Gen X Spending - An Interesting Case Study on Smart Shopping and Savings

Arunima is a 44-year-old married, working woman residing in a tier-1 city. She lives with her husband and two children but also helps her parents with medications and monthly care, although she does bear their complete expenses.

Her lifestyle, while not opulent, is indulgent, and she prefers the same for her family - including her elderly parents and parents-in-law, who often come down to visit once or twice a year, respectively.

Post-pandemic, the family's frequency to travel both nationally and internationally has increased. Their weekend outings for movies, arcades, and fine dining have also seen a steep rise, often regarded as their way to unwind after a long week.

Both Arunima and her husbands like digital content and shopping. They do frequent retail stores for something more custom fit. Similarly, their offline content consumption is also palpable in the form of magazine subscriptions (like Reader's Digest) and other fiction and non-fiction books.

Arunima represents a generation that delves deep into the online and offline world, substantially impacting her expenses. However, as her organization feels strongly about caring for employees' financial well-being, they invested in an employee discount program powered by Empuls, allowing Arunima and her family to avail unique experiences at lower costs.

Here's the breakdown of Arunima's typical expense and saving chart.

Monthly Expenses

Days 1 - 10

Groceries, utility bills, toiletries, and fine dining significantly contribute to Arunima's monthly expenses.

Groceries at the start of the month usually cost Rs. 20,000 on average, so she uses the 6% discount available for Bigbasket to start the month on the right note.

During pay week, fine dining is always at the top of Arunima's list as she and her family enjoy the scrumptiousness of luxury restaurants. A typical bill at hotels like ITC may cost around Rs.10,000, but with the ITC hotel gift card, she saves 6.5% off the total bill!

Arunima and her husband commute three times a week to work using Uber. Including their weekend trips to catch up with friends and individual journeys, they spend a total of Rs.7000 per month on Uber and utilize a 3% discount from Empuls to save on commute costs.

Arunima helps her elderly parents with their monthly medications. The total cost of their regular medicines comes to around Rs.6000, but with the Apollo Pharmacy gift card, she can avail of a 7% discount.

Arunima and her husband are invested in enhancing their children's education and often encourage them to go beyond just academic studies. For this reason, they have brought a subscription to Udemy, which costs around Rs. 2500 per month. However, thanks to employee discounts from Empuls, she saves 12%!

Takeaways - some days are no cooking days, and this family abides by that! Arunima orders from Mainland China often. The bills for the family are Rs. 2100. However they get a discount of 10%.

Days 11 - 20

This is a comparatively lighter patch of the month where Arunima is most likely to refill her groceries or buy some things off e-commerce platforms.

Arunima's grocery spending at Swiggy Instamart, which has a discount of 5.5%, does not exceed more than Rs.7000

Arunima likes to shop online for her family, and this month, she shopped for clothes at Myntra, for which she availed a discount of 8.5% on the total purchase of Rs. 15,000 - this is an expense that occurs once in 3 months.

Days 21 - 30

This is a period of low spending.

Healthy breakfast mixes, nuts, and other essential groceries are part of the weekly expenses. The maximum spend on groceries is around Rs.5000. A 9.5% discount at True Elements offers much-needed month-end support!

Annual Expenses

Intending to focus on her physical health, Arunima took an annual membership at Cult, which cost her Rs.9900, and a 12-month e-gift voucher got her a 12% discount.

Being married to a gadget lover, Arunima decided to gift her husband a smartphone costing Rs. 60,000 as an upgrade from his existing one. Buying it at Croma seems like a great deal with a 4% discount.

This year, Arunima wanted to uplift her bedroom space and carved out a bit of expenditure for home decor. She purchased two new mattresses from Wakefit and four sets of curtains to amp up the room. While the purchase set her back by Rs.20,000 for the mattress and Rs.10,000 for the curtains, the discounts at Wakefit (6.5%) and Homecenter (8.5%) helped her save.

On weekends, Arunima and her husband enjoy quality time together and prefer going away on getaways for a couple of days. However, the plans are made early in the year to prepare them for their much-deserved time off.

Flight tickets cost around Rs.26,000, but the savvy traveler looks for discounts that she finds on Yatra (6% off). The hotel is usually responsible for transit, meals, and everything. The couple chose fab hotels as their preferred accommodation and got a significant discount of 40% on their bill of approximately Rs. 20,000.

An annual family trip is also a necessary part of their lives, where all four members go on a week-long trip to India. The journey average comes to Rs.1,96,720, including flights, hotels and miscellaneous expenses.

With Empuls, Arunima and her family get 8% off flight tickets via O Genie and 6 % off on accommodation at Sterling resorts.

Every year, both her children's birthdays are celebrated with great pomp, where they are given their celebratory birthday gifts. This year, Arunima and her husband are giving their younger space enthusiast kid an extraordinary experience at the cosmic jaunt space camp, which costs around Rs.5,900. The elder one, who is starting his junior college, has a new wardrobe from Aeropostale, which costs around Rs.6500. However, exclusive employee discounts help them save 9.5% and 12% on those expenses, respectively.

The couple ensures that their children are involved in sports and other physical activities. The elder one is a tennis pro while the younger one favors football. Once a year, Arunima invests in their sports equipment and purchases most of it from Decathlon. While doing this, she ensures that her children get quality gear while she and her husband get a discount on the same with Empuls. The total cost of the equipment is around 10,000 per year. The deal offered is 4.5%.

When the transition from online to offline school happened, Arunima's children had to make their way to their respective institutions. This calls for annual school/college supplies like bags, notebooks, and other stationery. It is a yearly expenditure of Rs. 5000. Arunima buys the supplies on Flipkart and, like every intelligent shopper, does not forget the discount. With Empuls, she saves 4% on the total purchase.

Arunima's parents and in-laws often fly down to visit the family. While the elders can afford their trip, Arunima and her husband usually take up the responsibility of booking their flight tickets. With Empuls, she deploys the Yatra and uber discount to avail benefits at 6% and 3%, respectively.

On Arunima's birthday, the family usually spends the day away from the house with a beautiful present for her special day. This time it was a fancy one-night stay at the Marriott and a pair of sparkling diamond earrings from Surat diamonds. With Empuls discounts, they get 10.5% off on diamonds and 6% off at the Marriott experience.

The couple is also a pair of bookworms and enjoys reading physical magazines in their free time. They have a Reader's digest annual subscription, which costs Rs. 1200, but with Empuls, they receive a whopping discount of 48%!

Calculating the Expenses and Savings

Arunima saves Rs.95,000 annually by utilizing exclusive discounts on Empuls, offered as a part of her company's perks & benefits program.

And that's not all!: These exclusive employee discounts from Empuls are a part of Arunima's shopping journey all year round. Additionally, she clubs these discounts with mega savings seasons like the Flipkart Big Billion Day Sale, Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale, Myntra's End of Reason Sale, Amazon Prime Day Sale, Flipkart Freedom Sale, and more for more smart savings.

Following the ethics of a rupee saved is a rupee earned - Arunima has proven herself to be a savvy shopper!