Filtercoffee2Finance

A student-led research initiative

Where South Indian culture meets the economics of everyday money.

Filtercoffee2Finance is a field-research project studying how households across South India save, spend, and think about money — from gold-buying in a recession to how a family decides who holds the purse strings.

Explore the Research Visit The Chennai Lab
PHOTO — fieldwork in a Chennai household, interview in progress

How we work

We record conversations, transcribe them into structured data, and look for patterns — treating oral history as seriously as a spreadsheet.

01

Listen

Voice and video interviews with families across Chennai and beyond, in Tamil and English.

02

Transcribe & Code

Recordings become structured spreadsheets — themes, amounts, decisions, and who made them.

03

Publish Findings

Patterns become short, plain-language insights and open data, published as they're ready.

Current research themes

Active lines of inquiry — full findings will be published under Research as they're completed.

See all research →
IMAGE — gold jewellery shop

In progress

Gold & Recession Behavior

Does Chennai buy more gold when the economy contracts, and why?

IMAGE — household budget notebook

In progress

Who Holds the Purse Strings

How South Indian households divide financial decision-making at home.

IMAGE — Pongal festival market

In progress

Festival & Ceremonial Spending

Tracking how ritual and celebration shape household spending cycles.

The Chennai Lab

A home base for fieldwork on culture and money.

The Chennai Lab is where we run our interviews, review transcripts, and test ideas — does a recession change how much gold a family buys? How is money actually handled inside the home? This is the space where those questions get asked.

Learn about the Lab
PHOTO — inside The Chennai Lab

Get involved

Share your story

Be interviewed for the project — your household's experience with money matters.

Participate →

Follow the findings

Subscribe for updates as new insights and data are published.

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Collaborate

Researchers, teachers, and mentors — reach out to work together.

Get in touch →