Family cost analysis.

Hello friends, here I will show you the variables that are normally taken to perform a cost of living analysis, we will take as a basis my family, which can be considered an average of 5 people (three adults and 2 children) and a time as a basis of one month.

Initially we have to get the fixed costs, they call them fixed because they do not vary much during a month, this does not apply in a country with high inflation but normally includes the rent of the house (if you do not have your own home), the public services that include telephone, water, electricity, urban cleaning and domestic gas, transportation and grocery shopping.

As for variable costs in the month, it refers to people's tastes or lifestyle, and it varies greatly between countries; In Latin America we can consider the following variables: going to the movies, going on vacation, going to eat in a restaurant, buying a new pair of shoes that you don't need, buying a car that you don't need, among other examples.

To begin with the fixed costs, I must mention that thank God my family owns their own home and we do not pay rent, but it is important to limit how much is the rent of a house or a room in my country, it is around $ 20 to $ 35 a room small in a humble place and a level or apartment is between $ 80 - $ 120 per month.

Monthly room cost: $ 0

Services:

The costs of services in my country have varied significantly in recent years, we can say that in 2015 these services were very cheap and of medium quality, but over the years their quality has declined significantly:

The electric energy;
there are frequent power outages and the quality of voltage - amperage is very poor, currently we pay $ 2 based fee for the location.

Monthly cost of Electricity: $ 2

Water,
Water is the best service of all, but this is not due to the management of the company in charge, which is public, it is thanks that we live in a mountainous place where this resource is relatively abundant and it is supplied to us by gravity, we do not lack the service, but I have the knowledge that there are sectors in my city that suffer serious shortages of this vital liquid, currently we pay $ 2 according to consumption and location.

Monthly cost of Water Service: $ 2

Telephone Service:
The quality of the same varies according to the location or the coverage area, and it also depends on the private company that provides the service, currently we have public residential fixed telephone service that costs us $ 1 per month, in terms of mobile telephony, I pay around of 2 $.

Monthly fixed telephony cost: $ 1

Monthly mobile phone cost: $ 2

Urban Cleaning Service:
This service is managed at the mayoralty and municipality level, the quality of the service is poor, you pay $ 0.5 per month.

Monthly cost of Urban Cleaning Service: $ 0.5

Domestic gas;
This service is private and public, but the raw material is handled 100% by the tyranny and its elites, they say which company they are going to supply and which others are not, there are already several companies that had to leave the territory in search of other opportunities, such as In the case of gasoline, domestic gas has two prices, one international and one subsidized, but the one that predominates in the market is the international one; For a small 18 kg cylinder it is $ 5, the 27 kg medina is $ 10 and the large 43 kg cylinder is $ 20, in my case a medina cylinder yields us the month.

Monthly cost Domestic gas: $ 10

Transport;
This various depending on the case, your own vehicle can be consuming around 120 to 240 liters of gasoline, for basic needs, going to work, shopping and minimal errands; We would be talking between $ 60 to $ 120; In the case of public transport, it costs $ 0.10, on average the person would spend $ 1 to go to work and $ 1 more for other errands, there are no other forms of transport in my city; In my case, I spend an average of $ 80 a month on gasoline on a private vehicle.

Monthly transportation cost: $ 60

Shopping at the supermarket; Below is a summary table of the articles in the average basic basket and their amounts according to monthly consumption, it was taken from CENDAS CENDAS Institute in charge of monitoring food increases month by month.

	items	kg / unit per month	Price x kg / unit	Total
1	Cereals and derived products	12	1	12
2	Carnes y sus preparados	6	3,2	19,2
3	fish and shellfish	6	4,2	25,2
4	Leche	3	0,37	1,11
5	Cheeses	1,5	3	4,5
6	Eggs	4	2	8
7	Oils	2	4,2	8,4
8	Fruits and vegetables	24	0,25	6
9	Roots, tubers and others	21	0,3	6,3
10	Grains: beans, peas and lentils	8	1,2	9,6
11	Sugar and salt	4	1	4
12	Sauce and mayonnaise	2	3,5	7
13	coffee	0,5	10	5
14	others	4	0,9	3,6
		Total monthly meal cost:		119,91

Monthly food cost: $ 120

Summary of monthly fixed costs:

Monthly room cost:	0 $
Monthly cost of electricity	2 $
Monthly cost of Water Service:	2 $
Monthly fixed telephony cost:	1 $
Monthly mobile phone cost:	2 $
Costo mensual Servicio de Aseo Urbano:	0,5 $
Monthly cost Domestic gas:	10 $
Monthly transportation cost:	60 $
Monthly food cost:	120 $
Total cost	197.5 $

We can conclude that my family's monthly expenses are greater than $ 200 in a month, as long as an emergency such as those mentioned below does not occur, which is considered variable costs.

Regarding the variable costs, we are only going to touch on three points that in my case we have had to cover in certain months, is to go to a medical consultation with their respective exams, maintenance or repair of the house and repair or maintenance of the car; in the first case the medical consultations depending on the case and range from $ 20 to $ 120, the exams can vary from $ 10 to $ 60; Regarding the maintenance of the house when repairing a faucet or a lock, the expense can vary between $ 10 to $ 50; Regarding the repair or maintenance of the vehicle, not being a major repair, it can vary, for example, a repair of a rubber at $ 10, oil change at $ 30 and spark plugs at $ 15.

If we make a balance for the majority of the people who live in the country we can say that there is a deficit of up to 95% in the best of cases, the balance is negative, it must be clarified that the vast majority of the people in my country is surviving with the remittances in $ sent by their relatives who are working abroad, other people do not run with that luck and work to survive, it must also be said that many people help themselves with platforms like Hive that helps you shovel the current crisis.

NOTE: All estimates were made for the Andean region of Táchira Venezuela and costs vary according to the state and its location.