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The chai is not the problem.

Everyone who runs out of money before payday blames the chai. The chai has an alibi. What it does not have is company.

Money2 min read

By Rizwan

Around the 20th, a lot of salaried people hold the same trial. The salary is gone, somebody must have taken it, and the usual suspect is led in: the daily chai.

It is a good suspect. It is small, it happens every day, and every article about money has already convicted it. Stop buying chai, they say, and one day you will own a house.

The chai has an alibi

Look at one month. This is the example month inside HisaabFlow, the one the app shows before you have logged anything of your own.

  • Chai, Rs 150
  • Biryani, and no regrets, Rs 1,200
  • A Careem to the office, Rs 380
  • New headphones, Rs 4,500
  • Dinner out, Rs 2,800

The chai is the smallest thing on the list. The headphones and the dinner did the damage, and nobody held a trial for them, because each one had a reason. The old headphones had died. It was one dinner.

Nobody is the thief

That is the uncomfortable verdict. There is no single expense to blame. A month is made of reasonable things, and reasonable things add up without asking anyone.

So the advice to cut one small habit fails twice. It picks the wrong suspect, and it makes you feel guilty about the one thing that was getting you through the afternoon.

Maybe your month is different. Maybe your chai really is the problem. You cannot know from memory, because memory keeps the chai and loses the headphones.

Look before you cut

So do not start with a budget. Start with a list.

  1. For one salary, from payday to payday, write down everything. Not a summary at the end of the week. Each thing, when it happens.
  2. Change nothing. This month is for looking.
  3. At the end, look at the five biggest things your money went to. Decide about those.

Step one is where this usually dies, because writing things down is boring and opening an app to do it is worse. That is the part HisaabFlow is built around. You text it "chai 200" and it is written down. The app then shows your five biggest categories, each with its share of the month.

It is not open yet. You can get early access.

Then decide. Keep the chai if you like. You will at least know what it costs, which is more than the people who gave it up can say.