My monthly budget as a dropper living away from home (real numbers, about ₹15k)

so a few of you asked in other threads what a drop year actually costs outside the coaching fee. this is my own budget, copied from my notes app as it is. Mumbai, shared PG, one dropper year. your city and your appetite will be different, so take it as one data point and not a rule.

context first. home is almost two hours away by local train, so travelling daily was never going to work and I took a bed in a 3-sharing room about 20 minutes from my class. no kitchen, no fridge (the fridge fight is a different post). the coaching fee is not in here. my father paid it once, in one go, and I don't want to look at that number every month.

The table

Item	₹ per month	Note
Bed in 3-sharing room	7,500	water + wifi included, electricity split three ways
Tiffin, lunch + dinner	3,000	monthly, but I tried one week first
Breakfast, chai, fruit	1,200	this line is a liar, more below
Local train pass + bus	450	the daily short rides
Weekend trips home	500	two trips, plus a bit extra for the kids at home
Phone recharge	299	one plan, no add-ons
Laundry	400	I wash my own socks, everything else goes out
Stationery + printouts	400	test papers, pens, one new highlighter a month
Toiletries, small things	350
Medicine / doctor buffer	300	see below, this one got used
Friends, one outing, misc	600
Total	14,999

(yes it is one rupee short of fifteen thousand. I did not do that on purpose, my brain just enjoys it.)

Rent is exactly half the total. Food is ₹4,200, so about 28%. Those two lines are 78% of everything. So every "saving hack" that is not about rent or food is basically a fight over the remaining ₹3,300. Good to know before you spend a whole evening comparing recharge plans.

What I cut and wish I hadn't

First two months, my breakfast line was about ₹300, not 1,200. I skipped breakfast, had a samosa at 11, and told myself this was efficient. By month three I had acidity almost every afternoon, I was sleepy in the 2 pm class anyway, and the doctor buffer of ₹300 became ₹1,100 in one month. So the "saving" cost me more than it saved. Now breakfast is poha or eggs or a banana plus chai and I do not touch that line. Food is not where you save. I will die on this hill.

Things that actually worked:

• Monthly train pass instead of tickets. Obvious. I still did it only in week 3.
• Printing only what I'll attempt. I used to print full papers "just in case" and ended up with a stack I used as a pillow.
• One recharge plan, no extras. And data off after 9 pm, which is more about sleep than money but whatever.
• A trial week for the tiffin. The first tiffin I tried had rotis you could use as a coaster. Paying for a week and then deciding saved me three months of regret.
• Splitting small things. Detergent, an extension board, a kettle. Three people, three times cheaper.

How I track without going crazy

I do not track every rupee. That is a second hobby and I already have one hobby called NEET.

Six categories: rent, food, travel, study, health, other. Every Sunday night I take out ₹800 cash for the week for chai and small snacks. When it's over it's over, no top-up. Everything else goes by UPI so it is already sitting in my history. First Sunday of the month I add it up and write one line in the notes app. That's it, five minutes.

After a few months the line told me something I did not expect: ₹14,999 is not a fixed number. Exam months it is more (printouts, a haircut I forgot, a cab when the train was cancelled). Festival months it is more. During Eid I went home, took gifts for the little cousins, and the month crossed ₹17,000 without me even feeling it. So I keep a cushion of about 10%, which is roughly ₹1,500. If it's not used, it rolls into the next month.

Things nobody puts in the table

• the bag zip that dies in the first rain
• a charger, because the PG sockets eat chargers
• the roommate who "borrows" ₹50 and the ₹50 quietly becomes a gift
• mock test centre travel, which is sometimes far
• one "I need to feel normal" outing, which I now plan instead of guilt-spending

I put ₹600 for friends and misc in the table and I stand by it. A budget with no fun line is a budget you will break in week three.

The part that is not a number

₹14,999 into twelve is about ₹1.8 lakh a year. For a lot of families that is not "extra", it is a stretch, and you can feel it in every phone call. My mother never asks me about money. My father says "theek hai?" in a way that has a price tag on it.

What helped: I showed them this table. Once the conversation became about a table, it stopped being about guilt. My father looked at it for ten minutes, asked why laundry was ₹400, I explained, he said fine. I think parents get less scared of money when they can see where it goes.

So if you're thinking about a drop year, put this number next to the coaching fee. And if you're already in one, find which line in your table is the liar. Mine was breakfast.