I didn’t blow my salary on a yacht. I just spent it slowly, carelessly, on a thousand small things — and called it living.
Mistake 01
Treating my salary like it was all mine to spend
When you get paid, that number in your bank account feels like freedom. It’s not. A chunk of it belongs to future-you who needs rent, groceries, and the occasional medical emergency. Another chunk belongs to the government. And a small but critically important chunk should belong to a savings account you don’t touch.
I treated 100% of every paycheck as spending money. I wasn’t blowing it on parties — mostly just food delivery, subscriptions, random Amazon orders at midnight. Death by a thousand ₹499 purchases.
What I’d do instead: Set up an auto-transfer the day salary hits. Even ₹2,000 a month. You won’t miss what you never see.
Mistake 02
Having zero idea where my money actually went
I thought I had a rough sense of my spending. I did not. The month I actually tracked every expense — every auto, every “one quick coffee,” every “oh I’ll just Swiggy tonight” — I was floored. I was spending more on food than my rent. Not slightly more. More more.
Not tracking your money is like driving with your eyes closed and assuming you’ll probably stay on the road. You might. For a while.
What I’d do instead: One month. Just one. Track everything. The awareness alone changes behavior.
“I thought investing was for people who had money left over at the end of the month. Turns out, that’s exactly backwards.”
Mistake 03
Waiting to invest until I “had more money”
This one physically hurts to write. I told myself I’d start investing when things settled down, when I got a raise, when I had a bigger cushion. That’s like saying you’ll start exercising once you’re in better shape.
The thing about compound interest is it rewards time above everything else. ₹1,000 invested at 22 is worth dramatically more than ₹1,000 invested at 32. I gave away years of compounding for absolutely nothing in return.
What I’d do instead: Start with whatever you have. Even a SIP of ₹500/month into an index fund beats waiting for the “right time.”
Mistake 04
Lifestyle inflation every time I got a raise
Got a raise? New phone. Got a better raise? New phone AND a weekend trip. Got promoted? Suddenly I “needed” a nicer apartment.
There’s nothing wrong with rewarding yourself. The problem is when every income increase immediately becomes a spending increase, and your savings rate stays exactly at zero. You make more, you spend more, you save exactly the same amount: nothing.
I watched my income nearly double over three years. My savings account looked the same at the end of it.
What I’d do instead: For every raise, route at least 50% of the increase into savings before adjusting any spending habits.
Mistake 05
Using a credit card like it was free money
Credit cards aren’t evil. But 23-year-old me treated a credit limit like it was an extension of my salary. It is not. It is a loan. A loan with an interest rate that would make a loan shark blush if you carry the balance.
I once paid the minimum due for four months on a ₹15,000 purchase and realized I’d paid nearly ₹3,000 extra for the privilege. That was a ₹18,000 thing I convinced myself I needed.
What I’d do instead: Treat the credit card like a debit card. If the money isn’t in my account, I don’t swipe. Pay the full balance every single month.
Mistake 06
Having no emergency fund — and calling it “living in the present”
I genuinely believed that not saving for emergencies was a form of optimism. Like, what if nothing bad happens? Then I’d have “wasted” that money in savings, right?
Then something bad happened. A medical bill. A gap between jobs. A laptop that died right before a deadline. Each time, I scrambled. Borrowed from family. Felt terrible. Promised myself I’d build a buffer. Didn’t.
An emergency fund isn’t pessimism. It’s the opposite — it’s what lets you take risks, switch jobs, say no to bad situations, without everything crumbling.
What I’d do instead: Build 3 months of expenses in a liquid fund. It’s not exciting. It’s the most important money you’ll ever save.
Here’s what I want you to take from this: none of these mistakes made me a bad person, or stupid, or irresponsible. They made me 23. Money isn’t something most of us are taught properly, and we figure it out by making expensive errors and then — hopefully — learning.
The goal isn’t to be perfect. The goal is to stop repeating the same mistakes for a decade the way I did.
Your 30s-self is watching. Make them a little less stressed.
— Written with love, regret, and a much healthier savings rate
