Rs 3 Cr with only PPF, NPS. Rs 2,500 to Rs 6 Cr. And one who lost it all. 3 journeys

One started his career with a salary of just Rs 2,500 a month and has now built assets worth more than Rs 6 crore. Another has never directly invested in stocks or mutual funds, yet is targeting a retirement corpus of more than Rs 3 crore by the age of 50. The third saw his income rise to around Rs 80 lakh a year and then almost disappear.

At first glance, their stories have little in common.

Naresh Bhardwaj chose a simpler route, putting his money mainly into PPF and NPS. Grijesh Agal built his wealth through a combination of a rising career, mutual fund SIPs, property and years of staying invested. Manimaran Krishnan experienced the opposite journey. His income rose sharply in a short period, his spending rose with it and then the income disappeared, forcing him to rethink what financial security really means.

But when I looked at these three journeys together, I found a common thread.

Building wealth is not simply about earning more or finding the best investment. It is about what you do with your income, how consistently you save and invest, whether your financial plan can survive bad years and whether you can turn today’s income into assets that remain when that income stops.

That is where these three stories become particularly interesting.

Naresh shows that wealth does not have to be complicated

When I first looked at Naresh Bhardwaj’s investment journey, what stood out was not what he owned, but what he did not own.

The 45-year-old has never directly invested in stocks. He does not have a mutual fund portfolio or a fixed deposit. Instead, his financial plan has been built around two products: PPF and NPS.

Naresh started his PPF in March 2006. He started investing in NPS in June 2009. His current PPF corpus is around Rs 80 lakh, while his NPS corpus is around Rs 1.1 crore, according to the details he shared.

His target is to retire in 2031 at the age of 50. He is targeting more than Rs 1 crore in PPF and around Rs 2.15 crore in NPS, taking the retirement corpus beyond Rs 3 crore. These are projections and depend on future returns, particularly from NPS.

There is nothing particularly exciting about this strategy. And perhaps that is exactly why I find it interesting.

Naresh says he never felt comfortable with complicated investment products. Instead of buying something simply because it was being recommended, he chose products he understood.

His philosophy is simple: “in investing simple things are better”. That approach has helped him avoid something many investors struggle with — constantly changing their strategy.

He did not chase the latest fund. He did not try to time the market. He did not move in and out because the market was rising or falling. He kept investing.

Naresh currently puts Rs 1.5 lakh a year into PPF. He describes investing as an important bill rather than an optional expense. His approach is essentially to invest first and spend what remains.

That is perhaps the first big lesson from his story. The best financial plan is not necessarily the one with the highest theoretical return. It can be the one you understand well enough to follow for decades. His story also shows the importance of separating financial goals.

Naresh has kept different buckets for different needs. His retirement savings are meant for retirement. His EPF is being treated separately for his child’s higher education. The idea is simple: if each corpus has a specific purpose, there is less temptation to disturb one goal to fund another. This is a useful way to think about money.

Instead of looking at one large number called “wealth”, you can think of your money as several smaller buckets — retirement, children’s education, emergency needs and other goals.

That makes the purpose of saving clearer. But Naresh’s biggest advantage has perhaps been time.

He started his PPF in 2006 and kept contributing through market crashes, including the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid crash in 2020. His investment strategy did not change with the market cycle.

And that brings me to Grijesh. Because if Naresh’s story is about keeping things simple, Grijesh’s story is about what happens when a more aggressive investment journey survives long enough.

Grijesh shows what happens when income and investments grow together

Grijesh Agal’s story begins very differently. He started working as a medical representative in Udaipur in June 1998. His salary was Rs 2,500 a month. Today, at 51, he has disclosed assets worth more than Rs 6 crore across mutual funds, stocks, real estate, gold and other investments.

The important part is that his first salary did not tell us much about where he would eventually end up. His career changed gradually.

After moving to Ahmedabad, he was exposed to businessmen, doctors and senior managers who spoke about equity and investing. In 2006, a former colleague introduced him to mutual fund SIPs. At the time, Grijesh was earning around Rs 15,000 a month. He started with a Rs 7,000 monthly SIP.

