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Living

What does a year of living on your own actually cost?

Rent, food, getting around, bills. Added up, and turned into the salary it takes.

A year on your own

₹
That is ₹32,500 every month, before anything goes wrong.
Take-home needed
₹39,000
  • rent46%
  • food, getting around, bills42%
  • everything else12%
  • Rent ₹15,000
  • A month ₹32,500
Valmonkvalmonk.com/year · not advice

The link carries your numbers, so whoever opens it sees this exact result. Nothing is saved on our side.

Your numbers, your assumptions. Not advice. We can't see the rest of your life. What that means.

Your share, if you're sharing. Look at real listings for where you'd actually live.

Groceries and eating out together. This is the line people underestimate most.

Metro, autos, fuel, whatever the journey to work actually is

What this assumes

All editable. Change one and the answer changes with it.

Electricity, water, gas, maintenance

Clothes, haircuts, a friend's birthday, the thing that breaks. It is never zero.

%

A year that exactly covers itself leaves nothing for a broken phone. This is how much room the second figure allows, and it is an assumption rather than a rule.

How this works, and where the numbers come from

Most people guess this low, and not by a little

Rent is the line everyone thinks of and it is rarely half the total. Food, getting around, bills and the things that simply break add up to something comparable, and none of them arrive as a single memorable payment, which is exactly why they are invisible until you are paying them.

There are no city defaults hiding here

Costs vary enormously between Indian cities and within them, so a national average would be wrong everywhere. Every line is yours to fill in, and looking each one up is the exercise. Real listings, a real menu, the actual metro fare.

Covering it exactly is not covering it

A year that balances to zero leaves nothing for a phone that breaks or a trip home you did not plan. The second figure adds room on top, and how much room is an assumption you set rather than a rule anyone can give you.

Educational, not advice. Your numbers under assumptions you set.

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