A salary that barely covers survival | A reflection from Colombia

josevas217 (80)in PussFi 🐈 • 8 hours ago

Hello PussFi friends, good day to all. Today I want to talk about something that many of you already know, because you experience it every day, but it's rarely discussed openly. It's a rather harsh reality of daily life in Colombia, especially for those who live alone and depend solely on their salary to support themselves. This changes, obviously, when you live with a partner and share household responsibilities.

I was recently talking to someone about this, and when you start to do the math objectively, you realize that the issue is quite complicated. Because if a person lives alone, more than half of their salary goes almost immediately to two basic things: rent and utilities. And when I say utilities, I mean what we all know: electricity, water, gas, internet… the bare minimum to live with some semblance of normalcy these days.

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Then you start adding it all up. Let's say the person earns a relatively average salary. Rent alone can represent a very large portion of that income, depending on the city and neighborhood. Bogotá, for example, isn't exactly a cheap city in that sense. And then there are utilities, which lately aren't exactly inexpensive either.

When you finish paying for those two things, more than half of your monthly income is gone. But of course, the story doesn't end there, because there's still something very important to consider: transportation. If the person works far from where they live—which is most common—then they have to pay for at least two bus fares a day. One to get to work and another to get back home.

If we do the math for the month, that ends up representing approximately 10% of their salary, sometimes even a little more. And then we're already adding up unavoidable expenses. Because nobody can stop paying rent, nobody can live without basic services, and nobody can walk two hours every day to get to work.

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Then comes another expense that can't be ignored: food. And this is where things get even more complicated, because eating well isn't cheap. Even trying to shop carefully, looking for deals, or buying from more affordable places, it still represents a significant expense in the monthly budget.

When you add all that up—rent, utilities, transportation, and food—the reality is that there's very little room left for anything else. And when I say very little, I mean such a small budget that it often barely covers unexpected expenses or the occasional treat.

Then a very logical question arises: how can someone in these circumstances aspire to anything more? How can they save, invest, or build something for the long term if practically all their income goes toward surviving month to month?

And this is where I think a pretty clear conclusion emerges. If someone truly wants to break out of this cycle, it's almost mandatory to make an additional sacrifice. Something beyond the norm. That is, to find a way to generate extra income.

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It's not easy, that much is clear. Because after a day's work, many people just want to rest. But if a second source of income doesn't appear, the reality is that the room for progress becomes very small.

Now, that extra income shouldn't be spent carelessly either. The logical thing to do would be to try to invest it in something that has the potential to grow over time. It could be a small business, learning a skill that will later generate income, or even investing in some way that allows it to multiply in the long term.

Because if that additional income ends up being spent on the same old things, then the extra effort won't change the situation much. The key is to use it as a kind of seed that, over time, can transform into something bigger.

It's not an easy path, but the current economic reality makes thinking this way increasingly necessary. Otherwise, many people will be trapped for years in that same cycle: work, pay bills… and start all over again the following month. Goodbye, take care.