Small habits, big bills: Why convenience costs more than you think

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Every now and then, you come across a news article about someone deleting food delivery and over-the-top entertainment apps from their phone and going on to save a substantial amount on monthly expenses. These stories feel nice, and somewhere, we all wish we could do that too. But who does not want to have some pizza when watching an IPL match at home or watch the latest shows on an OTT platform?“If you ask most people what they spend on “extras”, they’ll think of a big dinner or a weekend trip.

Almost no one thinks of the ₹249 lunch they ordered on a busy Tuesday or the ₹199 subscription that renewed quietly at 2am,” said Chakrivardhan Kuppala, co-founder and executive director, Prime Wealth Finserv.That’s where most of the money actually goes. Take food delivery. It’s rarely one big bill—it's 8-12 small ones throughout the month.

Each order quietly carries ₹40- ₹80 in delivery, which is a fixed sum and often excused if the order is beyond a certain sum, packaging, and platform fees. But the real shift is that you order more often than you would have cooked. What used to be a once-a-week indulgence becomes a default option.

That alone can push monthly spending to ₹3,000- ₹8,000 without it ever feeling excessive.“Once online menu prices—often 10-15% higher than offline listings—are factored in, the costs go up even higher,” said Rahul Kakkad, tax partner, consumer products and retail sector, EY India.Coming back to platform fees, the escalation across Zomato and Swiggy shows a steady rise from 2023 to 2026. “Swiggy first introduced a ₹2 fee in April-August 2023, followed by Zomato in August–December 2023. By 2024, fees increased gradually to ₹3-7 across both platforms, before jumping to