From ₹30 a Day to Building a Crore: A Quiet Journey

Published on / By M. Pattabiraman Twitter: @pattufreefincal

Published: March 14, 2026 at 6:00 am

In this edition of the reader story … It all started in 2010. I wanted to pursue engineering. I had scored around 90%, yet I joined a tier-3 college for my B.E. in Computer Science. Even today, I don’t fully know why — whether I failed to filter colleges well, or whether competition was already that brutal. What I do know is that this decision shaped the next decade of my life.

About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives, which benefits us all. Some of the previous editions are linked at the bottom of this article. You can also access the full reader story archive.

Opinions expressed in reader stories do not necessarily 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. You can publish them anonymously if you wish.

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, over to the reader.

As a first-year graduate, my tuition fee was reduced to ₹20,000 per year. That helped — but not enough to make things easy. I still remember visiting Anna University to choose my college, walking past multiple bank stalls, enquiring about education loans like a grown-up long before I actually felt like one. Eventually, I got an education loan from the Central Bank of India and began my journey.

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For my parents, spending ₹3,000 a year for our school education was manageable. Professional degrees were different. They were terrifying.

My younger brother joined a near-tier-1 college in 2012 for B.Tech IT. Same dream, same hope — but no first-graduate benefit. His fees were significantly higher, fully loan-funded. Two sons. Two engineering degrees. One household income.

That phase was the hardest.

Both my parents worked as tailors. Every single day, they gave me ₹30 and my brother ₹ 30 for travel. We had yearly local train passes, but from the railway station, we still needed a shared auto or a bus to reach home. That ₹60 a day wasn’t pocket money — it was a sacrifice. I remember it vividly. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

First Job, First Salary — and My Biggest Financial Mistake

In 2014, I joined my first company — a BIOS-related firm — with a salary of ₹3 LPA. It felt unreal. One year later, I tried to close all my parents’ smaller loans. Around the same time, my parents made a decision that most families like ours make when they see their children start earning.

We had a small house in North Chennai, originally bought by my grandfather in the 1960s. My parents wanted to renovate it and add a second floor. Earlier, they had already taken two loans — ₹3 lakhs and ₹5 lakhs — to construct the first floor.

This time, they took a ₹10 lakh loan to renovate both floors.

Financially, this was not a great decision. But I was young, inexperienced, and unaware. I didn’t read the loan documents. I didn’t question the interest rate. A year later, when I finally checked, the ROI was 11.9%. I was shocked — but by then, there was nothing meaningful I could do.

That loan is still running. It will end in 2030.

That mistake quietly rewired my thinking about money forever.

Career Shifts and Learning to Bet on Myself

I spent nearly four years as a backend engineer. In 2018, I switched companies with a salary of ₹8.5 LPA. Over time, I worked mostly as a full-stack engineer and later moved internally to a different business unit with a ₹15 LPA package, focusing primarily on cloud technologies.

This was a voluntary shift. Not for money — but to learn.

In hindsight, that decision changed everything.

By 2021, discussions about marriage began at home. I had savings of around ₹15 lakhs. My mother wanted to give 10 sovereigns of gold. I spent all my savings on my marriage. I borrowed ₹2.5 lakhs from a close family friend. I even withdrew ₹55,000 from my first company’s PF.

Financially, it looks reckless on paper.

Emotionally, it was worth everything. I married my wife — and year after year, my love and respect for her only grew stronger. Around the same time, she switched jobs, and her salary grew to ₹7 LPA.

We were building life together — slowly, imperfectly, honestly.

A Daughter, Two Job Offers, One Clear Choice

In November 2022, we welcomed our daughter.

At the same time, I was searching for a new job.

In December, I received two offers:

  • A Bangalore startup at ₹33 LPA

  • A Chennai-based company at ₹38 LPA (excluding stocks)

Comfort mattered. Family mattered. Chennai mattered.

I chose the second offer.

I went all-in on the cloud, worked harder than ever, and took on more responsibility.

The AI Boom — and Being Ready When Luck Arrived

When the AI wave hit, my company needed engineers who understood the intersection of cloud and AI. I was ready — not because I predicted the boom, but because I had invested years in fundamentals.

I was fortunate to have a manager who trusted me and gave me meaningful, high-impact work. That trust changed my trajectory.

Today, my salary is ₹53 LPA (excluding stock options).

Fixing My Relationship With Money (Slowly)

That old 11.9% loan still runs. I pay the EMI every month. I haven’t aggressively prepaid it — but it gave me a powerful rule:

I will never take a long-tenure EMI lightly again.

This was the only loan that was still running, and I closed my education loan.

After marriage, I started consciously stabilising my finances. That’s when I discovered Vijay Mohan’s YouTube videos. His explanation of the four stages of financial life — Accumulation, Growth, Independence, Abundance — resonated deeply.

So did the idea of delayed gratification.

We still live in a ₹20,000 rented house, the same one I moved into in 2021 before marriage. In 2023, instead of buying a new car, I bought a second-hand Honda Amaze from Spinny. Partly for financial sense, partly because I wanted to learn to drive without stress.

No lifestyle inflation. No urgency to “look successful”.

Where I Stand Today

As of now, my portfolio is roughly ₹1.03 crore:

  • Mutual Funds: ₹51 lakhs

    • 95% in a single Flexi-cap fund
    • XIRR: ~15%
  • ESOPs: ₹15 lakhs

    • XIRR: –15%
  • PF: ₹19 lakhs
  • PPF: ₹2 lakhs

My wife’s savings:

  • Mutual Funds: ₹16 lakhs

    • 100% in a single Multi-cap fund
    • XIRR: ~13%

Closing Thoughts

This isn’t a story about becoming rich overnight.

It’s about parents who stretched ₹60 a day,
 about loans taken without understanding,
 about learning the hard way,
 and about quiet consistency, beating loud ambition.

If you’re reading this while worrying about fees, EMIs, or whether you’re “too late” — you’re not. Sometimes, the journey doesn’t look impressive while you’re walking it. Only when you turn around do you realise how far you’ve come.

Reader stories published earlier:

As regular readers may know, we publish a personal financial audit each December – this is the 2024 edition: Portfolio Audit 2024: The Annual Review of My Goal-Based Investments. We asked regular readers to share how they review their investments and track financial goals.

These published audits have had a compounding effect on readers. If you would like to contribute to the DIY community in this manner, send your audits to freefincal AT Gmail. You can also publish them anonymously.