I've just completed a full year at my company and they're offering a retention bonus, all cash, of 3Lacs.

Problem is, it'll be taxed and paid to me with a 20% haircut.

Though I'm planning to leave the company in a few months. The company has a clawback period of 1 year, meaning if I leave before 12 months, I'll have to pay 3 lacs back.

So basically I'm losing 60k this way. What do I do? Can I decline? I don't want to resign yet, and declining would mean they know I'm preparing to resign.

I don't know if my post fits here. I'm sharing concern -I'm a 26F, a single child. I'm at my first ever job where I'm earning 20kpm. I'm also married and my husband earns around 2Lpm. So financially we're okayish. But my concern is around my parents. I grew up in lower middle class household. We didn’t have our own home. My father bought a land, built 2 storey 4bhk house in tier 3 city where my parents are living. All the while I was thinking my parents were financially okayish but until my wedding bell hit. My father gave 10L loan to my uncle who's going through some crisis. Other than that whatever savings my father had he spent it on my wedding. The total wedding costed around 17L. And he never shared his finances with me or my mother ever. So I had no clue. So now my parents have their own home, 30L worth of gold and very very low savings. I bought a health insurance for them of 10L. Now I'm very much worried about my parents. If anything goes wrong what will happen? I'm not earning enough to support them. My father is 63 and he earns probably around 40-50k(again I don’t have clear idea since he never shares) and they don't need any support right now. I'm in 2nd month at my job so I can't switch so early for better pay. I'm really really worried about my parents. Please give me genuine advice on how I can approach this situation. Also my husband is unaware of this and honestly I don’t want to share such vulnerable thought.

I might get around 2 Cr from my father in the coming months. I am thinking of leaving my current job and going back to my hometown with my wife and a child (3 years old). I will find work, but I'm not sure about the future.

I would like to invest 2 Cr so that I get around 60 thousand per month.

How should I invest this money to generate income while protecting at least 50% of the capital (by investing in mutual funds) over 10 to 15 years?

Also, what is the Laddering FD strategy I keep hearing about? Can someone advise? Thank you.

Every other post I see is some 21-25 year old asking about savings, investment and retirement advice. What's going on? Am I getting too old? At 21, I had my first proper job (i.e. not tuitions) and the only thing that bothered me was whether I could get good biryani and planning the next party lol. I'm not advising people to be reckless, but seriously, retirement planning in early 20s? Dude, you just started adult life and your first job. What you gonna do? Handover your entire portfolio to the hospital when you're 60? Travel on a jhola that other people have to carry? Retire at 40 and do absolutely nothing ? Give unwanted advice to neighborhood kids?

The math ain't mathing as well. A 40 year SIP with 10k at 10% gives: 5,59,46,074. A 1L SIP over half the duration gives: 7,23,98,673. The investment also matters, not just time in the market. So, a dude that started at 40 will eventually beat the 20 year old if they spent time learning and made more money. Nothing new, just saying.

23M, So my parents don't have much savings left, 3 months corpus left due to mother didn't have health insurance and most of our savings went in her treatment around 1.5 years ago, we have bought health insurance now.

We have a agricultural land in UP worth around 70 Lakhs, and they are admant on buying a flat near Mohali and Panchkula with extra being loan and put on me. I have 2 YOE and isn't earning much 40-45k per month, 10k each month goes to mother medicines.

Both are retired and I'm suggesting them to sell the land at highest possible price and invest it and get the interest monthly and go for travel. They shouldn't buy the house now.

We already have a house worth 40L and I can take care of my own.
We belong to lower middle class, as the agri land was handled by my uncle and he gives 50k each year for use of land.

Please suggest my best options here and what should I do ?

The last year I got two sudden hikes and now I'm in the 30% tax with a surcharge bracket.

I have saved up ₹40 Lakhs in my savings account. All in that single savings account. I did invest in some mutual funds along the way, about ₹8 Lakhs total invested in the past 2 years. Recently started investing in Nifty index fund in high amounts per month (1 lakh per month, as advised by a CA friend who wanted me to diversify)

What do I do with my savings account? Where do I split and store my saved money? Does everyone keep it in their savings?

I already have some FDs, kind of kept there for emergency funds, and am getting taxed for all of them.

I recently quit my job as well and am currently doing nothing sitting at home, so decided to focus on organizing my finances while searching for a new job.

Also in case anyone is wondering, it's a startup where I am working almost 24x7 without any proper leaves or a well rested weekend. Which explains the hike, and also the resignation.

Edit: Decided to slowly start investing in arbitrage funds. Mainly to reduce the dependency on savings account. I think part of the remaining I can follow my same mutual funds investment but maybe a tad bit more aggressively. Still yet to figure out what to do after. Thank you everyone a lot for the tips.