That was a very large part of his income. But there was a problem. He also had a home loan, a car loan and two children. When the 2008 market crash came, his investment fell by around 70%. He panicked and stopped his SIP. That is an important part of his story because it makes it much more realistic.

Personal finance journeys are rarely straight lines. Starting a SIP does not automatically mean you will stay invested for the next 20 years. Your job can change. Your expenses can rise. You can have children. You can take a home loan. A market crash can test your confidence. Grijesh experienced that first-hand. But his career then started moving up.

He joined Eris Lifesciences in 2009 as a regional manager with an annual CTC of Rs 6 lakh. Later, his income rose to Rs 9 lakh, Rs 15 lakh and eventually Rs 21 lakh. His investments rose with his income.

The Rs 7,000 SIP became Rs 15,000 in 2014, Rs 30,000 by 2016, Rs 50,000 by 2019 and Rs 57,000 after he closed his second home loan in 2020. This is one of the strongest lessons from his journey. A salary hike can either disappear into a higher lifestyle or become the fuel for wealth creation. Grijesh repeatedly chose to increase his investments.

He also used debt strategically. After prepaying his first home loan in 2010, he restarted his SIP in December 2011. In 2020, he closed another home loan, freeing up cash flow that could then be directed towards investments.

But the biggest change came from what happened during the next market crash. In 2020, his portfolio fell from around Rs 90 lakh to Rs 65 lakh. He again thought about selling. But this time he did not. He continued his SIP.

That difference between 2008 and 2020 is perhaps the most interesting part of his journey. The market had not become less frightening. His financial position and his experience had changed. He had already seen what happened when he stopped investing.

Since restarting his SIP in December 2011, he says he has not redeemed his mutual fund investments. His current mutual fund portfolio is around Rs 2.78 crore against an invested amount of about Rs 1.34 crore, according to his disclosures.

His disclosed assets also include three flats, direct stocks, gold, PPF, NPS, fixed deposits and an LIC policy. His total disclosed assets cross Rs 6 crore.

But his story also contains a useful reminder that wealth does not require a perfect record.

At one point, he chose to use Rs 20 lakh to prepay a home loan instead of opting for company ESOPs. He estimates those ESOPs would be worth around Rs 1.40 crore today.

Looking backwards, that looks like a costly opportunity. But it does not automatically make the original decision wrong.

At that time, he had debt and wanted to reduce it. He made a choice based on the information and circumstances he had then. This is important because personal finance stories can sometimes create the illusion that wealthy people made every decision correctly. They didn’t.

Grijesh stopped his SIP in 2008. He missed the ESOP opportunity. He made different investment choices along the way. But the good decisions were repeated for long enough. That is what eventually mattered.

And this brings us to the third story, which looks very different from both Naresh and Grijesh.

Manimaran shows why a high income is not the same as wealth

Manimaran Krishnan’s journey almost runs in the opposite direction. His first job was as a site supervisor in Chennai. He had a diploma in civil engineering and earned Rs 9,500 a month.

Most of his income went towards living expenses and helping his family. When construction work slowed during demonetisation, he moved into plastic manufacturing. That experience taught him not to depend on only one kind of work.

Then came social media. In 2022, Manimaran started posting content on Facebook. For almost a year, very little worked. In 2023, he found a format that started generating significant income.

His first month after monetisation brought in around $1,200. The next brought around $4,000, followed by $6,000 and then more than $7,000. Over roughly four months, he earned around $22,400 and received about $20,600 after platform deductions. At the prevailing exchange rate, that was close to Rs 17 lakh.

The money came much faster than his earlier salary ever had. And his spending rose with it. Manimaran himself admits that he made mistakes.

Around Rs 4-5 lakh went towards trading losses, trips, expensive food, shopping and parties. He rented a Ford Mustang GT for around one and a half months and spent about Rs 23,000 on fuel in one month. During that period, he did not invest the money. His annual income eventually reached around Rs 80 lakh. But then came the uncomfortable part.

