It Feels Like Another EMI. I Did It Anyway.
Yesterday I set up two fortnightly SIPs.
₹500 fortnightly in ICICI Prudential Nifty Next 50 Index Fund — Direct Growth. ₹500 fortnightly in Motilal Oswal Nifty Smallcap 250 Index Fund — Direct Growth. Total: approximately ₹2,000 per month. First payments already made. Next due date: 15th June 2026.
I won’t pretend it felt exciting. My salary is already carrying a Home Building Loan EMI, a two-wheeler loan in its final month, and trading loans that are still running from a period I wrote about in my previous article. Adding another monthly outflow felt like adding another EMI to an already heavy list.
But I did it anyway.
Here’s what kept me going. I have already survived the worst financial period of my adult life — five years of F&O losses, sleepless nights, and months where I didn’t know how the EMI would be paid. If I could survive that, I can handle ₹2,000 leaving my account every month for the next 25 years.
And then there’s the volatility question. I have watched ₹1.1 lakh disappear in a single trading session. A mutual fund dipping 20% will never shake me. That emotional tolerance — built the hard way — is the one useful thing F&O trading gave me.
And then there’s the revenge factor. The market took years from me — money, time, peace. I am not the kind of person who walks away from that quietly. But I’ve learned the hard way that you cannot take revenge on the market through trading. The market always wins that fight.
The real revenge is this: staying invested for 25 years and walking away with a corpus the market built for me — slowly, quietly, without a single sleepless night.
That’s the revenge I’m going after now.
What Stopped Me For 5 Years
In 2020 I made a decision that seemed logical at the time. I had just discovered F&O trading and genuinely believed that putting my money into the market directly — actively trading options — would make me wealthy far faster than a slow, boring SIP running for 25 years. Why wait a quarter century when the market could multiply my money in weeks?
So I stopped the SIP. I redirected everything into trading.
I have written the full story of what happened next in my previous article. The short version: it didn’t work. Five years, significant losses, active loans, and zero savings to show for it. The shortcut I chose turned out to be the longest, most expensive route possible.
The SIP I stopped in 2020 would be worth a meaningful amount today if I had simply left it alone. Instead I have a trading loss and a loan repayment plan stretching to 2028.
Here is the lie I told myself for five years: “I’ll start investing properly once things settle down.” Trading losses don’t settle down on their own. Loans don’t wait. And the market doesn’t pause compounding for your convenience. Things don’t settle down — you decide to start anyway, or you don’t start at all.
I didn’t start for five years. That decision has a real cost that I’m still paying.
The Number That Changed Everything — ₹3.5 Crore
Let me show you the number that made me press the start button.
I opened a SIP return calculator and put in my actual numbers: ₹2,000 per month starting investment, 20% step up every year, 25 year duration. I ran it twice — once at a conservative 12% annual return, once at an optimistic 16%.
At 12% — the historically realistic long term average for index funds — the projected corpus is approximately ₹2.1 to ₹2.3 crore.
At 16% — the optimistic scenario if smallcap and Nifty Next 50 funds perform strongly over the full 25 years — the projected corpus climbs to approximately ₹3.5 crore.
Total amount I personally invest over 25 years with the step up: approximately ₹1.13 crore.
The market builds the rest.
Even the conservative scenario — ₹2.1 crore — is enough. The returns generated by that corpus, if invested carefully at retirement, can sustain two people comfortably for the rest of their lives. Me and my wife. The children will build their own lives. We will not be a burden on them.
That thought — of retiring without being dependent on anyone — is what made ₹2,000 feel like the most important money I have ever spent.
I am not starting from strength. I am starting from debt, tight cash flow, and five years of damage to undo. But the calculator doesn’t care where you’re starting from. It only cares when you start.
I started yesterday. That’s enough for today.
What Is A Step Up SIP And Why It Matters
A Step Up SIP is exactly what it sounds like — a SIP where you increase your monthly investment by a fixed percentage every year automatically.
A regular SIP runs at the same amount forever. ₹2,000 today, ₹2,000 in year 10, ₹2,000 in year 25. It works, but it doesn’t account for the fact that your salary grows every year while your investment stays flat.
A Step Up SIP fixes that. Every year your SIP amount increases by a percentage you decide upfront. The compounding then works on a growing base, not a fixed one. That’s why the final corpus difference between a regular SIP and a step up SIP over 25 years is dramatic.
I chose 20% annual step up. Here’s the exact logic behind that number.
My current ₹2,000 SIP is roughly 4% of my Basic Pay plus DA combined. Every April I receive a 3% annual increment automatically. DA gets revised twice a year and historically adds another 3-4% to my salary annually. That’s approximately 7% guaranteed salary growth every year from increment and DA alone — without doing anything extra.
The remaining 13% of the 20% step up comes from other sources — allowance hikes linked to Basic Pay, promotion when it comes, pay scale revision and its arrear payment, and any income from PaisaPSU.in as the blog grows hopefully.
No single source covers the full 20%. But all sources combined make it realistic.
The step up doesn’t require me to find 20% more money from thin air every year. It requires me to direct salary growth — money I was already going to receive — toward the SIP before it disappears into lifestyle inflation.
That’s the whole strategy. Grow the SIP as fast as the salary grows. Let compounding do the rest.
Where The Step Up Money Comes From — A PSU Employee’s Plan
A plan without a source is just a wish. Here is exactly where my 20% annual step up comes from — year by year.
