Many salaried professionals experience the exact same struggle: pay day arrives, but rent, EMIs, SIPs, and daily expenses empty half their account within a week. It is easy to assume you are struggling alone, but millions of young workers share this identical monthly script. We find ourselves caught in a cycle of stagnant wages, skyrocketing living costs, and pressure to buy things just because everyone around us is buying them.
You Are Not Bad With Money. The System Was Never Designed for You to Win.
Your Salary Comes on the 2nd. It Is Gone by the 7th. You Are Not Alone.
I don’t understand why people work 9 to 5 jobs, earn money, and still hate their jobs. I work every day from 10 pm to 3 am, even without the intention of earning money, and I enjoy it so much. But I started noticing something about the people around me. Something that nobody was talking about openly. And today I want to talk about it.
Of course money is important. But at times, in our pursuit of chasing materialistic happiness through money, we forget the real meaning of happiness. We are like that deer in the Ramayana who kept chasing the fragrance which actually was coming from his own body.
People don’t want to listen to your sad story. They want the specific details that are applicable to their lives. So let me get straight to it.
The Story of Every Month Nobody Talks About
Your salary comes on the 2nd or 3rd. Your rent goes out by the 5th. If there is a loan running, the EMI goes out by the 6th or 7th. If you have an SIP running, that goes out by the 7th or 8th. Somewhere in between your credit card payment is due. And then the rest of the money disappears in small pieces across the entire month. A 17 rupee UPI transaction here. A 100 rupee net banking there. A 400 rupee debit card swipe somewhere else.
And this is the story of our month.
By the 5th or 6th, 40 to 50 percent of your salary is already gone.
Now you might think this is just your story. It is not. This is the story of nearly 2 crore people in this country. That 27 year old IT engineer working in Pune. That 29 year old sales executive working in Gurgaon. That 26 year old marketing professional working in Bangalore. All three have never met each other. They do not even know each other exists. But their stories are so similar it will shock you. You can shift the dates a little. Change the categories slightly. Adjust the amounts. But the result that comes out at the end is almost exactly the same for every single one of these 2 crore people.
Who Are We Actually Talking About?
Before going further, let us understand who this “everyone” actually is.
Only about 22 percent of employed people in this country work in a formal professional setup, what we call white collar jobs. The rest are either self employed, in casual labor, or in blue collar work. Around 7.8 crore people file income tax in India. Of those, only around 2 crore 30 lakh actually file a real income tax number. The rest file zero income tax. In the age group of 20 to 34, there are 35 crore people in this country.
So when I talk to you, I am most likely talking to a salaried employee who understands English, has at least one EMI running, and has an SIP going. That means you are part of maybe 2 or 3 people out of every 10 employed individuals. You are carrying the story of maybe 3 to 5 percent of all young Indians.
So when you say everyone’s life is like this, you are talking about 3 to 5 percent of people. But it feels like everyone because you are surrounded only by those same 3 to 5 percent. We have all become frogs in a well. We live in gated communities. We go to the same offices. We take the same metro line. We eat at the same places. We buy things from the same shops. Our lives have become so small that out of 140 crore people we never meet more than 10,000 in our entire lifetime. And those 10,000 are almost always exactly like us.
This is important to understand because what I am about to tell you will sting. Everyone in this room is the same. Everyone has been given the same prescription for how to live life. The same instructions. So while you think you are all so different from each other, a very small slice of this country is living almost identical lives without even realising it.
Salary Has Stopped Growing Since 2010
Now let us understand how we got stuck in this well.
The biggest reason is salary stagnation.
Most people in this group work in IT services. This has been the biggest employment engine of our country for the last 20 years. Companies like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HCL recruited lakhs every single year. They gave even average students a professional experience, international opportunities, and a stable income. An entire new middle class emerged from this starting around 2005 and 2010.
But that engine has now stopped running.
Starting salaries for freshers in these IT companies have more or less stagnated. It is still around 3.5 lakh per year. And it has been that way for years. Properly adjusted, that 3.5 lakh from 20 years ago should be worth 10 lakh today. But it is still 3.5 lakh. And there is an entire crowd willing to take even that 3.5 lakh job because there are simply not enough jobs.
Increments are also in a very tight range. On average in the last two to three years, the IT services industry has given 6 to 7 percent increments. Almost every company is in that same tight range.
Your Rent Is a Number You Never Chose
Then comes the second thing you never negotiated. Your rent.
The day you decided which city you wanted to live in and where you wanted to stay, you were handed a number. You can fight as much as you want, network as much as you want, but you will stay around that number. It is not a number you chose. It is a number you were given.
And in the last four years that number has gone up by 40 percent in almost every major city. Because there are only five or six cities in this country where most of the employment opportunities exist for young Indians. And that is where the pain is.
Your salary went up maybe 10 to 20 percent in those same four years. Your rent went up 40 percent.
And if you made the mistake of buying a home in your 20s, the home EMI is now sitting on your head permanently. As a percentage of salary, Indian cities have perhaps the highest EMI to salary ratios anywhere. In Mumbai on average 51 percent of salary goes to home EMI. In Bengaluru and Chennai around 28 to 30 percent. In Delhi NCR around 31 percent. In Pune and Hyderabad around 24 to 26 percent.
Meaning one quarter of your salary is going into home EMI alone. And this is a 15 to 20 year commitment.
So your salary was set by the industry. Your rent was set by the market. What remains after that is what you actually have to live on. And if salary is tightly controlled and rent is tightly controlled, it is not surprising that what is left over is also roughly the same for everyone.
The only difference is in dreams and desires. And that is where the paths diverge.
