r/personalfinanceindia

My cousin bought a house on a home loan, but his application got rejected — turns out his parents’ names don’t match across his documents (a KYC/documentation mismatch, not a credit issue). Now his plan is: he registers the house in my name, I take a ₹20L loan (on a property worth ₹1.3Cr) to “buy” it, he pays all the EMIs, and once the loan is fully paid off, he’ll transfer the house back to himself. If he ever misses payments, he says I can just sell the house and recover my money.

One of my flatmates, who was just 25, recently passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack.

He was the only stable earner in his family. His parents are dependent on him and his younger brother is in 12th.

After his death, his family asked us for help figuring out his finances. He was the only one managing everything, and they had very little idea about where he had invested.

They were trying to figure out things like mutual funds, stocks, PPF/EPF, FDs, gold, bank accounts, term/health insurance, etc.

It made me think about my own situation.

I'm also a single/primary earner supporting my parents and sister. If something happened to me tomorrow, would my family know about every account, investment, insurance policy and liability I have?

So I'm curious, how do people actually handle this in India?

Do you keep a spreadsheet, Google Drive, physical file, will, password manager, or give someone in your family a complete list?

And if you've actually dealt with a family member's finances after their death. How did you find everything they owned, and how difficult was it to claim/transfer it?

Would really appreciate experiences from people who've gone through this.

Hi everyone, I am currently investing half of my pay check on SIP and gold and spending around 21k on rent and I am thinking of buying an house they’re willing to pay off some percentage of debt as well

I just want to know owning a house is a good asset or not

Was checking my bank account today and realised something.

As soon as salary comes in, I've already decided where almost all of it is going.

Rent. SIPs. Insurance. Parents. Bills. Emergency fund.

By the end of it, there's barely any money that feels like it's actually mine to spend.

The weird part is, even when I do have money left, I still hesitate before buying something for myself. Somehow investing ₹5,000 feels easier than spending ₹5,000.

Not sure if this is just part of getting serious about money or if I've become too strict with myself.

Anyone else reached this stage? How do you balance saving for the future without feeling guilty about spending today?

​

Hi everyone, I started investing seriously about two years ago, and my goal is to retire early, in around 15 years from now. My approach so far has been to work out my expected annual expenses at retirement, adjust for inflation, and back-calculate a target corpus. Based on that, I'm investing a fixed amount every month, assuming a conservative 8% annual return.

This has worked reasonably well up to this point, but I'm mostly picking mutual funds and index funds on my own, without any real asset allocation framework. It's manageable now, but I'm not confident it'll hold up as the portfolio grows.

So I wanted to ask the group, how do you decide on the right mix between equity, debt and other asset classes for a goal this far out? Do you rebalance on a fixed schedule or only when allocations drift beyond a certain percentage? And are there any tools or platforms you'd recommend to track risk-adjusted returns, something like Sharpe ratio or similar, rather than just looking at absolute gains?

Would really appreciate any pointers from people who've been doing this longer than me.

Thanks in advance

How do i learn more about investments and real estate

I'm 28M (soon to be 29), living in Blr. Working since 5 years, and have accumulated 83.5L savings. Currently earning 1.95L in hand/month.

Financial conditions:

* Parents are able to take care of themselves financially.

* I don't have any financial responsibilities/debts as of now.

* I don't own any real estate - neither do my parents own (they still live in rented home in tier-2/3 city).

* I don't have marriage plans in next 1 year. And, even so I plan to have a very frugal wedding from groom's side.

Savings	₹4,000.00
FD/RD	₹608,609.59
PPF	₹657,817.00
EPF	₹872,018.00
SGB	₹316,400.80
Physical Gold	₹1,204,331.40
Mutual Fund	₹2,102,795.40
Equity/ETF	₹2,579,507.00
NPS Tier-1	₹500.00

Question: I've been considering to purchase a bigger bike since a year since I'm heavily into bikes since last few years. How bad of a financial decision would it be?

But, if I delay purchasing the bike, what should be my networth/financial goals I should achieve so that the delay is worth it?

I am 27, living in Bangalore, and bringing home around ₹1.5L/month. On paper, I felt like I was doing fine. I put ₹70k into SIPs, send money back home, pay my ₹28k rent, and stay debt free and too depressed from this situation.

My uncle started lecturing me about how paying rent is just throwing money in the urgent and that I should immediately take a 20 year loan for a 2BHK.
I tried walking him through the math that a ₹90L flat means a ₹65k EMI every single month for two decades, which completely kills my ability to invest or keep an emergency buffer.
I spent last night staring at my Excel sheet feeling completely exhausted. Between relatives pushing home loans and friends posting photos with new car keys, it is hard not to second-guess myself.

I am very curious to know about your personal experience and stories that how did you end up regretting it, or did the decision pay off?

Disclaimer: I know this sub has strong opinions on marriage 😅. I’d genuinely appreciate it if we could keep the discussion focused on the financial aspects of the question. I’m not looking for “don’t get married” or “marriage is a financial mistake” answers just real experiences from people who actually went through it.

