Phu Tho workers struggle to spend in the midst of a "pricot storm"

According to Lao Dong Newspaper, in mid-August, at the left bank industrial park of Da River (Hoa Binh ward, Phu Tho province), many workers shared that they had to calculate their spending for each meal when prices increased.

"Growing a worker's salary to go to the market now, I only dare to calculate every meal," said Ms. Nguyen Thi Luyen, 41 years old, from Thanh Hoa, who works at a garment company in the industrial park.

According to Ms. Luyen, every day she has to spend about 200,000 VND on the meals of her family of three, including breakfast and lunch. In the afternoon, the couple and their daughter in high school took advantage of the leftover food from lunch to continue eating.

To save money, she often takes advantage of bringing chicken and pork from her hometown, only buying fish, green vegetables and a few fresh dishes. However, prices are escalating every day, carp is now up to 70,000 VND/kg, causing the monthly food expenses to increase by nearly 6 million VND.

Meanwhile, her worker income is less than 8 million VND, while her husband is a freelancer with an unstable income.

"Many times when I look at my child's electricity and water bills, and tuition fees, I can only sighed. Nearly 2/3 of my income is gone, the rest depends only on who hired me to do everything for my husband," Ms. Luyen lamented.

Not only Ms. Luyen's family, many other workers are in the same situation. Ms. Vu Thi Duyen, 43 years old, working at an optical kinh manufacturing company, said that her family's way of spending is to "pay a stack of salary and then buy all the necessities" such as rice, sugar, cooking oil, fish sauce... first.

After that, they spend an additional 150,000 - 200,000 VND/day on fresh food each day, enough for a family of 4.

The female worker shared that before, the amount of water spinach was only 7,000 VND, but now it has increased to 10,000 VND, and dry onions now have to be bought for at least 5,000 VND to be sold. Her two daughters, one who also uses powdered milk, the older one who drinks fresh milk, have to spend nearly 7 million VND per month on food alone.

Each month, Ms. Duyen's living expenses are around 15 - 16 million VND, including shopping, electricity and water, education for her two children... To make ends meet, in addition to the couple's combined income, she also takes advantage of doing extra work outside to be able to take care of it.

"Every month, when there are incidents such as illness or paying additional tuition fees, I miss out and have to borrow temporarily," Ms. Duyen shared.

The "bellied ban" scene has now become a daily habit of many worker families in Hoa Binh ward. To reduce the burden of spending, many people make the most of food sent from their hometowns, grow a few vegetable beds on the balcony or buy food in groups to get cheaper.

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