A 30-year-old man, like most Indians, took out a home loan and is in a 1.2 crore debt. He has turned to Reddit for help, admitting he has been feeling “paranoid” ever since. The reason, he said, is that he never had a single EMI over a decade, and the sudden financial burden has become “overwhelming” for him.
He also shared his monthly take-home income, which is around Rs 2.2 lakh and gave a breakdown of his expenses.
‘1.2 cr debt’
In his post on Reddit’s “ThirtiesIndia” community, he said, “I recently bought a house for Rs 1.6 crore. I took a loan of Rs 1.2 crore (Rs 1 crore from a bank and Rs 20 lakh from relatives).”
“I have been getting paranoid since I took out the loan. It’s been over a decade since I last had any EMIs, and honestly, this is overwhelming,” he added.
‘Monthly take-home is Rs 2.2 lakh’
The man, who goes by “Lonely_Check_3632”, shared a breakdown of his expenses to help Reddit users help him close his “EMI at the earliest”.
According to his post, Rs 45,000 are allocated for his household expenses such as groceries and utilities, and Rs 75,000 towards EMI. An additional Rs 10,000 on dining out at restaurants, while he has set aside Rs 25,000 to support his parents. He directs the remaining Rs 65,000 towards savings.
“Can you help me plan to close this EMI at the earliest? Realistically, what should be the timeline I can have in mind for closing the EMI,” he asked Redditors.
…and the Reddit suggested
“Take out 20K from expenses, eating out, and parents’ support. So maybe try and reduce grocery and home bill by 5000, reduce restaurant bill by another 5000 and reduce parent support to 15K. Next, reduce your savings to 35K. So take out 30 K from this,” a Redditor suggested, before adding, “You now have 50K, which you should prepay your loan every month. If there is a minimum prepayment amount equal to 1 EMI, put the 50K every month into a second savings account and prepay 1L bi-monthly.”
In response to this suggestion, many suggested that he should not cut down on “parents’ support to Rs 15,000” and, rather than prepaying the EMI, he can convert the loan account to an overdraft (OD) account. Now, this means that the lump-sum loan amount is replaced by a credit line where one pays interest on the amount they actually withdraw or use and not on the entire sanctioned limit.
“This makes sense, thanks,” the man responded to this comment trail.
Another, who claims to be in the same boat as him, suggested that he track “every expense” – be it as small as Rs 10 chai. Next, he suggested logging that data to an AI chatbot and asking it to help cut down on expenses without “affecting the lifestyle”. “Once you have a good cushion to fall back on, ensure you pay one EMI extra every year. This is minimum. Better to pay 2-3 EMIs extra each year. Parallely keep SIPs/MF, etc, investing ongoing.”
“Reduce or cut down on restaurants & eating out completely for some time till you finish paying debts, also support to parents, reduce that too for a while,” suggested a third.
Another said that he would never take a loan which is longer than five years: “It scares me to think what will happen if I lose my job.”