To spend or to save?

Are you in your twenties? Are you working in a job that doesn't pay you enough? Do you find yourself spending your entire salary on everything under the sun till you have to "borrow" money from your parents so you won't have to walk to work till the next pay packet arrives? Do you find yourself conveniently forgetting to pay them back?

Then you're like many of us today: young and broke. Let's face it. It's a fact of life; unless of course you've got the no-questions-asked financial backing of your daddy's fat wallet.

For those of us who wish to be a little independent when it comes to managing our finances and climbing up our career staircase one step at a time without troubling our parents too much, the current predicament this country is in does Not help us push forward.

What with the already skyrocketing cost of living going where no spacecraft has gone before and inflation threatening to be bigger than some of our politicians' egos, young earners are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up. The problem here is that we're young and carefree. And most of us are not married and not providing for anyone but ourselves. So, we tend to overindulge. How many of us actually think about saving at least half of what we earn? Instead, we pamper ourselves with all kinds of luxuries that money can buy. From the moment we get the green stuff in our hands, we spend like there's no tomorrow. And more often than not, to quote the Fresh Prince, we spend our hard earned money on things we don't need to impress people we don't like. Three weeks later we wonder where all the money went.

But are we really at fault? We're young after all. Guys have to go out with their friends and chill out once in a while, eat, buy some DVDs, eat, pay their phone bills, food, bus fares, food, etc, etc. And girls have to go shopping. End of story. We came up with some tips to cut down on your monthly expenditure and maybe make some extra cash in the process.

Sounds like too much to ask for? Look at the bright side – you'll be healthier, wiser and a tad richer.

Majestic City, Bambalapitiya, is a shopping mall, eatery, arcade and cinema all in one, frequented daily by young people. Has the rise in the cost of living had an effect on their business?

Somewhat, says Lalith Abeysekara, Administration and Security Manager of CT Land Development Ltd, the company that runs the Majestic City shopping complex.

"It hasn't affected us much but there is a slight drop in customers compared to last Christmas," he says. A source from Crescat Boulevard said there had been a drop in sales and customer visits. "Even malls and other shops have been affected because the purchasing power of the people has drastically gone down," he said.

The Mirror Magazine spoke to some people in their twenties on how they're managing

Being the bread winner in the family I cope with limited resources when it comes to household needs. For the time being I don't even buy a litre of ice cream because it's too expensive. Yesterday I bought some stuff from the supermarket (necessary items like milk, rice, sugar, etc, and no fancy stuff); it came to Rs. 6000. Now it's all about sacrifices.

The cost of living is increasing everyday. I believe it's a normal thing. We can't expect the government to take full responsibility for it. Most of my friends blame the government but I don't. (I mean I do blame them but not for everything).

When I hang out with friends, it's pretty hard to control the expenses and, yeah, it reduces the fun too because from the money I have in hand, the things I can buy are limited.

In my family earlier only my dad worked but now my two brothers and I also work, so our income has increased. So far rising prices have not become a huge issue for me.

The rising cost of living is something we all have to deal with as youth. It's really okay to spend some money and have some fun because these are the best days of our lives and we'll never get them back, but you must never forget the people around you, those who are less fortunate than you. They must be finding it a hundred times harder than we are.

Life is tough but since I'm living with my parents it doesn't affect me much because my expenditure is mostly covered by myself. I don't think it's applicable to me since I'm not exactly working. It's a short term thing I'm doing. I spend my money mostly on lunch, diesel, parking, and maybe some short eats and DVDs.

Sometimes I wonder what happens to my money. You walk into a shop with Rs.1000 and walk out 20 minutes later you've probably spent that Rs.1000 and on what? Maybe you've got yourself a nice top or something, but I'm pretty sure you can't buy more than two or three items with Rs.1000. Phone bills, clothes, junk food, van fees, monthly collections for birthdays at office, going out with friends… drains the life out of you! It's absurd. Where are we heading?

Credit cards – designed to cause insolvency. But you need them anyway. Thank God for the credit card or you'll be stuck without them 'essentials.' Phone bills are another necessary evil. How else can you keep in touch with the rest of the world? Clothes… What are we to do without them? Clothes, shoes, handbags, we need to keep up with the latest trends… society says so, not us. And partying! Yes, we need to have a social life, c'mon, what things-are-too-expensive then? Ah, the tuk-tuks, the easiest form of transportation, especially when you are in a hurry… with prices of fuel increasing at a rate we would have to do an extra job to find enough money just for transport.

One way you can keep your head above the rising cost of living is to do freelance work, which I see more and more people doing now, especially younger people. It's hard to just survive on one job, if you're earning an average salary of Rs. 20-25,000 and living alone, paying rent, bills, your food, etc. It's not enough anymore. I'm lucky I'm a writer and this is a country that has mushrooming institutions like ad agencies and newspapers/magazines and even many corporate companies who are looking to cut down on their budgets with ad agencies and go instead to freelance people like myself, so I can find plenty of work. But it's a lot of work.

Well, because the prices of so many things have gone up so much it's getting increasingly harder to live the life that I managed to live a few years ago. My income has increased but expenditure has increased so much more that I'm actually able to do less with my salary. Because I live outside Colombo, transport is a particular problem because if you want to go out in the evening you have to factor in a few thousand rupees just for getting to town and back. So on most weekends it's better to just stay at home and watch TV because everything else is so expensive.