1 lakh salary.
Dream home.
Then came the layoff.
The salary stopped.
The EMI didn’t.
Today, he’s driving 16 hours a day for Ola to keep the bank from taking the house.
Most people ask:
How much loan will the bank approve?
Few ask:
Can I survive if my income stops?
Two simple rules:
• House ≤ 5× annual income
• Keep 20× EMI in liquid savings
A house should give you security.
Not survival mode.
I don’t want to spend my life grinding 9–5 for money. I want freedom.
I’ll take 25% CAGR from my land over active-income stress any day.
Purely passive. Pure compounding.
10 wealth-building habits:
1. Spend less than you earn.
2. Buy assets.
3. Save 25%+ of your income.
4. Learn how money works.
5. Keep cars long-term.
6. Avoid high-interest debt (9%+).
7. Increase your income every year.
8. Study people who build wealth well.
9. Build multiple income streams.
10. Spend time with people who are ahead of you financially.
You don’t need all 10.
But the more you stack, the faster life changes.
The old formula—study hard, get a stable job, buy a home, send your kids to a good school—is becoming harder to achieve.
The Indian dream hasn't disappeared.
It's become far more expensive.
The Indian middle class cannot afford 2026.
School fees are up 150–200% in a decade. Rents have surged. Food inflation remains high. Salary growth hasn't kept up.
Household savings are falling because essentials now consume what used to be the savings margin.
The middle class earns too much for welfare, but often too little to comfortably absorb a medical emergency, job loss, or a major fee hike.
For the first time, more SIPs were stopped than started.
SIPs registered: 50.71 lakh
SIPs discontinued: 51.29 lakh
The people who auto-invested every month without question are quietly exiting.
The compounding story sounds great in bull markets.
Nobody talks about what happens when your ₹5,000 monthly SIP is worth ₹4,800 after 24 months.
The industry sold discipline.
The market delivered disappointment.
People call my YEIDA returns fake.
Meanwhile, they are:
— Sitting on a flat that appreciated 8% last year
— Paying EMIs that eat 60% of their salary
— Watching their Nifty portfolio go nowhere for 2 years
I post proof, documents, and make lengthy YouTube videos.
Still not convinced?
Good. Stay where you are.
Because at the end of the day—
I'm not the one not getting rich.
You are.
My neighbor has a ₹10 crore net worth. He buys ₹1 crore cars and a ₹20 lakh Rolex every few years.
Yet he still doesn’t get the admiration and respect he’s chasing.
That’s because status symbols can buy attention.
They can’t buy genuine respect.
Looking rich rarely earns as much respect as people think.
A new taxi company enters → better service → gains airport space → runs for a few years → funding, regulation, or competition pushes it out.
Delhi Airport’s second/third-floor taxi pickup is basically a startup graveyard.
The taxi business in Delhi is brutal — high costs, thin margins, heavy regulation, and constant price wars.
Every 2 years, my brother comes from New York to Delhi and says the same thing:
“Every time I come, there’s a new taxi service running from the second/third floor of the airport parking... next time I come, it’s gone.”
He’s not wrong.
Last year it was BluSmart — clean blue electric taxis that suddenly shut after a SEBI probe.
Before that: Meru Cabs, Mega Cabs, EasyCabs — all faded as Ola and Uber became dominant.
Pattern is simple: