Ahem.
So welcome back everyone.
Today's guest is Navdeep Dalia who started his journey from a 22,000 starting salary to financial independence in his 30s building wealth through career growth, disciplined
investing, real estate and smart long-term decisions.
So Navdeep a lot of people see the end result right the financial independence multiple properties or strong corpus, but they don't see the person you had to become to get there.
So let's start from there.
All right, thank you very much for having me on your podcast.
So the journey has been uh long, but it's been enjoyable, very, very enjoyable.
uh Very typical journey to begin with, coming from a very typical family.
uh Well-brought-up uh kid I was, so to say, like a very typical kid.
uh Had parents who were very grounded from very typical middle-class family.
uh It wasn't that we were not doing well financially, but we were.
But it wasn't that we had uh lots of money when I started off my career.
So graduation went off pretty well.
I was in Jalandhar.
I come from a small city.
And then eventually the dream was to probably do something on my own.
And with that intent, I came to Noida, did my post-graduation from a very normal institution.
Yeah, I was pretty decent with my studies, but yeah, when I started off, um I didn't have any idea where I wanted to be.
But yeah, the idea was that I wanted to do something of my own and maybe get to a point where I would be able to support my family in one way or the other.
And I got a job when I was 23 years old after my MBA.
It was back in 2009.
the financial crisis since you are in US, you would know had hit us in a big way in 2008 and 2009 probably was the worst time for the job market.
And that is when we were supposed to get placed.
So the starting salary, as you pointed out, was only 22,000 rupees at that time, which after spending money on my MBA, you know, doing everything possible to do an MBA uh did
seem a little less, but it was good enough to, you know,
let that year pass by.
And ah then from there, things progressed and I switched my job from that 22,000 salary to another one which paid me 26,000 rupees.
And then from there on, I stayed on with that company for a period of 10 years, left that company with a salary of around one and a half lakhs a month.
And I was the associate director at that time.
then I started my own company.
Dial education, which is into education.
And uh yeah, along the way, I saved a bit.
uh Had that habit of investing in real estate, which came from the family because typically if you go back now, people talk about mutual funds and stocks and whatnot.
But back in the day, people didn't talk too much about these kinds of investments.
The only two investments people thought of was either real estate or fixed deposits.
uh
And that is what I also typically did.
Because I was in Delhi NCR, I am from Jalandhar.
So I wanted a place where I could crash.
I wanted a place of my own from the very beginning.
Because back in the day, 2009, this wasn't even a conversation whether you should have your own house or you should always rent.
Now it's a hot topic, but back in the day, it wasn't.
It wasn't even a topic.
You always wanted a house wherever you lived.
So I also like a very typical person who wanted a house.
So wherever I could in the minimum amount of money that I had, had about one and a half lakhs that I saved in my first job.
And with that one and a half lakh, I purchased a construction linked property in Sonipat, which is in the outskirts of Delhi NCR.
I thought in Delhi, though, obviously it's not possible to buy anything.
And I had done my MBA from Noida and Noida was also relatively expensive.
I thought maybe in 15, 16 lakhs, I get something in Sonipat, which is about 40 kilometers from
where my first job was.
And I thought my entire life is going ah to be here in that part of Delhi.
And in all my naivety, I bought that property.
And that is how my first investment happened.
And from there on, I bought another property in 2014.
And then in 2017, I bought another one.
Along the way, a lot of investment, which we would unfold.
ah There are a lot of my podcasts that are already there.
So we'll quickly sum that up.
But yeah, that is how my journey has been.
Very typical from a middle-class family, was raised well, always had that thing that you should save something, whatever you earn you should save.
And with that saving, with discipline, with consistency, I've been able to build what I've been able to build over the years.
Nice, really interesting story.
um So what was your relationship with money while growing up?
I know you said you come from a middle class background, so what was that relationship with money like?
See, relationship with money was very, simple because I didn't have too many thoughts at that time.
And I'm coming from oh my practical experiences only.
If I had 500 rupees as my pocket money, the only thing was that 500 rupees should not finish before the next 500 rupees come.
It was as simple as that.
So it wasn't very,
Sorry, I think it was cut in between.
Yeah, you can go ahead.
Yeah.
So I was saying my um relationship with money when I was graduating, when I had not started earning, I was getting typical pocket money of 500 rupees a month in my graduation
also.
And it was very, very typical.
The idea was that 500 rupees should not finish before the next 500 rupees arrive from your dad.
So that is how it started.
That taught us budgeting in a sense that how much should go into petrol, how much should go into your enjoyment, et cetera.
And I think that indicated when I got my first salary as well.
When I got my first salary in 2009, uh it was 22,000 rupees.
And I knew that I have to manage everything within 22,000 rupees and try and save something from it.
So that was the idea with which I started.
during that time with your 22,000 salary?
I was able to save almost 50 % of my salary because that is also very, very interesting because I used to live in a shared uh apartment when I was doing my MBA.
uh And I kind of continued to do that even when I was doing my job because I got placed while I was doing my MBA.
So my MBA was supposed to end in June.
I got placed in January, a typical pre-placement offer I got.
So they called me that you should join.
So where I was staying, like a student where I had to keep my expenses to the very bare minimum, so I kept it like that only and I started working.
So in those six months, I earned 22,000 rupees a month, got some incentives at the end of the year as well.
And oh my expenses didn't go through the roof suddenly because I was earning.
I kept my expenses to the very minimal because I was living the student life only, because I was in that.
kind in that scenario only.
I didn't change my scenario completely.
It wasn't that I started, you know, living extravagantly.
It wasn't like that.
So it went on like that.
And luckily, I was able to save about 50 % of my salary, I got some incentives.
So total, I got about 3 lakhs in that one year.
And I was able to save about one and a half lakhs.
And with that one and a half lakhs only, I bought my first property when I was 23 in January 2010.
invested in that property.
And uh like I told you, that was the only thing that I could buy.
That was the only thing I knew.
So I did that.
oh Whether it was right or wrong, I later realized that it wasn't great in terms of the returns that I got, but it was great in terms of the discipline that I was able to get
into because of that one thing, because I had to then commit to that for a period of
you know, seven, eight, 10 years, because every year I had to pay one and a half lakhs into that construction linked property.
So that brought in some discipline.
And while, you know, while I'm talking to, I'm just thinking that there was a point in 2014 when I bought my second property.
At that time I was doing an SIP of 10,000 rupees.
I was paying an EMI of 25,000 rupees for the second house that I bought in Noida.
And I was kind of
setting out 12 to 15 thousand rupees for this property as well.
So typically at that time from 2014 onwards, it's been 12 years, I've been kind of investing minimum of 50 thousand rupees and that carried on for a very very long time for
almost 8-9 years and because it was split into three, I felt I wasn't investing too much but when I look back
In 2014 onwards, from 2014 onwards, I have been investing at least 50,000 rupees uh into my corpus, whatever I have been able to build today.
So it hasn't happened in a jiffy.
It has taken a lot of time.
It has taken some wise decisions.
It has taken some stupid decisions.
It has taken a lot of turns along the way.
And that is where we are.
uh If somebody asked me today that
Whether I could have got, instead of five, I could have been at seven or 10.
I could have been there as well.
But I'm happy with how it unfolded.
Nice.
So you said that your first house was kind of like, you know, you didn't know if that was a good decision or no.
So what made you to buy the second house?
ah You know, after that, like, why would you go into real estate again?
And why wasn't equity like your choice or mutual fund your choice of investment?
Because I didn't understand it.
Back in 2014, I didn't understand it at all.
I had one investment in 2013 that I had started investing into mutual, which was ELSS, just to save taxes.
um So it was 10,000 rupees that I was investing into SIP, and that was it.
And I didn't even know whether it was the right mutual fund or not a right one.
I didn't do any research.
I just asked someone.
They said, OK, invest in this one.
You'll be able to save some tax.
So in 2013, I didn't know.
And that is why I only thought the way to investment is that you invest into real estate, hold it for a long time, or invest into FDs, hold it for a long time.
It would generate wealth over a period of time.
It was only around 2016 when I had seen three years of my mutual funds that I had invested in, starting 2013.
Then I realized that this mutual fund alone is giving me a 12 %
of XIRR, which is the return on the investment.
And I felt, you know, why then put it into NFD or anything?
Why not put it into this?
Because my idea is that if I'm investing into something, I have that kind of discipline.
Even in real estate, I have thought when I invested that I would have to hold it for a very long time.
If I hold it for that long, any investment, it would grow.
And if I see the percentage, why is this this
you know, particular investment gives me a percentage growth.
So why not do that?
So equity happened when I understood it after investing into it for a period of three years when I saw it firsthand, then I started investing into it.
Otherwise, I am a difficult person to influence.
You know, I influence myself.
It's very difficult for somebody to influence me.
And I have kept it like that only for
for a large portion of my life.
I have a very selective people that I trust.
And uh they also tell me that it's very difficult to kind of change your mind when you have set out something for yourself.
It's very difficult.
So maybe you could put me into a stubborn category.
So that was the thing.
I always felt that real estate was my thing.
And in 2017, also, when I bought my own house, the idea was that I would sell my two houses and invest into my own, and I will live in it.
But because we were in a position, me and my wife, were in a position where we could leverage ourselves and we bought the third property.
And we were able to pay that off as well.
And that's how we were able to build a portfolio of real estate.
Plus, because we had started investing in mutual funds in 2013, 2014, that has also become a significant part of our overall wealth.
Nice.
So at any point did you take any loans or debt for your houses and if yes, what do people generally underestimate about it?
See I have taken loans, took a loan for my second property, took a loan for my third property, I took a loan for you know three cars I bought along the way.
So loans have been big part of my life.
Today I sit loan free, not even a personal loan, car loan, nothing.
I don't even have, I have one credit card that is there because I travel.
So I need, you know, a lounge access or something.
So I kept one credit card for that.
I don't use credit card.
Sometimes I do, but usually I don't do it.
oh Second part of your question.
What people underestimate about debt is that they don't understand that it comes at a cost.
It comes at a cost from the very first day.
So if you've taken a one-crore debt, every single month you're going to pay the cost of it.
People don't realize it.
When they are paying an EMI, they're just thinking that they are repaying their loan.
They're not repaying the loan.
That is just a fraction of the EMI that you're paying.
If you're paying 50,000, maybe
a small fraction of it would go into principal rest.
It would go into the interest.
So people don't understand that.
think, 20 years journey, 25 years journey, I'll pay it off.
It's a big burden.
So you need to be very, very wise.
Stay within your capacity, or maybe stay under your capacity.
Then you'll have breathing space.
So the cost of debt is something which is very simple, but that is something that people underestimate big time.
Got it.
So going back to your career, right?
What specific career decisions had the biggest financial impact according to you?
oh I think moving from Delhi to Gurgaon was big.
That was a big career shift.
uh I never, like I told you, I never thought that I would be moving out of Delhi because I had bought a house thinking that I would be in Delhi for the rest of my life.
So moving from Delhi to Gurgaon was a big deal for me and it changed my perspective about uh corporate world as well because uh Gurgaon had that hustle culture, it still has, but
at that time it was
It was big time.
ah And that taught me that if you want to survive in a city like this, that you need to hustle.
You need to grow, and you can grow because the city is growing like crazy.
And it was growing like crazy.
Still is.
But back in 2010, because I had nothing, it was growing exponentially.
So I knew that was an opportunity for me, and I think that changed oh a lot of things uh in my career.
Otherwise, if I think if I was in Delhi,
continued with that job, with that culture, taking nothing away from Delhi culture.
Delhi has a great culture, but Gurgaon had that hustle culture for a 23, 24 year old.
I think it was just the right environment to be in and that changed everything.
Nice.
So what did you do differently from your peers you think?
Because I'm sure not all of them have achieved what you were able to achieve, right?
So what is that something that you did differently, you know, according to you?
I think I did simple things, right?
It wasn't that I was doing something extraordinary.
It wasn't like that.
So like I told you, oh what I'm getting, I'm not spending all of it.
I'm keeping some part of it with me.
And by the situation I was into, I had to save something for the investment that I had done, which a lot of other people had not done.
oh
good or bad, I don't know, but they didn't have those kinds of investments.
They had not indulged into those investments.
I had, and I always had that sword hanging over my head that I have to pay that EMI.
I have to save for that installment that I have to pay for that Sony flat as well.
And I had that SIP also going at that time in 2013 and all the other investments starting from 2010 only.
So I think that was something which was forced upon me and that was something different that I did from my peer group.
They didn't have that kind of investment so early in their lives.
So they were spending most of it or maybe saving into those instruments which were not giving them those kind of returns or maybe doing I don't know what.
But I think that was something that was different in my journey compared to my peer group because I can't recall anybody working with me at that time having two properties when I
was probably 27 or something.
I had two properties and one SIP going.
Yes, on debt, but I had that.
oh So I had to save something from my salary and invest into those investments that I had taken up.
So I think that was the differentiating point.
So I started investing or putting aside money very early.
So 2014, when I look back, is when I was saving around 50,000 rupees a month.
Because I had to.
There was no other option.
I had to save.
So if I was getting about 75,000, 80,000 rupees at the time, I had to put aside 50,000 rupees.
So was managing my expenses within about 20,000, 25,000 rupees.
And back in the day, it was very much possible for a single person.
It wasn't beyond your imagination to spend your month in about 15,000, 20,000 rupees.
It was manageable.
I've done it.
So it was manageable.
what you say is probably was your mistake was actually one of your biggest trends as well.
Right?
Like because you had those properties you knew you have to pay off those EMI.
So you have to be realistic on or savings.
Right, right.
But in those mistakes, one right thing that I did was that I didn't go overboard with those investments.
It wasn't like I bought a one-crore house at that time.
If I did that, then I would have been in a big problem because I would not have been able to pay.
I wouldn't have had that kind of flexibility, wouldn't have had that discipline.
I probably would have burdened myself.
Maybe would have ended up selling one property to manage the second one.
So a lot could have gone wrong.
utilized my capacity, but not to the level I could have.
I kept it a little under par.
So that served me because salaries, they kept growing and my investment, the EMIs, they stayed at that level.
And then as the salary grew, I started putting little extra into my EMIs.
And that's how I was able to finish my 20 year loan in about eight, nine years.
So would you say for people even starting out today, right?
Like let's say I don't know what your view is on buying versus renting but we can we can get on that a little bit later.
But if let's say somebody has already bought a property, right?
So like what what should be their focus?
Like what kind of like how much money should they be spending, you know to to get
to that uh or you how much money should like what should be the cost of their house so that they are able to keep it below their you know level.
See, I've said that before also.
In India, it's very difficult.
The bank only tells you that this is the amount of money that you can actually take on a loan.
It depends on how much you're drawing.
So if you're drawing 1,00,000 rupees salary, your EMI cannot be more than 50,000, 60,000 rupees by any stretch of imagination.
So if your salary is 1,00,000, let's take a typical case of 1,00,000 rupees.
So your EMI can be 50,000 rupees or 60,000 rupees.
So a 50,000 rupees, 60,000 rupees EMI over a period of 25 years, if you're young, would mean that you can get a loan of around 60, 70 lakhs.
And then if you have saved maybe 20 lakhs, 30 lakhs, or you've taken some money from your parents, et cetera, which typically happens in the Indian families, then maybe if your
salary today is one lakh, you can afford to buy a house worth maybe one crore.
So if that gets you a 1 BHK, if that gets you a 2 BHK, if that gets you a house in the outskirts, if that gets you something, then that is something that you can buy.
This way you would be able to enjoy your house.
This way you would be able to build an asset because you will not be worried about whether I would be able to pay the EMI of it or not.
Because if you, the initial two years of your EMIs, if you do it like this, if you go by the bank rules, are the two difficult years.
After that, because your salary grows, everything grows, then that EMI doesn't feel as bad or as stuffy how it feels at the beginning of your tenure.
So that is how it worked out for me.
And that is what I also tell everyone, that the initial two years, maybe uh if you're very sure of your job, that the job will last for five, six years easily, would not really be a
problem.
maybe stretch yourself a little bit, like instead of a one-crore house, maybe buy a 1.2 or 1.3, stretch yourself a little.
But then, those tough years will not be just two years, they would be maybe three or four.
But then beyond that point, I think it becomes like easy because in my calculation, the rent versus buy, if you run your loan for 10 years and in that same property, you're
renting it out, for an example, a one-crore house,
you rent out and you buy that one-crore house.
If in Indian scenario, if you continue for 10 years, in 10 years your rent and your EMI is going to be same.
But in one case, you haven't got anything.
The other case, you've got a house, which in 10 years also would have probably doubled, if not more.
So that is how I see rent versus buy.
think buying is always a better option.
ah But you need to be disciplined.
You need to know what your capacity is.
You need to know what your job is like.
If it has some amount of stability, I know
jobs are not that stable anymore.
But if you have utilized your capacity to a certain level and you have some stability in your job, I think it makes more sense to buy a house rather than rent a house.
And do it early.
I'm not saying do it at 22, how I did it, which I still stay was done in naivety because I didn't know anything else.
But since there is so much available online these days,
Maybe understand your profile, understand yourself, understand how you want to live in life.
Maybe have a partner with you who can help.
Then maybe buy a house, you know, bringing both parties into the picture.
Because if two people have to live, both should decide where they want to live, what kind of house they want to buy.
Maybe that is the right time to buy a house.
Eventually, when I bought my house to live in, I bought it like that only.
It was me and my wife together, we bought it.
The investment part of it, that was done by me individually.
But that is what I think.
This is how you should use your capacity.
And if you're going a little overboard, make sure that your job is stable for next three, four years at least, because those are going to be the grinding years.
Because that is when you would feel, this house otherwise would cost me only 30,000 rupees on rental.
But I'm paying, let's say, a 60,000, 70,000 EMI.
So those three, four years, you would feel tough.
But when eventually when the rent would catch up with your EMI and you would have built an asset for yourself, that is when you would realize that it was a wise decision.
This is a long journey.
You realize that it was the right thing only after eight, nine years.
It is not in three years you would realize, that was a great thing that I did.
You might feel in three years time, oh, what did I do?
I still have such a huge loan to pay off and I'm paying these EMIs like a mad person.
But when those seven, eight years would pass, that is when you would realize oh that I have built something big.
And now I'm paying what somebody else is paying uh as rent for this property.
I'm paying that as an EMI.
And if things go well, you might be able to close your loan quite early.
And if that happens, then it's a big win.
You will have a huge asset with you.
uh
You would have built that discipline of paying EMI and then you can shift those EMIs into SIPs.
That's what I did.
I got into that discipline of paying uh EMIs of around 1,25,000 rupees when my EMIs were at the peak.
At the peak, I was paying 1,25,000 rupees into EMIs.
And when everything finished, I am now doing an equal amount of SIP because the discipline is there.
My life has been built around that.
So my life was not built how much I was getting as early.
life was built what I, what was left in my salary after paying those EMIs.
And that has continued.
Growth has continued in terms of salaries and everything also.
The earnings have also grown, but those EMIs didn't grow.
They were there.
That was the peak.
And from there on one by one, the EMIs started eliminating and I didn't immediately use that money for uh other things.
I shifted that into.
the SIP stream and that is how I was able to build a significant part of my wealth into equities as well.
So today 60 % is into real estate 40 % is into equity.
Nice.
So coming back to the salary part, right?
Like I think a lot of people focus only on investing but your story suggests that income growth mattered a lot to right.
So how did you actually think about, you know, outgrowing that 22,000 starting salary that you had?
So I think there are two ways how I see.
One is that you can uh stick to one job and uh keep upskilling and oh devote yourself to that organization like it is your own.
And you get the growth.
I got year on year growth of around 21 to 22%, which is unheard of.
A lot of people get that.
I also got it.
So from 22 to about 1 and 1 lakhs, in nine years, it was about 20 % 22 % year on year growth I got.
Promotions, yearly hikes, et cetera, et And I didn't switch jobs.
I was in one job for a year for 11 months of my career, and then another job for 10 years.
That is my whole 11 years of corporate career.
Other ways that you work for someone, you get, you know,
those skills which are in demand in the industry, and then you hop from one job to another just to increase your salary.
That is how these are the only two ways I think of how you can grow in your life.
Upskilling is important.
You can upscale by taking those certifications as well.
The other way of upscaling is use common sense.
You can upscale yourself using common sense as well because if you're in a particular job and you know that this job demands this, then you can probably acquire those skills
There are so many sources available to get that scaling done.
if you think certification is important, do that.
If you think you can actually go online and check things out and improve yourself on the job, that is also a way.
So growth matters a lot because that is where everything is coming from.
If your salary isn't growing, your investments are not going to grow.
And your expenses are automatically going to grow.
Because if you were one.
you would eventually become two.
From two, you will become three and four and so on and so forth.
So expenses are going to grow.
You will grow as a family.
So if your salary is not growing, then nothing can happen.
Because savings are part of what you're earning.
Savings are not coming from somewhere else.
Even if you build a passive income, you will build it from your investments.
And that investment eventually comes from salary only, whatever your earnings are.
So for me, earnings have been the base.
has always been, will always be.
But I want to get to a point where that base, whether it's there or not there, shouldn't matter.
And that is the journey towards financial freedom.
I can call myself financially free today, or I could call myself financially free three years, four years ago also.
But I still feel that I want to be absolutely comfortable with that number.
And that number probably is maybe four years or three years.
from now, depending on how the investments go and how my earnings grow.
So earning growth is very important.
You should continue to work.
There is nothing like not working.
You should always be working.
uh I am also planning to do that.
But yeah, uh for an example, if I want to sit with you on a Saturday morning, do a podcast and do nothing else, if you get that kind of freedom, think you've done decently well for
yourself.
So that's where I am.
Nice.
So when you you are running your own firm now, right?
So did that start after you became financially free or was that before?
No, no, it started before.
had the, so, you know, if you look at it, I think I was financially free.
However, I was still paying EMIs at that time, but I had more assets than liabilities.
So I felt comfortable.
So I had two, three houses at that time when I left my job and I had a debt of around maybe 60, 70 lakhs, me and my wife put together.
Wife was working.
So that was, uh
you know, good support, major support, I would say.
So, but still the assets were oh more than the liabilities.
So I knew if I get stuck anywhere, I would be able to sell those assets and pay off my liabilities and I would have my own house where I would be living.
So the expenses would not be huge because I had lived in Gurgaon for a significant amount of time by then.
So I knew if you have a house in Gurgaon,
The rest of the things are not that expensive.
I'm talking 2019.
I'm not talking today.
So that was the calculation.
And I had some emergency fund of around a year or so for the EMIs also.
So I thought in a year's time, I would be able to build something for myself.
And that is how things panned out.
It took me six months to get back to the kind of salary I was drawing.
And it was pretty decent.
Nice.
So your story is framed as becoming, you know, financially independent at 38.
You know, everyone knows about that.
You had a lot of interviews online as well, which talk about that.
But what did that actually feel like when you became right?
I think that the emotional part of it, not really a lot of people talk about, but like what was that feeling when you finally became financially independent?
That was one of the best feelings I had in my life.
One of the best feelings.
The day I went to the bank and took my house papers from them, I went with my wife and you know, it was unbelievable.
ah Because I had two loans going on.
Car loans and everything, they feel okay.
But when you have a house loan which is big, which is, I had put together about 75 to 80 lakhs in loans.
So when I paid that off, when we paid that off, it was a big thing.
At that time, I felt, OK, now this house is ours.
And it took us a long journey of around eight, nine years to get to that point where we didn't have to pay anything to anybody.
We had our own house.
We had our investments.
Whatever we have is our own.
Whether tomorrow we lose it or it doesn't grow, it doesn't matter anymore.
So it was a big relief.
And I had been
I have been paying uh EMIs for a very long time.
I told you from 2010 onwards, 2010 onwards, I have been paying EMIs and since then till 2023, I've been paying EMIs.
So I had a burnout, big, big burnout of paying EMIs.
And uh when it was my last year, it was a big relief.
I can't tell you and
I genuinely felt now I can do whatever I Whether I want to settle somewhere and not do anything for two years, I'm good.
Shouldn't be a problem.
Because I have got ourselves a shelter, which is debt free.
And I have got ourselves mobility in terms of like we have a car, is debt free.
And we can put
food on the table, that much skill set I have.
So that was a big relief for someone who had come from a huge burden of debt.
Nice.
So did your finances actually, you know, keep on increasing as your salary increased or you know, you kind of kept your ah your expenses to a minimum because I know you you you
got married you had kids.
So how did that progression look like?
See, expenses, because I had expenses were very stable because I had my own house.
oh That made a huge difference because it wasn't like I have to pay rent, et cetera, et cetera.
the EMIs were the only burden that I had.
And we were sharing that burden, me and my wife.
And there was some steady rental income also that had started coming in from one house from 2017 onwards and the other house from 2018 onwards.
So I was getting about
20,000 rupees in rental from both those properties.
Not huge, but yeah, some amount I was getting.
uh So that would go into AMIs.
But the expenses didn't go through the roof.
uh You know, with kids also, there was a phase for two years, the expenses were very minimal because we were not going out because of COVID.
Nobody was going out.
There were no schools, nothing.
There was no transportation expense.
There was nothing.
So the expenses actually were low during COVID.
um And through my entire life, the expenses, they've been there, but they haven't gone beyond what I wanted them to be at.
So yeah, that's how I have lived my life.
we like that kind of life.
We are not extravagant in terms of partying and all of that.
We do.
oh party as well, we go out for dinners and all of that but it's all with family.
So the expenses are not crazy.
I always wanted to have a big car.
So that was one indulgence.
uh But yeah, besides that, Expenses have been very, very stable.
We've never had, luckily, I've had a rough
uh time health wise.
I had, you know, almost two and a half, three years uh of illness, uh which was a small thing, but it was uh happening every four, five, six, seven months.
So I had to be operated upon, you know, seven times for that one small thing uh over a period of three years.
So that was tough.
uh
So because of that, because of the health reasons, the lifestyle anyway became very, very simple.
Home cooked food.
And now we become habitual.
Kids are also like that.
Life is also like that.
Home has always been like that.
if your lifestyle is simple, then your expenses are not crazy.
That's what I have felt.
Coming back to family, I know you have wife, have kids.
What did they think of when you put a lot of uh impact on your family?
How did you plan your finances with them and what did they think about your finance and independence journey?
See, for a large part of it, um because that is something that I have got from my father.
My father always kept everything under the wraps.
He managed all the finances all by himself.
It wasn't that he was authoritative about it.
It was like he took that responsibility of managing all the finances.
Typical Indian father.
And I think I also imbibed that from him only.
I kept everything under the wraps.
I knew what we were getting, and I knew what had to go out.
I knew what the liabilities were.
So I managed it for a very long time.
It's it's it's not that I didn't share it with my family I always did but I didn't give that kind of burden to Any of my family members I made sure that you know uh We should
have um The right amount of resources if things go south so I planned it without these terms came into the picture the emergency fund term and
you know, having that six months, 12 months, thing.
So these are things that we imbibed from our elders.
They always said, you know, keep some money with you all the time so that if something goes wrong, you should have.
So now it is called emergency fund.
So I always had that.
was, it was not that I learned it from someone.
I learned it from my parents.
They always kept, you know, some money with themselves in the bank.
If everything goes wrong, you should have some money.
I think that is, that is from where the
gold in Indian families, that concept started from there only.
Why people gave gold to their daughters or they kept gold with themselves all the time was that if things go wrong, they will have that thing which would then probably take care of
them for some amount of time.
And that was their emergency fund.
that is, I think that has always been there.
Indian families have always been um savings oriented.
And that is how I was.
uh I did share it with them, but like I told you, I kept it with myself for a very long time when I was able to achieve something.
That is when I told everybody and that is when I went public as well about it that I have done it over a period of time and it's not been easy.
When people look at it, people look at it, people look at the endpoint.
They don't look at the journey.
ah
I don't fault them for it because maybe they have not done that journey themselves so they can't understand that journey.
But I've tried my level best to kind of tell what I've been through.
I am not somebody who would say that I didn't enjoy the journey, so much burden on me, all of that.
I try to portray myself as a positive person.
Even if I had difficulties along the way, would say those were challenges and I overcame all those challenges and I've come to this point.
But sometimes that gets mistakenly taken as everything was so easy.
It wasn't.
It was not easy.
It was tough.
Paying an EMI of 1.25 lakhs is not easy when you don't see the endpoint of that.
Yes, when all of it ends and you stay disciplined through and through, the end looks great.
And from there on, everything looks
Wonderful.
But to get to that point means that you need to be very, very disciplined for a very, long time.
From 2010 to 2026, it's been 16 years.
Prime time of my life.
Prime years of my life from 23 to about 39, 40, I'll be turning in a couple of months.
So I've been very disciplined.
Some people will say, what kind of life is this?
But I have, you know, that is my choice.
That is by choice.
It's not that somebody's forced it upon me.
So that is how my financial stuff has been through and through.
Right.
So did the right circle the right mentors?
Sorry.
No, I think that that that made that made perfect sense.
Right?
So some um like did the right circle and the right mentors they mattered as much as investing do you think?
I would be wrong if I say that I followed someone.
I think my only mentor um has been my father.
um Like a very typical son, um I saw my father and how he managed things.
I also tried to manage wherever I could improve with all the experiences that I got.
Since he never went out of Jalandhar, I got that opportunity because of him to move out of Jalandhar and
go to a big city.
So whatever I could gather from my experiences, I use that.
And that's about it.
I learned from, you know, I learned from my wife as well.
I learned from my close friends also.
But largely, it wasn't very, very technical what I was doing for a large part of my life.
Even till date, my investment strategy is very simple.
Whether it's right or wrong, people might
you know, some technical experts might say, oh, this is wrong, that is wrong.
Doesn't matter.
Even if this, ah you know, corpus that I have today in 10 years time becomes two times or three times, how does it matter?
It doesn't matter to me.
It doesn't matter to some people.
might do, but to me it doesn't matter because if I'm comfortable today with this, if it doubles in five years time, I'll be even more comfortable.
So I
Like I told you earlier as well, I am very difficult person to influence.
I am stubborn in a way that if I think this is right, that is right.
It doesn't matter.
My ah comfort with that mindset of mine is more important.
My comfort with that stuff is more important than me thinking, I missed out on something.
I don't get FOMO.
I don't get that.
I am very glad that I don't.
Yeah, I think that's a luxury to have in today's time.
I think so.
I am blessed that I don't get foam.
Right.
So what do you think was the that one biggest or that one turning point that you had in your journey, you know, which which kind of accelerated your fire journey?
I think...
Starting my own company ah changed a lot because when you start your own company, of course, your involvement is a lot.
However, when I was doing my own job, when I was working for someone, I was involved like it was my own company.
uh So but the mindset changed.
It wasn't that I was working with salary anymore.
uh I was working to build something.
And then you're working to build something.
You go all in.
When you go all in,
uh you know, things work out.
And ah it gave me some space to uh understand myself as well.
uh What is it like?
Can I be disciplined when there is no sword hanging on my head?
Can I build something when nobody's pushing you?
uh So I think that changed a lot.
And I could do things that I could not do.
Obviously, when you are in job, there are obviously restrictions.
You can't do things.
which you want to.
If I think back, if I wanted to sit in a podcast like this, and I was working with someone, I will have to go ask somebody.
And if they give me a permission only, then I would be able to sit.
So I think that was a big turning point in my life.
There are lot of turning points.
It's not just one.
But if I look at just one, then probably that was in 2019 when I started my own company.
I think that is turning point for lot of people, right?
When they go from a job to starting something of their own, they just find that freedom and that feeling very exciting.
So I think that is a turning point in lot of people's lives.
Yeah.
And you know, I would call myself young even at this point.
But I was much younger.
So you know, the energy levels are oh much better when you are in your early 30s than when you are in your late 30s or touching 40s, oh like in my case.
So I felt it was the right time.
Nice.
So if someone in their 20s is listening to this podcast, right and they want to build well seriously, what should they focus on first?
Focus on your salary.
Focus on your earnings first.
If you don't earn, you can't save, right?
And understand your capacity.
If your earnings are 20,000 rupees, let's say, 20,000, 25,000, 30,000, you can't spend all of it.
And that's the very basic that everybody tells you, parents tell you.
And there will be people who will tell you, why not?
So it's OK.
You can.
It's your money.
You can spend it out.
But then don't tell yourself five years later that what did I do?
Why didn't I save anything?
So you need to live with your decision.
If you decide to spend everything today, then be happy with it.
That you know, I lived my life to the fullest.
I had 30,000 rupees.
I spent it all on myself, on whatever.
Be happy with it.
At the end of it, the goal is to be happy.
It's not that you wanted something, you got that, and you're still not happy.
Right?
So I may be sounding a little uh philosophical right now, but that's not the idea.
It's a very basic mistake that a lot of us commit, that we do something which we like, and later on we crave about it.
That why did I do that?
See, you enjoyed.
So like I told you, the mistakes that I felt were mistakes, but not really mistakes, and it's about your mindset.
People ask me, when did you get
financially free.
I said, I can say I was financially free when I started my job.
And I could say that I'm not financially free today.
Because financially free is not about numbers.
It's about your mindset.
If your mind tells you that you're financially free, you're financially free.
And if your mind doesn't tell you even at 100 crores, you're not financially free.
And that is, it's all about the mindset.
If you're starting with a 20,000 rupee salary,
Make sure that you save something out of it.
If you think you want to build something, if your mindset at that time is that you want to spend it all because this is your first salary, you want to spend a lot of it, you want to
enjoy, do that.
But don't have qualms about it later on that what did I do?
That's all.
Yeah, makes sense.
Totally.
I think that is what is kind of missing in today's generation as well.
Right?
they they do something impulsive and then you know, maybe three or four years later they they realize, okay, you know, why did I do that and things like that?
But I think the the essence is that wherever you are right at that moment is is the one that only matters, right?
Nothing else matters.
So I think yeah.
You bought an iPhone because that was your dream when you started working.
You bought an iPhone.
Don't repent.
You know, what did I do?
Now I'm going to pay EMIs for it for that one next year.
You wanted it.
And if you bought it, it's OK.
Or even if you think that was a mistake, don't repeat it.
At least learn from it.
So that's what my suggestion is to the young generation.
Yeah, I think once you do that mistake, then you actually realize what is the difference between a want and a need right?
Like once you figure that out, I think that that that changes the whole game.
Yeah.
If it is a small financial mistake, better to do it early.
It's okay.
Make that mistake.
Go with your impulse.
It's important to do that.
Otherwise you would be like, what did I do?
Because you can't roll back the years.
Either way, you can't roll back the years for lack of expenses or for lack of investments.
So it's how you look at things.
You want to do what you want to do, do it.
Don't hold it back.
Yes, you can always take advice and learn from your mistakes because that is your biggest learning.
Generally speaking, we don't learn from others so much.
We learn from our own mistakes, from our own experiences more.
And those are the teachings that stay with us for a longer duration.
And those are the teachings that make or break a person.
And that is what we are.
People say you are an experienced person.
Yes, I am an experienced person from my own experiences.
I've seen life.
Because you spend the most amount of time with yourself, not with others, right?
And you learn everything from yourself and from your very, very close group.
And 90 % of the things that you do are your own experiences.
And you learn from your mistakes.
If you don't, then at some point you will.
And that is why some people say he matured a little later in his life.
And eventually everybody matures.
You make your mistakes at different times and everybody is allowed to make mistakes.
It's okay.
That's life.
Yeah, completely agree with that.
Okay.
So coming to our last question, if you had to compress your journey into one lesson, what is the one thing that actually creates financial freedom?
I think if I have to say one word.
commitment.
If you commit to something, stay committed.
And if you stay committed, even with a wrong investment, but you stay committed for a long duration, you will not go wrong.
You can go wrong by a percentage here and there, but you will never go wrong completely.
You will not make losses.
Even if you make a mistake, if you think when you become a wiser investor later on in your life, you think, that was a mistake.
If your commitment didn't last for a significant period, say investment is significant period.
If it is mutual funds, if it is, then it should be five to seven years.
If it is real estate, it has to be 10 years.
oh FDs and all, I'm not counting as investments, but equity or real estate, per se.
So that is the duration I'm talking about.
You will never go wrong.
Today in Gurgaon,
Expense the properties are expensive, but even if you buy today You might be wrong in three years time you might be wrong in four years time But in ten years time you will not
be wrong
Hmm.
you've made a mistake, stay committed to it.
Mistake in a sense, investment mistake.
Stay committed for a longer duration.
The cycles will make sure that an investment doesn't go wrong completely.
You will still have something.
What I see people doing is they will commit a mistake.
They will commit a mistake to start with.
They will commit a mistake when they are exiting because they think they made a mistake when they started off.
Mm.
when they exit, that also becomes so it doubles up.
And then they get into it again, get into something else, which again turns out to be a mistake.
And then they exit from it.
And then it becomes a vicious circle.
And you don't make anything.
And you just commit mistake after mistake after mistake.
And that becomes a problem.
Typical case of mine.
Let's say real estate investment that I made when I was young.
When I look back, maybe it was a mistake.
The return was about 9%.
If I had invested for 10 years into equity, maybe the returns would have been 12, 13, 14%.
When I sold that property, what I got, I could have got much more.
But if I sold it in two years only, I would not even have got what I had invested.
And I would have invested into something else.
Again, that would have incurred me losses and so on and so forth.
And that is happening with people.
A lot of people had invested into mutual funds, looking at the cycle.
a year ago and those people are in losses.
And now they will make another mistake of exiting from mutual funds to get into real estate.
And then they will get into real estate.
They will not be able to exit out of it because real estate has boomed.
It will probably stay stagnant or will go down.
And suddenly people would want to get out of it.
And that becomes a problem.
So that's what I think.
committed.
Stay committed to your investments.
Right.
I think that's the end of an episode, but I think it was was it was so great talking to you.
Thank you so much for doing this with me.
uh I think our audiences will love your story and you whatever the emotional portion has been behind the journey coming from a middle class family and then, you know, having a
portfolio of five plus crores.
I think that's a phenomenal story.
So thank you so much for doing this.
No, I'm very happy to do it.
And thank you very much for hosting it.
And the initiative that you've started, the hustle culture that is there in US, that's commendable what you're doing.
So continue the good work.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.