The study showed the expenses of Russian freelancers

Freelancers' budgets are increasingly formed around subscriptions to AI services, micro-spending for the sake of comfort and attempts to maintain financial discipline with irregular incomes. More than half of the respondents have already included paid neural networks in their mandatory work expenses, they are regularly spent on food delivery and recovery from burnout, while they often record overspending only through analytics of banking applications or notifications from the bank. This was reported to Izvestia on May 25 by analysts of the fintech company Humopeu.

According to the study, one in five respondents (20%) works as a freelancer all the time, and another 15% work for themselves without using this term. The segment's growth potential remains: 13% plan to switch to free employment, 11% remain employed but are considering this option, and 8% combine both forms. 33% of the respondents remain completely outside the "economy of free earnings".

One of the key trends has become the massive use of artificial intelligence in work. More than half of freelancers (51%) regularly pay for AI subscriptions, with 24% doing so on a daily basis. For most, such services have become not an additional tool, but a way to save time and increase efficiency.

A third of users use neural networks for a wide range of tasks, while the rest use them point—by-point - for text generation, design and translation (12% each), analytics and code (11%), and video editing (10%). Only 31% use the free versions.

Against the background of blurring the boundaries between home and work (60% of freelancers work from home), the importance of restoration costs is growing. 11% of respondents increased spending on psychological care, sports and massage, and another 10% each increased spending on swimming and vitamin complexes.

Food delivery remains a sustainable part of the lifestyle: 60% of the survey participants use it, while almost a quarter order food daily, and 40% cook on their own.

Freelancers explain the growth of micro-expenses in different ways: 30% — the principle of "I deserve it", 18% consider them a work necessity, 12% consider it as a contribution to mental health. At the same time, the structure of "comfortable" expenses includes marketplaces (35%), food delivery (27%), cafes (20%) and taxis (18%).

At the same time, the structure of savings is also changing.: 25% began spending less on clothes and cosmetics, 11% on transportation, and the same amount on business lunches. At the same time, 16% record an overall increase in expenses. The working budget items include the Internet and home office (16%), tools (14%), training (9%) and consumables (9%). To increase productivity, 19% are willing to invest in machinery, 17% in workplace ergonomics.

Financial discipline with unstable incomes remains a weak point: only 35% are confident that they do not exceed the budget. The rest regularly face overspending, which is most often detected through analytics of banking applications (26%), bank notifications (24%) or after funds run out (9%). At the same time, even when money is tight, 35% do not cut costs, and among those who start saving, entertainment (27%) and meals outside the home (21%) are most often cut, while digital subscriptions and transportation are cut least often.

Anastasia Kudryavtseva, Adviser to the Chairman of the Board of JSC National Savings Bank, told Izvestia on March 27 that the decline in consumer confidence is due to the accumulated effect of uncertainty and pressure on real incomes, which is gradually changing the behavior of the population and restraining demand for large purchases. At the same time, the basic consumption remains, but it is the optional, "additional" expenses that begin to decrease in the first place.