Ghar Kharcha: Why Festive Spending Burnt A Hole In Your Pocket
Did your Diwali bonus keep pace with the rise in prices? We doubt!
Festive season means a flying back home, sweets and delicacies, new clothes and in recent years, shopping for appliances and gadgets as retailers offer lucrative deals.
But rising prices did temper some of the demand this year. Unless your Diwali bonus managed to keep pace inflation? (Assuming you did receive one in the first place).
Retail inflation eased to 6.77% in October, from 7.41% in September, according to official data released on Monday. While that is relief, prices of some goods and services have continued to rise.
Food And Beverages: Cereal Killer
Inflation in food and beverages was at 7.04% against 8.41% in September.
Sequential momentum aggravated with food prices rising 0.96% from September, the highest in five months, according to a research note by QuantEco research. The buildup was led by vegetables, spices, and cereals.
Inflation in cereals and in spices continues to rise to the highest since at least 2014. While cereals inflation rose to 12.08% in October, spices inflation jumped to 18.02%.
Vegetables are likely to have borne the brunt of heavy downpour in the first fortnight of October. The rainfall was 89% above the long-period average, QuantEco said. In addition, erratic rainfall along with dry spell in paddy producing states continued to weigh upon price of rice and its derivatives, it said.
New Clothes, High Heels, High Bills!
How many of you bought new clothes, footwear and accessories to bring in the festive season?
Prices of clothes rose 9.7% in October, while footwear prices jumped 12.2%. Despite a sharp fall in cotton prices, clothing & footwear inflation is yet to ease, wrote Teresa John, economist at Nirmal Bang Institutional Equities, in a note.
Utilities: Some Relief; Some Pain
Prices of petrol and diesel fell on an annual basis after having risen in double-digits a year ago. Prices of LPG, diesel and petrol remained largely unchanged over the previous month as well.
What rose? House rents. Unless you have been living under a rock, you are bound to have felt the pinch of rising house rents especially across metropolitans. House rent rose 4.5% in October, the highest since November 2019.
Took a flight back home Diwali? That's bound to have hurt. Airfares in the economy class rose 14.7% in October compared with a 0.7% year-on-year rise the previous month.