I 27M, currently earning around 1.4lpm. I have negligible savings right now due to family responsibilities in the past, but I am debt-free.

My parents have been encouraging me to get married, and I am also considering marriage through the arranged marriage route. I am not planning to get married immediately , I’d want to build a reasonable financial cushion and feel financially secure first.

So, I’d love to hear from men who got married around 27–29:

- What was your salary & net worth when you married?

- How much did the wedding cost?

- Who funded it - you, your parents, or both?

- If you kept the wedding relatively simple, how did you convince your family?

- If it wasnt kept simple, how did you fund it?

Arranged marriage experiences especially welcome, but love marriages are welcome too.

Every time you achieve your goal, do we always target the next goal?

I started working in 2020, and at that time, it used to feel like 2-3Cr is more than enough to not particularly worry about money. Fast forward to today, at 27, I'm at roughly 4.7Cr. My current target seems to be 1M USD, no particular reason but I just want to reach it soon.

My current thought process goes like - I've been lucky to reach this number at this age, I shouldn't pause and invest more aggressively to accelerate to actually give myself a big boost. At the same time, idk how software engineering jobs are going to evolve as well and whether I'd be paid the same or how relevant the roles will be in few years. That uncertainty makes me wonder if I should start building something on the sid, maybe a small business that could eventually become another source of income or, ideally, something much bigger.

The problem is, I have absolutely no idea where to start.

Would love to hear from people who have been through this

track numbers everyday. Just being mentally aware of price levels across your investments makes you a better investor.

what has your one rule been?

I find it really struggling when it comes to ULIP or LIC or MLM schemes referred by my agent relatives or friends.

I either lose money or relationships 😭 after I explain them.

How's your experience? 🤯

I've been thinking about this lately.

Once you start earning better, family expectations also seem to increase. First it's helping with small things, then bigger expenses slowly start coming up.

I don't mind helping my parents when they genuinely need it. But sometimes I feel guilty saying no to things that I know I can technically afford.

At the same time, I have my own savings, investments and future goals to think about.

I don't want money to become a reason for problems in the family, but I also don't want every extra rupee I earn to automatically become someone else's responsibility.

How do you decide when to help and when to say no?

I 29 M married living in Bangalore. Our combined income is 2.5 L per month after taxes. I recently got into a debt trap which i never wanted. I recently made 2 big spends which is my marriage and a house renovation which ate up my 95% of my savings.

My parents forced me to renovate the house by building one more floor so that it can be rented out. It costed us 35L for which i paid 15 L from my savings and took a 20L loan and my wedding expenses were more than 30L which i paid by selling stocks and i had to take a 5L personal loan with rate of interest 9.1% in the last minute because i was short of cash and i had no one to lend me that big of a amount.

I already have a car loan where 3L is pending and my credit card spends arent coming down as well. One point to note is my parents are dependent on me and they use my credit card for their groceries and stuffs.

We dont party, i dont eat out often. Im planning to switch jobs to improve my cash flow but thats a work in progress.

Currently i have 3L in stocks and 1 L in FD and 50 sovereigns gold which i cant touch.

Here goes our expenses

House emi - 35k
PL - 16k
Car loan - 15k
House rent bangalore - 37k including bills
Cc bill average spend - 70k
Groceries - 15k
Leisure(Movies) - 2k
Eating out - 4k
SIP - 15k

Help me how i can fix my debt and increase monthly cash flow

2 cr in bank

1 flat ( 3bhk ) generating 40 k rent monthly ( to continue even after migration as a fall- back place to return back to )

Family of 1 adult 50+ age and 1 school kid

Can they migrate to places like thailand, phillipines, vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and retire there ?

Prefer the other asian countries with cheaper living, good food, hygeine, infrastructure, medical care.

The main considerations is medical care because here its like drain ur entire life savings in private or get urself killed in low zero hygeine in govt hospitals.

Of all things, this is what hurts me the most to think of And medical insurance is another battle to fight to get reimbursed.

So i thought move elsewhere, like buy or rent a place ,

transfer the 2 cr in a bank there and live on interest generated or buy some property there and rent it out to live off rent ?

Im not depending on work income because going to new country and language etc takes time so for contingency sake just doing the calculations now.

Not interested for middle east because it's more expensive and war like.

My current situation , in 40 ‘s not working, live in India on rent, single F with a pet, OCI , I pay taxes in both countries.

Inherited $600 k last year.

I want to buy a house, but where? And how much should I spend on it?

As of now I’ve left everything in dollars.

I plan to start working again soon but have gotten very lazy.

Have 2 cr for investment and property worth 70L in tier 2 city.

Have put 15L in Mf, 18L in Shares, rest 1.67Cr is in Fd, bond. Will get Monthly 1.10L from this .

Tried putting 1 cr in shares in 2024 end, but started getting negative returns in 2025, so sold and put in fd, bond.

I am looking for much better returns but feeling stuck with single digit Return.

I made ₹8,500 in about 20 minutes trading Nifty Bank calls last November. I remember staring at the screen and thinking, “Why am I working a 9-to-5 when this feels so easy?” Looking back, that one lucky trade probably did more damage than any losing trade could have.

