Kamath\u2019s tweet was accompanied by a video featuring Prateek Singh, CEO of LearnApp and Zero1 by Zerodha. The video dismantles conventional financial advice and challenges the paycheck-to-paycheck mindset plaguing many middle-class earners.<\/p>\n
Singh opens the video critiquing the typical life script: study, get a job, take a loan, buy a house \u2013 just to impress. \u201cThis is terrible advice,\u201d he says, calling it a \u201cnever-ending loop.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that most people don\u2019t treat their salaries as a means to grow wealth. Instead, they treat it like a recurring waterfall of money meant to be spent. The trap? Spending everything you earn, every month, with no backup.<\/p>\n
His solution is to start by tracking every expense \u2013 every snack, party, and online order. \u201cCut out the extras. I know you know what I\u2019m talking about,\u201d Singh said, urging viewers to reduce monthly spending by just 1%. That small amount, say Rs 500 a month, if invested smartly, can trigger a saving habit that compounds over time.<\/p>\n
He busts another common myth that investing is the first step to financial freedom. \u201cInvesting is not as important as creating your own emergency fund,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He explained that most people working in high-stress jobs and having EMI-driven lives don\u2019t have savings to last even a month if they lose their income. The first goal, he said, should be to save six months’ worth of expenses in a separate, not-easily-accessible fund. \u201cThis is your new superpower. It will reduce your fear because you have six months of backup. Your work will actually get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The video also raises a red flag on the skyrocketing cost of healthcare in India. \u201cMost people don’t become poor because they made less money. They become poor because one single event put them back five years,\u201d Singh notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He talked about the need for every young earner to get health insurance, calling it a vital layer of financial safety.<\/p>\n
Singh also broke down our psychological urge to spend. He connected our modern-day consumerism to ancient tribal instincts \u2013 how people once sought social status through strength and alliances, now replaced by material possessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do social signalling with the iPhone, with the car, with the house. You tell the tribe, hey, you should continue to be my friend because well, I have all these things,\u201d he explained. Marketers exploit this instinct, leading people to buy things they can’t afford.<\/p>\n
Singh then introduced the debt-to-income ratio calculator. It helps individuals understand what percentage of their income is being lost to EMIs. \u201cWhen you’re paying in EMI, you don’t own what you’ve bought. The bank or the credit card company owns it,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cAll that hard work you’re putting on that project at work, you’re actually earning for someone else and not yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
While most experts set a safe EMI limit at 36% of your income, Singh argued even 20% is too high. \u201cWhy do you want to buy stuff more than one fifth of your salary?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kamath\u2019s tweet was accompanied by a video featuring Prateek Singh, CEO of LearnApp and Zero1 by Zerodha. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3093],"tags":[51,474,8142,8143,2499,16,15,8141],"class_list":{"0":"post-11896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-nithin-kamath","11":"tag-nithin-kamath-zerodha","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-zerodha"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114321492866630022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}