550+ respondents participate in the III ArthaYantra Diwali Spending survey
Spending mindset: Budget savvy
Gold takes a dip, followed by electronics and vehicles
The festival of lights, Diwali is perhaps the most important festival of joys. A time for celebrations, it is also the time for spreading the cheer of gifting. Individual scale of spending is proportional to overall sentiments and consumer confidence.
Like last year, ArthaYantra rolled out its annual Diwali Spending survey and the findings of over 550 respondents can be broadly categorized into 2 sections; spending and celebratory mindsets. Here’s a deeper look at each one of them:
Spending Mindset: Unlike 2014, the 2015 findings reveal that 76% of respondents will fund their Diwali expenditures from their savings and bonuses while only 24% may use credit/loans, arguing well with the theory that we are mostly a savings nation.
This spending will be allocated mostly towards buying clothes and crackers/ fireworks. Closely following was the logical spend towards buying things to gift going well with the festival that is also called the “gifting festival”.
Surprisingly, the purchase of gold has seen a drop as compared to last year. Only about 23% respondents this year propose to spend on the shining metal while electronics and vehicles have shown least purchase preference.
Shopping this year is a multi-place affair with almost 90% respondents choosing both retail outlets and malls as their preferred shopping destinations. What’s more? We have 74% respondents who plan not to overspend this Diwali irrespective of their budget as compared to their spending of less than Rs. 10,000 in 2014.
Celebration Mindset: 44% respondents feel that the festive sentiment is the driving force that motivates spends this year; a trend that has shown that this mindset is uniform over the years.
While 43% respondents were motivated by discounts/offers available in 2014, in 2015 it has fallen to 37%. With respect to where respondents plan to spend their time this Diwali, 67% opted for celebration at home.
Finally, the joy of celebrations does not seem to be limited to the respondents alone. Over 60% of them will or are thinking of making donations this festival to spread of light and cheer among the lesser fortunate ones.
Conclusion: From the perspective of personal finance, this Diwali, a resolve to deter over-spending on non-committed expenses reflects positively on respondents’ saving mindset being robust and disciplined. Festival celebration with family the traditional way makes it even more joyous.
About Artha Yantra: A Financial Life Management Advisor, ArthaYantra is an Indian robo-advisor with over 70,000 customers across 600+ cities/towns in India and 30 countries across the world. Our vision is to make goal based financial advice accessible to all and our online platform, Arthos, replaces the traditional human financial advisor by connecting all aspects of an individual’s financial life. It helps them in setting realistic financial goals and creates/offers an unbiased, comprehensive and customized portfolio for achieving their set financial goals. http://www.arthayantra.com