Over the next three months, things slowly got out of control. I started taking bigger risks, chasing losses, ignoring stop-losses, and holding losing trades because I kept hoping they would come back to breakeven.

Then last Thursday, I took a huge position on expiry day because I wanted to recover what I had already lost. A sharp reversal in the market wiped out a big chunk of my capital in less than an hour.

Total loss: ₹2,42,000. That’s roughly four months of my post-tax salary.

What hurts most isn't only the money. It's knowing how badly I handled it and thinking about what that money meant for my family.

I've decided to step away from derivatives completely and go back to basic equity investing through SIPs. No revenge trades, no trying to double money quickly.

If you're already stuck in the same cycle, please take a step back before the losses start affecting your peace of mind too.

For those who have lost heavily in F&O and managed to rebuild through regular investing, I'm curious to know what helped you deal with the guilt and get back on track?

I was scammed through a vishing/social-engineering call where the caller impersonated a legitimate entity and convinced me to share my SBI credit card details and OTP. The scammer immediately used them to make an unauthorized transaction.

I reported the transaction to SBI and blocked the card. I raised a transaction dispute, but SBI has now declined it, stating that the transaction was authenticated.
I understand that sharing the OTP makes the case more difficult, but the transaction itself was not made or intended by me. Transaction was made to NoBroker for some reasons.

I’m now planning to escalate it through SBI’s grievance process and, if necessary, the RBI Ombudsman.
Has anyone dealt with a similar SBI Card vishing/OTP fraud case?

Were you able to get the chargeback reconsidered?

Did SBI actually submit the transaction to the merchant/acquirer for chargeback?

Did RBI Ombudsman help in such cases?

Are there any other escalation routes I should pursue?
Any practical advice or similar experiences would be appreciated.

I’m 26, currently single, and getting married next year. My partner and I will be living in Bangalore, and we’re planning to be a DINK couple.
I run my own business, and here’s the problem: I genuinely love my work. I just hate working for money.
I’m exhausted from constantly thinking about money, expenses, whether I’m earning enough, whether I’ll have enough clients, whether I should be working more, etc. I’m at the point where I’m seriously considering stepping away from the whole thing for a while.
Here’s my current financial situation:
~₹97 lakh in mutual funds
Of this, ~₹18–19 lakh is in arbitrage/liquid funds
The rest is a mix of direct and regular mutual funds
Some of the regular funds were started by my dad, and he still makes a small monthly contribution, so I haven’t stopped those
~₹20 lakh in direct stocks
The stocks have honestly been disappointing, with returns of only around 3%
I’m not particularly worried about maximizing the stock returns at this point. I’m okay holding them or eventually taking the money out, even if I mostly preserve the principal
I also have a ₹5 lakh FD, but I’m not counting this toward my FIRE corpus because I’ll use it next year to set up our home
So that’s roughly ₹1.17 crore invested, excluding the FD.
My current individual expenses are around ₹50,000/month if I want to live comfortably in Bangalore.
After marriage, our combined expenses should be around ₹70,000/month, including rent and everything. My partner has a corporate job and will continue working, but I do not want to build my financial plan around his income. I want to know whether I am financially independent.
We don’t own a house.
We also don’t plan to have children, at least not for the foreseeable future. We want to travel and enjoy our lives, and realistically we’re leaning strongly toward being childfree.
Neither of our parents is financially dependent on us.
There’s also a possibility that I may receive an inheritance in the future, but I’m deliberately not counting it at all because I don’t want my FIRE plan to depend on something that hasn’t happened yet.
Similarly, I’m not counting any gold/assets I may receive at my wedding.
Now, the actual dilemma.
I’m seriously considering taking six months completely off.
No trying to grow the business. No chasing clients. No worrying about monetization. Just… stopping.
But another part of me is thinking:
Am I actually in a position where I could just… stop working for money altogether?
Maybe lean FIRE?
Maybe full FIRE?
Maybe I could take a long break, figure out what I actually want to do, and then only work on things that I genuinely enjoy rather than things that make money.
I don’t need a luxurious lifestyle. I don’t want to own five houses or drive expensive cars. I want a comfortable life, travel, spend time with people I love, and have the freedom to work because I want to, not because I have to.
And honestly, I think that’s the part I’m struggling with most.
I have spent years building this mindset around earning, growing, achieving, and making money. Now that I have some savings, I’m realizing that I don’t actually want more and more money. I want freedom.
So, Reddit, what would you do if you were in my position?
Is ~₹1.17 crore enough to seriously consider a long break at 26, given my expenses?
Would you consider this Lean FIRE, Coast FIRE, or nowhere close to FIRE?
How would you structure the ₹1.17 crore if your primary goal was financial independence rather than maximizing returns?
And most importantly, would you take the six-month break?
I would really appreciate perspectives from people who have actually gone through FIRE, especially in India. I’m less interested in “you should earn more” and more interested in understanding whether I already have enough to buy myself some freedom.