A working professional who thought earning ₹ 1.3 lakh a month would end their money worries has captured social media’s attention with a reality check. Laying out their monthly budget, they demonstrated how rent, EMIs, household expenses, and subscription fees eat away their earnings, leaving barely ₹ 10,000 for emergency savings.
The person added that the remaining “ ₹ 10,000 doesn’t feel like ₹ 10,000. “Meanwhile I’m sitting at home calculating whether ordering a ₹ 250 meal is a financial decision. An individual suggested, “3000 for subscriptions? Subscribe for only 1-2 months to each OTT one after the other- change when you’re bored of the library… and there is so much on YouTube. Add groceries, bills, petrol and insurance, and roughly ₹ 75-80k is committed before the month properly starts. Also, ₹ 10k SIP + ₹ 10k remaining means you’re still keeping ₹ 20k, or around 15% of your income.
I don’t even know where the money goes anymore. Nothing here is particularly luxurious. Do you even watch all? Another suggested, “Download a spend tracker app for you to see where each penny goes. Visibility of spends is half the battle when it comes to budgetary management. A third posted, “Your salary isn’t randomly disappearing tbh. Your fixed life is just expensive. Rent + family + EMI alone is ₹ 57k. The suspicious part is the ₹ 18k under subscriptions, random UPI and ‘miscellaneous’. Don’t even cut it immediately, just stop calling it miscellaneous and name every expense for one month. It could be better at this salary, but it’s very different from the entire amount disappearing. A fourth wrote, “Expenses are way too high for this salary. You are living an upper-class life with a middle-class salary.” (Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. Hindustantimes.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
The individual shared a detailed breakdown of the expenses: ₹ 30,000 – Rent ₹ 12,000 -Parents/family ₹ 8,000 -Groceries ₹ 6,000 -Electricity + internet + phone ₹ 7,000 – Petrol/transport ₹ 15,000 -EMI ₹ 10,000 -SIP/investments ₹ 5,000 -Insurance/medical ₹ 4,000 -Eating outside ₹ 3,000 -Subscriptions because apparently I need 47 different OTT apps ₹ 5,000-Random UPI payments I have absolutely no memory of making ₹ 5,000 – Clothes, toiletries, household stuff ₹ 10,000 – “Miscellaneous” (the biggest scam category in personal finance) Total: ₹ 1,20,000. The individual expressed that they once thought earning in lakhs would help them have a “completely different life,” but the reality seems very different. It’s just a hundred completely normal expenses quietly eating my salary alive,” the person wrote, adding, “ ₹ 1.3 lakh sounds rich until you have ₹ 1.3 lakh worth of responsibilities.
