocolate bar won't make a huge difference, thirty of these "goodies" can seriously undermine your savings. Better learn to please yourself with other things: good music or a walk in the fresh air.
• For full savings, you will also have to give up bad habits: alcohol, cigarettes, eating in food courts and buying various snacks and buns in stores. All these habits are quite expensive, but they do not bring any benefit.

Procedure of actions

The habit of saving is a very useful and valuable skill that can help in any difficult situation. The main thing in saving is a clear and detailed plan, from which you should notdeviate one step. Making a grocery list for the week will help you define your menu for each day. This is quite difficult to do, since it is necessary to take into account not only the cost of products, but also their nutritional value. Nutritionists don't recommend eating too many simple carbs, so try to include cereals, protein sources, and seasonal vegetables or fruits.

1. Write down your preferred meal options. This list will be a kind of "fish" of the future menu.
2. Next, you need to find out the price of all the products on your list. Try to choose the cheapest analogues. The part of them that does not fit into the budget will have to be deleted or replaced with something else. For example, instead of expensive beef or coho salmon, you can substitute a whole chicken or inexpensive varieties of white fish (pollock, cod) in the list. This way you will keep the value of your menu at the same level, but at the same time save a decent amount.
3. Make a menu for the week. To reduce the cost of its cost, include soups and cereals in your diet. Add enough fruits, vegetables and protein to them. Instead of meat, you can use vegetable sources - lentils and beans.
4. If you have free funds, add sweets, coffee or tea, snacks to the menu.
5. According to the list, buy all the products you need in the store for a week. If you find it difficult to carry everything at once, order delivery from the online store. In this way, you can save several hundred rubles, since often every time you visit a store you just want to buysomething necessary and necessary, for which you do not have the funds.

Expert Tips

What do experts advise those who want to save money?

• Buy "multi-component products". For example, in stores, the breast or thigh of the chicken is in greatest demand. But you can buy a whole chicken, cut it up and use it for cooking.
• In addition to the cost of food, it is often necessary to take into account the cost of travel and utilities. There are ways to save on these budget items as well.
• Utilities tariffs remain unchanged. But you can cut your spending by installing water and light meters.
• Days of discounts are in the off-season and before the New Year holidays. This is a great opportunity to purchase expensive items that you have long needed - for example, warm jackets, household appliances.
• Use the bonus points that are available in most stores, and always carry discount cards with you. Some banks give cashback for purchases, you just need to pay for products using their cards.
• Loans can significantly aggravate your financial situation, so try to avoid them.
• Go shopping as little as possible. You should not test your willpower and tempt yourself with inaccessible things - most likely, you will still not be able to resist and gain something, especially if you are in a depressed mood.

Budget menu

The basis of an economical budget is a menu that will nottoo expensive products. Yet for many people, food is the biggest expense item, so it is this that they try to optimize in the first place. What can you cook for lunch inexpensively? Below is a sample menu for a day for one person. You can change the ingredients so that the food is not monotonous, but the essence remains the same: no frills and frills in the form of seafood or sausages, which you can easily do without.

• Breakfast can consist of home-cooked cereals. Oatmeal, pearl barley or buckwheat will keep you full for a long time. You can add a boiled egg or an inexpensive fruit to them - a banana, an apple, berries. The cost of such a dish will be only 50-70 rubles.
• If you are not a fan of cereals, you can replace them with sandwiches. Bread is the easiest and cheapest way to make your own - you don't need a bread maker, you just need to knead the dough and bake it in the oven.
• A hearty and tasty meal can be made from a whole chicken. The chicken needs to be butchered, the breast and thighs are frozen, and a rich broth is boiled from the back. It will be enough to add rice, noodles or potatoes with spices to it, and a delicious soup is ready. Wings and legs can be baked or fried - this will be the second dish. As a side dish, you can boil pasta or any cereal.
• Seasonal fruits, cottage cheese, a sandwich with tea are suitable as a snack.
• The perfect solution for dinner is scrambled eggs with vinaigrette salad. All you need to prepare it is vegetables (potatoes, beets, carrots, onions and pickles), a few tablespoons of vegetable oil, andalso a couple of eggs.

It is quite possible to live a week on 1000 rubles. True, you will have to save on many familiar and convenient things. We will have to exclude household chemicals (for example, instead of washing dishes, take mustard powder), expensive meat and natural farm products. But that doesn't mean you'll starve or taste bad.

It is impossible to make a universal list of products for a month (per person or per family), because everyone has their own tastes and needs. But we will give general recommendations a little later.

Living wage

How to live on 1000 rubles a week? It is enough just to buy products included in the living wage. This is the minimum amount of money that a person needs to live. The living wage includes not only food, but also the purchase of necessary things, payment of utilities and travel. Since 2018, its size in Russia is 10,300 rubles. At the same time, the cost of living for an adult, a child and a pensioner is different. For pensioners, its value is set at 8,700 rubles. The cost of living also depends on the region of the Russian Federation - in large cities, where life is more expensive, they will pay a large amount.

