‘When will our good days come?’ The Mumbai cook voting in India’s election

​​What’s your money worth? A series from the front lines of the cost-of-living crisis, where people who have been hit hard share their monthly expenses.

Name: Manisha Santosh Kadam

Age: 42

Born: Manchar, in the Indian state of Maharashtra

Occupation: Cook

Lives with: Her husband, Santosh, 48, their daughter, Rithuja, 21, and son, Sujal, 17.

Lives in: A 37sq-metre (400sq-foot) house in Diva, located in Maharashtra’s Thane district, which is about an hour’s drive from Mumbai, India’s financial capital.

The house, which is located on a busy street, has two small rooms – a medium-sized hall where all of them sleep together, and a kitchen. They do not have a garden or any open space.

Monthly income: Working as a cook for eight hours a day at a household in the Byculla area of South Mumbai, Manisha earns a wage of 17,000 rupees ($203.64) per month. India’s daily minimum wage is currently 176 rupees ($2.11).

Manisha’s husband works as an electrician and earns an erratic income ranging from 3,000 to 4,000 rupees a month ($35.94 to $47.92).

Total expenses for the month: 16,673 rupees ($199.72) on family living expenses. At the end of March, Manisha only had 327 rupees ($3.92) left in her bank account.

She also paid 90,000 rupees ($1,078) to repay a loan she had taken from the government to cover running costs at their family farm near the town of Manchar, where Manisha is from. She paid back the loan by borrowing money from friends and relatives.