The Crowded Trade Nobody Warned You About
A lot of young Indians are moving toward credit cards, loan apps, personal loans, trading and F&O. These are all ways of trying to fill the gap between what you earn and what you want.
And what do you want? The same things everyone around you wants.
Everyone wants to go to Goa. Everyone wants to fly. Everyone wants a four star or five star hotel. Everyone wants a good restaurant. Everyone wants those cool sneakers. Everyone wants the new iPhone. Everyone wants a three bedroom house in one of those five or six cities.
This is called a crowded trade. When everyone wants the same thing at the same time, the price of that thing goes through the roof. The demand for three bedroom homes in five or six cities is massive. And the supply cannot keep up. So prices keep rising. That is why almost no house in any major city now comes for under one crore. There are too many people standing in line to buy it. Too many banks ready to give them a loan. And a feeling that if you do not have a house before 30, you have not achieved anything in life.
The same thing happened to flights. The same thing happened to Goa. The same thing happened to iPhones. Everyone wants what everyone else wants. And you pay the price of that crowd.
How to Get Out of the Well
The solution is simple even if it is not easy.
Get out of the crowd.
When there is a herd running in one direction, stepping away from the herd is always in your favour. Make choices that are different.
If everyone is trying to buy a house between 30 and 35, wait it out. Or try to buy slightly earlier before the crowd gets there. If everyone is paying only the minimum amount due on their credit card and destroying their credit score, you pay the full bill every month. Your credit score will build. You will get one month of interest free credit. You will earn reward points. If everyone is chasing the new iPhone 17 Pro Max, buy the iPhone 15. It is cheaper because everyone is dumping it. If everyone wants the cool sneaker and the cool bike and the cool car, try to make a different decision. It will benefit you.
Your Well Is Full of the Same Frogs as You
Your friend circle is also your well.
Almost everyone in your circle has the same salary. The same saving potential. The same struggles. You call them friends and they are your friends. But when you are going through a bad time, almost all of them are also going through a bad time. If one industry collapses your entire friend circle slowly collapses. If the stock market shakes, everyone shakes together.
You live in the same five or six cities. In the same five or six colonies of those cities. Everything is like a classic frog in a well problem.
Go beyond that well. Build relationships with people who are different from you. Who live a different world from yours. Do not become part of the same herd even when it comes to mindset. Spend time with people who are not like you. Who do not work in your company. Who are not from your city. Go out and see what the world actually has to offer.
The Stability of Your Income Is a Trap
When you become a white collar professional, the only thing you are constantly told is increase your income. And the only instruction you get for doing that is to keep changing jobs. Every one year, two years, three years. Keep switching.
This does two things. You get the money but you never build a foundation. If you keep changing jobs every year or two for a 20 or 30 percent increment, the money starts looking good. But you never actually reach the level that is making that increment possible. You are getting that jump because there is demand for the years of experience you have. But the real depth of that experience has not yet happened.
So when the industry faces a downturn, when AI starts replacing jobs slowly, guess who gets wiped out first. The person who never built a real foundation.
What you want to do instead is either spend enough time in one company that your roots grow deep. So when you eventually move those roots to somewhere else, you start from a beautiful base. Typically that is three to four years, ideally four to five.
Or the second thing, always have a side income. Never make the mistake of thinking your job is your only income source. Your income should come from multiple sources. That does not mean doing multiple jobs. It means investing your money or your time in something that makes money for you. Stock market, gold, something you can rent out, tools that make you more productive, freelancing with clients. All of these create multiple sources of income. Depending on one income creates unnecessary pressure to keep increasing that one number. The moment you diversify, you realize you do not need to put all that pressure on just one thing.
Build a Life That Is Uniquely Yours
The biggest mistake you will make at your age is thinking your life is completely different from everyone else. Or equally big, thinking your life is exactly the same as everyone else.
There is a very small set of individuals who have the same life as you. The more time you spend only with those people, the more you will believe that is the whole world. Step away from them. Build a life and an identity that is unique to you.
Time is the biggest wealth building factor by a mile. Educate yourself to get into the game. Then just let time do its thing. You will become wealthy.
If you want to build wealth, keep your living costs low, increase your income, invest the difference. Do not overcomplicate it.
You came naked. You will leave naked. You came without anything. You will leave without anything. So why so much hatred, resentment, envy, selfishness and pride? We will all go empty handed. Everything we have earned, we earned here and we will leave it here only.
We are not defined by our jobs or the things that we own or the amount of money that we have. We are defined by the love in our hearts.
When you build a unique life, you will realize how many options there actually are to be financially free. And not necessarily trapped the way you find yourself today.
Read After this post:
The Man 21 Countries Banned: 5 Lessons From Osho That Will Change How You Think
What Do They Know That You Don’t? The Truth About Money, Growth, and Freedom
The World is Trapped in Debt: 300 Years, Four People, One System
Reach the 1% Level of Thinking: Master Your Mind, Question Your Thoughts, Make Better Decisions
The Quest for Reality: A Journey into Self-Discovery and Nothingness
Conclusion
Escaping this cycle requires stepping away from the herd rather than copying what everyone else is doing. Real financial peace comes from building genuine career skills, developing multiple income streams, keeping living costs low, and investing patiently over time. Material status will not define you in the end; focus on creating a life and identity that is truly your own.
About The Author
Hemant Singh
Hello friends, I am Hemant, Technical Writer & Co-Founder of Education Learn Academy. Talking about education, I am a student. I enjoy learning things related to new technology and teaching others. I request you that you keep supporting us in this way and we will continue to provide new information for you. :)
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