An Engineer-MBA’s Journey to Financial Independence

Published on / By M. Pattabiraman Twitter: @pattufreefincal

Published: April 18, 2025 at 6:00 am

Last Updated on April 18, 2025 at 9:27 am

A reader says, “Thank you for being a source of financial wisdom in my journey. Your articles have given me the needed direction and ideas to plan my finances. My situation might be a bit different from that of most of your readers, but I think there might be some lessons in my story”.

After sharing his journey (which is published below), he asked,

“I am 38 years old, currently have a corpus of 2.25 Cr. 70% is in debt { SCSS* (30), EPF (25), PPF (25), Arbitrage Funds (70), Debt MF (rest) } and 30% in equity MF. I invested in arbitrage funds as they provide good returns (vs FD) and a means to balance my portfolio easily”.

* in parent’s name

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“Is the corpus enough to retire? What bucket strategy would you suggest with the assumptions below?”

  • Monthly expenses (40k) + 1 lacs annual expenses
  • Not married, so the corpus should last till I am 85
  • Already have health insurance of 10 lacs + super top-up of 50 lacs
  • Emergency corpus of 12X Monthly expenses already saved separately
  • I have my own house. My parents are not dependent on me
  • I plan to do odd jobs till I am 60 to manage any other expenses.
  • I have a high-risk appetite, so I’m not looking at annuity options.

We entered his numbers into the freefincal robo-advisory tool and found that he has enough to retire early (with caveats). Our recommendations were published earlier: Can I retire at 38 with a corpus of Rs 2.25 Crores? We now look at his journey.

About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives for the benefit of readers. Some of the previous editions are linked at the bottom of this article. You can also access the full reader story archive.
Opinions published in reader stories need not represent the views of freefincal or its editors. We must appreciate multiple solutions to the money management puzzle and empathise with diverse views. Articles are typically not checked for grammar unless it is necessary to convey the right meaning and preserve the tone and emotions of the writers.
If you would like to contribute to the DIY community in this manner, send your audits to freefincal AT Gmail dot com. If you wish, you can publish them anonymously.
Please note: We welcome such articles from young earners who have just started investing. See, for example, this piece by a 29-year-old: How I track financial goals without worrying about returns. We also have a “mutual fund success stories” series. See, for example, how mutual funds helped me achieve financial independence. Now, back to the reader.

I am an engineer -MBA grad. Since I am not an ambitious person, my goal has been to live a comfortable life with minimum stress. Since my college days, the plan was to get a high paying job so that I can save enough money to retire and live a peaceful life.

However, there was no plan on how to go about it in my initial years. Being from a conservative background, I did not have expensive habits and used to save most of my salary. Due to this, I was able to clear my education loan in 16 months.

Thanks to my father, who has been an investor in the equity market since the 90s, I started investing in Mutual funds via SIP after clearing my loans. My father advised me to invest in direct stocks only when I could spend time researching them, hence there was no direct investment in stocks. Mutual fund selection was based on Crisil ratings. In hindsight, the selection of the fund could have been better, but I feel the important part was that I kept investing. (Something is better than Nothing)

As my salary grew, I didn’t step up my SIP, which, in hindsight, was a lost opportunity. My savings account balance used to be 2-3 lacs + for most of the time. (Now I ensure that savings account balance is no more than 1.2 X my monthly expenses from Day 1)

When covid struck, working from home gave me time to study about investing and FIRE.

During this time, I decided to take a break to figure out what I could do other than a corporate job. I was able to get an opportunity as a freelance consultant.

I came across your articles on goal-based investing and started creating my plan to become financially independent by 40. However, I realized I was still far away from this goal.

I decided to take up a corporate job again and achieve my target corpus as earnings from freelancing were meagre.

Now I am 38 years old, currently have a corpus of 2.25 Cr. 70% is in debt { SCSS (30), EPF (25), PPF (25), Arbitrage Funds (70), Debt MF (rest) } and 30% in equity MF . I invested in arbitrage funds as they provide good returns (vs FD) and a means to balance my portfolio easily.

  • Monthly expenses (40k) + 1 lacs annual expenses
  • Not married, so the corpus should last till I am 85
  • Already have health insurance of 10 lacs + super top-up of 50 lacs
  • Emergency corpus of 12X Monthly expenses already saved separately
  • I have my own house, my parents are not dependent on me

If you have not yet read our response to his email, see Can I retire at 38 with a corpus of Rs 2.25 Crores?