His income depended heavily on one platform and one source. He had already started thinking about what would happen if Facebook stopped paying him at the same level. That concern became real. His income eventually fell almost to zero.

This is where his story offers a lesson that is different from the usual investment advice. Investment risk is not the only financial risk. Your income itself can be a risk.

A salaried employee can lose a job. A business can slow down. A freelancer can lose clients. A creator can see a platform change its rules. A high income can give you a great opportunity to build wealth. But only if you convert some of that income into assets.

Manimaran had reached a bank balance of around Rs 39 lakh and eventually bought a flat in Chennai without taking a home loan. He was 28 at the time. A few months later, his income had fallen sharply. That changed his definition of financial security.

Earlier, one of his goals had been to see Rs 80 lakh in his bank account. Today, his goal is different. He wants to build a retirement corpus of around Rs 5 crore. That may sound like a small change in wording, but it is actually a significant change in thinking.

Rs 80 lakh sitting in a bank account is a number. A retirement corpus is a financial purpose. The money has a job.

The common lesson: income is only the beginning

The three journeys could not look more different.

Naresh did not chase high-risk investments. He built his plan around PPF and NPS and kept contributing for years.

Grijesh embraced equity mutual funds, made mistakes, stopped his SIP during one crash and then learnt to stay invested through the next one. His income grew and his SIP grew alongside it.

Manimaran experienced a sudden jump in income, spent heavily, saw that income disappear and then began rebuilding his finances with a greater focus on assets, investing and long-term goals.

Yet the common thread is surprisingly simple. Money becomes wealth only when income is converted into assets and the process continues for long enough.

Naresh’s story shows the power of consistency. Grijesh’s story shows the power of rising income combined with rising investments. Manimaran’s story shows why earning a lot for a short period is not enough if the money is not converted into lasting assets.

There is another common point. None of the three had a perfect financial journey.

Naresh chose not to participate in the stock market. Grijesh stopped investing during the 2008 crash and missed an ESOP opportunity. Manimaran spent heavily when his income suddenly rose and lost money on some trades. But personal finance is not an examination where every answer has to be correct. What matters is whether you learn from the mistakes and keep improving the system.

Grijesh’s most important change was not discovering a new mutual fund. It was learning not to stop. Manimaran’s biggest change was not finding a better stock. It was understanding that income could disappear and that he needed assets to fall back on. Naresh’s advantage was perhaps even simpler. He avoided unnecessary complexity and kept doing what he understood. That is why I think these three stories are more useful together than separately. They show three different routes to the same basic financial principle.

Earn. Save. Invest. Build assets. Protect your goals. And, most importantly, make sure the plan can survive the bad years as well as the good ones. Because the real test of wealth is not what happens when your income is rising. It is what happens when that income slows down or stops.

Naresh is preparing for that day through a long-running retirement plan. Grijesh has built a portfolio that is no longer dependent on his first Rs 2,500 salary. And Manimaran learnt the lesson the hard way: when income disappears, the assets you have built are what remain. That, ultimately, may be the most important difference between earning money and building wealth.

Disclaimer: The financial information, investment amounts, asset values, income figures, returns and future corpus estimates mentioned in this story are based on disclosures and information shared by the individuals featured. The figures have been presented for illustrative and informational purposes and have not been independently audited or verified.

The investment returns and corpus projections cited in the story are based on assumptions regarding future contributions, investment periods and expected returns. Actual returns may be significantly different and can vary depending on market conditions, interest rates, investment performance, taxes, charges and other factors. Past performance is not indicative of future returns.

The asset values and net worth figures mentioned are based on the individuals’ stated estimates and may change over time. Any references to potential future wealth or retirement corpus should not be interpreted as a guarantee or prediction of actual outcomes.

The investment decisions described in these case studies reflect the personal circumstances, risk appetite, financial goals and choices of the individuals concerned. They should not be treated as investment recommendations or as a model that every reader should follow. Readers should assess their own financial situation, goals, risk tolerance and investment horizon and, where necessary, seek advice from a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.

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