Eligible for an additional payment are those people whose wages or benefits are below the MP. Indeed, in this case, living on such a meager amount is almost unrealistic. Low-income families, large families, the disabled, and pensioners are also en titled to a surcharge. In order to apply for benefits, you must contact the social security authoritiesor to the My Documents center.

Consumer basket: composition and price for the month

Is it possible to live on 1000 rubles a week without changing the principles of he althy eating? Experts are sure that you can, even if there is no excess of fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet. The Government of the Russian Federation has approved a consumer basket, which allows you to keep the prices of most essential products at a low level. What is included in the consumer basket? Half of it is food. The rest is occupied by the cost of CU, clothing and transport. The government used food consumption data and WHO data to compile the list. For example, for a whole year, an adult in Russia eats about 200 kilograms of potatoes, 120 kilograms of other vegetables and fruits, and 60 kilograms of meat. Based on these data, the following food basket was compiled:

• bread;
• sugar and sweets;
• fish and meat;
• Fruits and vegetables;
• potato;
• margarine;
• s alt, tea, spices;
• eggs;
• dairy products.

According to Federal Law No. 227, this set is sufficient for the full development and functioning of the human body. The Decree of the Government of Russia determined the average figures for products per year and divided them into each month. And so it turned out a grocery basket, whose cost at the moment is an average of 6,500 rubles per month. At the moment, most of all it contains flour products, such as pasta, bread and various sweet products. The reason for this is largely due to how much they cost.pasta and bread. They can be purchased at any store and they are very satisfying. Their price ranges from 20 to 50 rubles, so people who want to live on 1000 rubles a week often include them in their diet. However, the nutritional value of such products is very low, so nutritionists are seriously concerned about the he alth of people who consume mainly flour.

Cost of basic products

The grocery basket includes not only the cheapest products, but also meat, milk and vegetables. How much does a set of everything necessary for a month cost a person? In general, the cost of the entire basket can be equated to 6-7 thousand rubles. The cost of the main products included in it will be as follows:

• Flour - 35 rubles.
• Potatoes - 23 rubles per kilogram.
• Milk - 70 rubles per liter.
• Tea (packing) – 100 rubles.
• Vegetable oil - 100 rubles.
• Chicken (whole) – 184 rubles/kg.
• Fish (cod) – 400 rubles/kg;
• Buckwheat – 80 rubles.
• Eggs - 45 rubles.
• Apples - 66 rubles.
• Cabbage - 15 rubles.
• Bread – the average price for a roll is 25 rubles.
• Sugar – 35 rubles

This is the minimum set of products that an adult is supposed to live in Russia. As you can see, it does not include semi-finished products, sweets and household chemicals, but such a set is quite enough to prepare a full breakfast, lunch and dinner. How much does pasta cost according to this list? Their average price is 45 rubles. That is whypasta can replace bread or other flour products.

How much do utilities cost?

Like food prices, the apartment maintenance tax continues to rise. Housing and communal services make up a large part of the subsistence minimum. How much do utilities cost? Their cost depends on several factors: the number of officially registered people and the area of the apartment. The location of the apartment and regional laws can also affect this amount. On average, the cost of a receipt for CU is 5 thousand rubles. For studio apartments, this amount may be less - only 3 thousand rubles. But if the apartment has three or four rooms, and the whole family lives in it, then the expenses will be higher, and receipts will come in the amount of 6-7 thousand rubles. Therefore, the question often arises of how to reduce the tariff for utilities. You cannot directly influence their cost, but it is quite possible to reduce electricity consumption:

• Turn off lights and appliances when not in use. The advice is banal, but still effective.
• Replace old wiring with new one.
• Also get rid of old appliances that are 10 years old or older - they tend to have a lower energy rating.
• Review discount information. For example, some companies give a discount for using electricity at night.
• Finish utility bills. The poor, families with many children and the disabled are en titled to this. The state compensates from 20 to 70% of the amount of utility bills.
• Installdishwasher. Oddly enough, this will save you money, because with this device you can almost cut your water use.
• Take a shower, not a bath.
• Turn off the taps. Even a small leak can seriously impact your bill at the end of the month.
• Quality windows and doors can reduce heat leakage and reduce heating costs.
• Use gas instead of electricity whenever possible. Electric stoves are much more expensive than gas stoves, although the latter are less safe.

Travel

The cost of public transport should also be included in the weekly expenses. If you live in a big city, then you need some way to get to work. You will have to give up the car right away - gasoline and maintenance will cost you too much. It is difficult to include trips by public transport in 1000 rubles, given the cost of groceries. The best solution would be to purchase a bicycle or scooter, with which you can get to work or school. If you live too far, then in this case it is worth buying a ticket, which will en title you to pay for public transport at a discount. In St. Petersburg, such a card is called "Podorozhnik", and in Moscow - "Troika".