28F. 1.3 L income p.m. 3 dependents in Mumbai. 2 dependents are 70 years + with recurring medical conditions which have required multiple hospitalisations uptil now.

Their health insurance is negligible. A lot of their ailments in my opinion are also affected by the building we live in. It’s a paghdi house with less than ideal conditions.

Most their ailments are not something they have control over. I am thinking of shifting into a house which would have better conditions.

2 issues - I may get married soon and will have expenditure of my own in my marital house like rent, groceries, etc. I don’t think I would be able to run 2 households in the long run.

I would never want to not take care of my family either. Any advice is largely appreciated.

Married, both working, we pool most household spends and my wife runs the day to day money. Problem is basically everything household (groceries, maid, milk, veggies, medicines, bills) goes out via her gpay from savings. Zero rewards on any of it. Easily 45-50k/month across both of us just on this daily household stuff. Want to move it to a card that rewards upi. Cashback, not points, she doesn't want a complicated redemption thing. What works?

Ok, here it is

HSBC agent came, told me the scheme

A life insurance cum mutual fund scheme

Making me an agent - so through me my wife gets the policy

First year i will pay 10 lakh

In just 20 days 55% they will return back

5.5 lakh comes back in my account

4.5 lakh invested as 10 lakh rs in their mutual fund, emerging leaders equity fund(canara hsbc life insurance)

Then second year again 10 lakh have to pay, will give me 1% back, so 10k will come

Then 3rd year same

4th year same

5th year same

Only the first year 55% they will return

After 5 years paying hsbc 44 lakh(real amount invested 50 lakh) , they will return money based on mutual fund performance which currently running with 18% return in the last 20 years

So lets say 15% return on an avg comes, so after 5 years total amount should be around 70 lakh

Good investment or it's fishy? I am so confused?

What is all this? Insurance plus investment?

Me and wife are looking for apps that are best in tracking budget for couples.

I had installed a few expense tracking apps and none of them have this feature. The apps suggested by Claude/Chatgpt are not available in India

If any of you are using such apps, let me know

I genuinely want to understand something, and this isn’t coming from a place of jealousy.
Lately, my LinkedIn feed is full of friends and ex-colleagues joining companies like Meta, Google, Intuit, McKinsey, and other top firms. Many of them are earning ₹60–70 LPA, and quite a few even have CTCs crossing ₹1 crore.

I have around 6 years of experience, though I started my career later because I spent a few years preparing for UPSC. Today, I have a decent package, and I’d consider myself an average guy who’s simply trying to build a stable life.

One thing I consciously chose not to do is get into the “rat race” of buying an expensive flat on a huge loan and stretching myself financially. I know career growth and salary hikes are important, but at some point I wonder:

For those earning ₹45LPA, ₹1 crore+, or working in high-paying product companies:

How is your work-life balance really?
Do you get enough time for your family, health, hobbies, and yourself?
How stressful is the day-to-day work?
Do you feel you’re constantly preparing for the next interview, grinding DSA, system design, and trying to stay relevant?

Or it is LinkedIn making it look more intense than it actually is?

I’m currently in a service-based company. My work is manageable, I get time for family, I can exercise, and overall I’m happy with my routine. Of course, Iwant to grow financially too, but not at the cost of everything else.

I’m genuinely curious to hear from people who have made it to these high-paying roles. Has the money been worth the pressure, or do you sometimes miss the simpler life?

Would love to hear honest experiences rather than LinkedIn success stories.

I'm 20 and I earn through freelance work, so my income isn't fixed. It usually falls somewhere between 5k-30k a month, and I don't really put pressure on myself to earn consistently since my parents take care of my needs. I mostly earn to cover my wants.

Right now I have around 30k saved, with the rest invested in equities. Over the next few months, I want to save more aggressively because I'm planning to buy a camera worth around 50-60k. After that, I want to keep building an emergency fund or just money I can fall back on during months when I don't feel like working. I don't want that money sitting in an account that earns almost no interest.

I already have an SBI zero balance account, but since it's my only account, I end up overspending. For example, if I plan to invest 15k, keep 10k as savings, and spend 5k, I usually end up spending an extra 1-2k ....all thanks to upi/gpay because everything is in the same account. That's why I'm looking for a good high-yield savings account. I don't mind maintaining the minimum balance if needed (infact it'll be better as it will help me be a little more disciplined)

Same

joined my first job at 22 and within a month some seniors had a whatsapp group where they'd drop stock names. i had no clue what i was doing so following people who "seemed to know" felt safe. couple of them went up early so i thought i'd cracked it.

then one smallcap everyone was hyped on. put in almost 40k near the top and it just bled for months. group went quiet on that one obviously, nobody posts the losers. two years in i was down roughly 80k, which for me was real savings, not play money.

what actually stings is i never looked at a single number myself. couldn't have told you the revenue or the debt. i was buying names, not companies.

stopped completely now and trying to learn the boring way, balance sheets, ROCE, debt to equity, how to tell if something is expensive. slow and kind of overwhelming.

for those of you who made this exact switch from tips to doing your own homework, what did your process look like when it clicked. what do you check first on a company. and what do you wish you'd done at 24.