Year 1 — Direct salary sacrifice. This year the ₹2,000 comes straight from my current salary. No windfall, no extra income. Just a conscious decision to cut discretionary spending and redirect it toward the SIP. No eating out reduced. No expensive purchases. ₹2,000 carved out before it disappears.
Year 2 onwards — DA hike covers the first part. Every January and July, DA gets revised. Historically this adds 3-4% to my gross salary annually. That increase goes directly to the step up. I don’t spend it. I don’t absorb it into lifestyle. It goes straight to increasing the SIP amount.
Every April — Annual increment covers the next part. 3% increment on Basic Pay every year. That additional amount joins the DA hike in funding the step up. Again — directed before it gets spent.
When it comes — Promotion and pay scale revision. These are irregular but significant. A promotion jumps both Scale Pay and Grade Pay. A pay scale revision brings arrears. Every rupee of that windfall that is not already committed to loan repayment goes toward a larger step up that year.
Month by month — PaisaPSU.in earnings. This blog exists partly for this reason. Every rupee this website earns goes toward two things — loan repayment first, SIP step up second. The side hustle funds the future.
The 20% step up is not one big decision made once. It is five small decisions made consistently. Each one funded by money that was always coming — just never directed properly before.
The Message I’d Send My 2015 Self
If I could send one message back to myself on 1st April 2015 — the day I signed my joining papers — it would be short.
Keep the ₹5,000 SIP you started. Don’t stop it. Don’t touch it. Don’t look at it.
No step up needed. No complicated strategy. No sophisticated portfolio. Just that one SIP, running untouched for 25 years, would have been enough to change everything.
At 12% returns, ₹5,000 per month from 2015 to 2040 builds a corpus that makes the word “retirement” feel real — not a distant fantasy but an actual date on a calendar.
I would also tell myself one more thing: keep updating yourself. In 2015 the tools were limited — no step up calculators, no automated SIP platforms as seamless as today. But the knowledge was always available to those who looked for it. Stay curious. Evolve with the tools. The people who got rich quietly were not smarter — they were just more updated.
Explore side hustles. There are dozens of ways to build income beyond your salary — writing, teaching, consulting, creating. I know this now. I wish I had known it at 25.
And stay far away from F&O trading. Far, far away.
Because here is what the SIP you stopped in 2020 would have given you today if you had simply left it alone: financial freedom approaching. Instead you have loans to repay and years to recover.
But the most important message — the one I’d make sure my 2015 self actually heard:
You will get rich one day. You will travel wherever you want one day. You will give lavish parties to your friends one day. You will provide your family with abundance one day. You will remove the tag of miser from your name one day.
Just start. And never stop.
How To Start Your Own SIP Today — Exact Steps
Starting a SIP is simpler than filing your ITR. It takes less than 15 minutes. Here are the exact steps.
Step 1 — Choose a platform. Open any SEBI registered investment platform. I use Zerodha Coin — it charges zero commission on direct mutual fund investments, which means every rupee you invest goes entirely into your fund with nothing skimmed off the top. Other options include Groww, Paytm Money, or directly through the AMC’s own website. All are reliable.
Step 2 — Complete your KYC. First time investors need to complete a one time KYC — Know Your Customer verification. You need your PAN, Aadhaar, and bank account details. The process is fully online and takes 10 to 15 minutes. Once done, it never needs to be repeated regardless of how many funds you invest in.
Step 3 — Choose your fund. For a PSU employee starting out, keep it simple. One or two index funds is enough. I chose ICICI Prudential Nifty Next 50 Index Fund Direct Growth and Motilal Oswal Nifty Smallcap 250 Index Fund Direct Growth. Always choose Direct Growth plans — not Regular plans. Direct plans have no distributor commission, which means higher returns for you over the long term.
Step 4 — Set your SIP amount and date. Enter your monthly or fortnightly amount. Choose a date — I chose fortnightly investments of ₹500 each. Set up the auto-debit mandate from your bank account. The platform walks you through every step on screen.
Step 5 — Start. Confirm and submit. Your first payment processes immediately or on your chosen date. After that it runs automatically every month without you doing anything.
That’s it. The entire process follows the screen instructions. You don’t need a broker, an agent, or a financial advisor to start a basic index fund SIP. You need 15 minutes and a bank account.
The only mistake you can make at this step is not starting.
The One Rule I’m Following This Time
I have one rule for this SIP. Just one.
I will not redeem it. For anything. Ever. Until my child needs it for higher education — that is the only exit I have permitted myself.
Not for a wedding. The last SIP I ran ended because of my wedding. Never again.
Not for a festival. Bihu comes every year. The SIP runs every fortnight. These two facts are unrelated.
Not for a relative’s request. Not for a vehicle upgrade. Not for a family trip. Not for a medical expense that my emergency fund should cover. Not for a business idea that sounds promising. Not for a market crash that makes me nervous. Not for a bull run that makes me greedy.
None of these are reasons to touch this money.
I have learned this lesson the most expensive way possible. When you give yourself permission to redeem for “important” reasons, every reason eventually becomes important enough. The wedding was important. The trading account needed funding — that felt important too at the time. Five years later I am still paying for those decisions.
This time the rule has no exceptions built in. The moment you add exceptions, the rule stops being a rule.
The SIP is not savings. It is not an emergency fund. It is not a backup account for when things get tight. It is my retirement. It is the financial freedom I owe myself after five years of destroying my own future.
My child’s higher education is the one cause worthy of it. Everything else can find another solution.
Everything else always does.
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