STORY SENT IN BY A READER IN Bengaluru…he is headed to becoming a USD millionaire…soon..in about 3 years max…a nice story…worth reading..

Let me share my story so far. I belong to a ‘middle class’ family from  south India. Father was an entry level soldier in Army and mother a house wife. Have a brother who is 9 year younger to me. He was diagnosed with cancer when he was 14 years old (undergone multiple major surgeries). I studied in a govt local medium school in our village. My father hasn’t had any considerable savings. While he was in service, he used to send money to my grandmother and she used to run the family. My mother was never into any ‘money management’ – even now also. Long story short, neither my father nor my grandmother had any savings; except that there were around 1 acre of land as ancestral property and an old house.

By the time I started my graduation, father was retired. He got around 1.5L at the time of retirement. He had met with an accident post retirement. ~50K of his retirement amount got spend for the treatment.  Some part of remaining cash was spend for home renovation. And remaining money were given to his sisters for some of their needs.

I have taken CS for graduation and passed out with a distinction as college topper. There were hardly anyone to guide on what next. Dad wanted me to get into some job and start earning.

After graduation, I came to Chennai in search of a job. She helped me to get into attend some interviews, got into a private finance company as a Jr Assistant – a clerical job. Starting salary was Rs.1200/-. That was my first job. I was living in a hostel at Chennai with a monthly rent of Rs.500/-. Tried managing all my expenses in remaining ~700. Mostly ran out of money during the last week of the month. Thank god for having that govt canteen in Saidapet; Idly @ Rs 1/- became my breakfast and lunch.

By 2001, managed to find job in a software company. Salary now became Rs.5000/-. Now I could afford visiting my native once in a year. Joined an institute to lean Java programming. Got some good friends. Made some small savings (Rs.8000). One fine day a hostel mate (a sr person of 65+ years) told he has some contacts in textile business, and has orders to do export. He asked my help to fund around 8K to get some paperwork done so that we can start our export business. He took the entire 8000/- to get the paper work done. I never saw him again; and my first business is closed before starting. Net worth after working for closer to 5 years is now stands at ‘0’!

By 2004 (at the age of 26), got a job at Bangalore in a US based software company. The salary become much better. For the first time in my life there was some amount left over every months. A lot of money got spend with friends. Also I was not having any goal per se,  so I didn’t want to get into any long term commitment. Meanwhile most of my friends were buying plots (that was the time when Bangalore real estate prices was going up every other day). I didn’t get into buying property or any commitment because (1)the money I had was not that significant (2) I was also not very excited about taking loans (3)literally no goals in life.
Sometime during 2004, I got introduced to Mutual funds and stocks through one of my good friend. I liked MF because of couple of reasons (1) liquidity : can buy and sell whenever one want (2) there is no minimum money required; can invest as small as Rs.500 (3)It was growing; though not at a pace comparable to RE. Got a demat account opened and started  SIPs (mostly Rs 500/- or Rs1000/-).  Also that was the time IPOs used to make a quite a good listing gains. So invested some amount in couple of IPOs too including TCS.
I had been an avid reader from my childhood days – mostly newspapers, current affairs etc. I also liked playing with data and generating metrics. So started tracking investment details in an excel sheet. Though during early 2004 there were literally no money, by the end of the year there were I had saved close to 1.5L. The SIP continued, and I was chasing the top performers, so lot of churning was happening. Remembering selling HDFC top 200 since JM Basic was doing much better :). I became more confident slowly and increased the SIP contribution as well.  The net worth grown steadily

• 2004 – 1.5 L
• 2005 – 6L –> got a promotion as a team lead
• 2006 – 8.4L –> purchased first vehicle (maruti swift) financed 80% through car loan. That was the first loan I have taken. Saw EMI is reducing monthly savings.
• 2007 – 9.5L –> got promoted to a manager & I got married too 🙂
• 2008 – We were blessed with our first daughter. Taken a term insurance. Got hired in one of the top tech companies in the world and moved to Chennai. Used the joining bonus to do pre-closure of the car loan. Things were going great; and then it happened. For the first time in life saw that market can go down too. All the money made from market from 2004 got evaporated.

I was shocked; stopped SIPs. Wanted to get out of the market at the very fist opportunity. But that never came any time soon.

I used to purchase and sell stocks based on some tips; some of them made big losses (had an 80% loss too); making the net a big negative.

Meanwhile got introduced to couple of good sites including yours and started reading about personal finance. Around 8-10 months after the shock; slowly restarted SIPs with small amounts. Also used excel sheet define a monthly budget and start tracking expense, cash flow etc; thanks to the learnings from those sites. Stopped chasing best performing mutual funds every year; rather started looking at their long term performances (not on risk yet).

• 2011 – Got blessed with our second kid. Taken a second term insurance. got promoted in office.
• 2012 – net worth reached the 1 Cr mark. It took 12 years to move from 0 to the first 1 Cr.
• 2014 – net worth reached 2 Cr mark – mostly driven by savings and good performance from Equity.
• 2016 – Touched 4 Cr. Mostly contributed by power of compounding & savings. net worth growth is bit ahead of expectations (expected to reach ~3.4Cr by this time). Sold the first car due to a bunch of legal issues; car was still in great condition just 40K km in 10+ years, never claimed insurance. Took an entry level SUV with full down payment.

Subra’s comments: he has sent me an excel sheet showing how his networth grew..obviously not sharing that..or the name of the reader…but a good story and good learning…

Looking rich or being rich?