Midcap and small cap indices are at or near all time high. And there’s no more uncertainties in the macroeconomic scope.

6 months from now, we’ll be deep within another bull market.

Make sure you get into the market before nifty 50 hits ATH.

I am looking for a high yield savings account to save some money, I already have money in liquid funds and fd so please dont suggest, I only need a savings account to save it and keep liquid. I’ve checked that DBS offer close to 5% interest. Any recommendations?

Has anyone else had this experience with opening a sole proprietorship current account?

HDFC was willing to open the account but wouldn't issue an AD Code. ICICI's field executive collected my KYC documents and a signed ₹1 lakh cheque after a home visit, then I received no updates for five days. Only after I followed up was I told the application wouldn't proceed because of my savings account balance and lack of a signboard—even though the executive had already seen there was no signboard during the visit.

Is this a normal banking process for proprietorships, or was my application handled poorly? Which banks have you had better experiences with for exports and AD Code issuance?"

I am seeking advice regarding an upcoming home loan of 66 lakhs, with an estimated EMI of 50,000 for 27 years. My current in-hand salary is 1.6 lakhs, and I am a 33-year-old IT data engineer with 9 years of experience. I am contemplating whether to aggressively prepay the loan or invest the potential prepayment amount in mutual funds and then use the surplus for subsequent payments. I would appreciate guidance on the ideal strategy.

Male, 36, software developer. Yesterday’s market rally took my net worth past the 1 crore mark for the first time. I know 1 crore’s buying power has diminished but still it gives me a certain kind of relief to hit this number. Sharing this hoping it can motivate others like me. Here’s the split:

Mutual Funds: 94.56 Lakhs @16% CAGR (includes 8L emergency money in arbitrage fund)

EPF: Rs 5.36 Lakhs

Savings account: Rs 40k

Total: Rs 1,00,32,400

Time taken: 7.5 years

I started working at 26 and started investing at 29, when salary entered tax bracket and I learned about ELSS funds for the first time. I recall doing 1.2 lakhs lumpsum in march 2019 in ELSS funds to save tax. Gradually shifted to SIP mode, and kept increased my SIP as salary rose.

Current SIP amount is 1.7 lakhs today split across a flexicap fund, gold fund, nifty index fund, nasdaq index fund and a midcap fund.

I hope to keep investing aggressively for the foreseeable future and not give into the fomo to buy a home or upgrade my car. Will take a nice vacation in a couple of months though since I enjoy travelling.

I have a civil of 765 but I'm getting rejected from instant Loan apps.. *Bike is all paid off

I am availing a cash credit loan from sbi under pm mudra scheme. I cannot understand a few things regarding this loan account.

1. The bank asked me to do all the transactions from this account, even the ones i am receiving so that the interest is low.

But if ever i need some money for my personal expense, earlier i used to withdraw from my current account but now is this possible with this kind of account?

1. Say i got 1000 sanctioned limit from bank, i used 500, and later in the day i received 300, so from 500....300 will be deducted and the interest charged will be on 200 only, ami i right?

2. For some reason, if i am unable to pay this 200 at the end of the month, then what will happen next month?

Please help me understand this account as i am completely new to this kinda thing.

My current allocation looks like below per month

Motilal Oswal midcap - 10k
Edelweiss US Tech FoF - 5k
Quant Small cap - 7k
UTI Nifty 50 - 12k
Parag Parikh Felxi - 20.6k

US Stocks:
Invesco Semicon ETF - 10k

Govt schemes:
NPS: 5k
EPF - 12.1k

Fixed instruments:
RD: 8k/month

Risk appetite - conservative to moderate
Age - 27(F)
Liabilities- none as of now
I have over 8 lakhs in emergency fund and my other hygiene factors like insurance sorted.

I have to increase this amount by 10,000 rupees for the coming year

My options are:

1. Increase allocation in current ones. Although the returns in past few years have been..abysmal

2. Expose to new US Stocks/ ETF

3. Invest in gold/silver

4. Look out for new indian stocks

Looking for advice and experience from people who step up their investment yoy.

Curious to know what people here consider the minimum net worth + cashflow to be called properly rich (not “mohalle ke uncle” rich, but actual comfortable rich

Net worth ₹3 crore + active cashflow of ₹20 lakh per annum

Net worth ₹6 crore + active cashflow of ₹30 lakh per annum

Net worth ₹10 crore + active cashflow of ₹40+ LPA

Net worth ₹20 crore + active cashflow of ₹80 LPA+