Where Does Your Money Go Every Month?

Meera earns ₹65,000 a month. She doesn’t shop extravagantly. No luxury car, no exotic vacations. She pays ₹15,000 rent, ₹8,000 for groceries, ₹4,000 for utilities and phone. That’s ₹27,000. She should have ₹38,000 left over.

But by the 25th, her account is down to ₹3,000. Every month.

One weekend, she decides to actually look. She downloads her bank statement and UPI history for the past 3 months. The numbers surprise her: ₹9,000 on Swiggy and Zomato. ₹4,500 on subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, YouTube Premium, a gym she hasn’t gone to in weeks). ₹6,000-8,000 on “small” Amazon orders. ₹3,000 on Uber and Ola. ₹4,000 on coffee, chai, and snacks with colleagues. ₹5,000-6,000 on random stuff: a haircut, a gift, pharmacy runs, phone recharges, things she couldn’t even categorise.

None of these felt like big expenses. But together, they were eating ₹33,000-35,000 every month. That’s over ₹4 lakh a year. Without changing her salary, without a promotion, she was losing the equivalent of an entire emergency fund every year. Even if she redirected just ₹10,000 of that into a SIP, it could grow to ₹1 crore in 25 years.

Meera doesn’t have an income problem. She has a tracking problem. Most people do.

Why this matters before investing

Every article in this series so far has assumed you have surplus money. An emergency fund needs monthly contributions. Health insurance and term insurance need annual premiums. Investing needs a SIP. But where does that money come from?

It comes from knowing where your money goes. If you don’t track your spending, you can’t find your surplus. And if you can’t find your surplus, every other financial plan stays on paper.

Step 1: Track first, fix later

Don’t change anything for the first month. Just observe. Write down every rupee you spend. Every UPI payment, every credit card swipe, every cash transaction.

You can use:

• Your bank app: HDFC, ICICI, SBI, and most major banks now have built-in spend analysers. Check your app’s “expenses” or “insights” section. No third-party access needed.
• Google Sheets: Simple, free, completely under your control. Create columns for date, amount, category, and notes.
• Axio (formerly Walnut): Reads your SMS and auto-categorises transactions. Available on Android and iOS.

After one month, add it up. Group your spending into three buckets: needs, wants, and savings.

The 50/30/20 rule

A simple framework that works for most salaried Indians:

Example on a ₹60,000 take-home salary:

The problem is usually not the needs. It’s the wants creeping up. ₹500 here, ₹800 there, every day.

This is a guideline, not a rule. If you’re saving 30% and spending 20% on wants, even better. The point is having a framework so your money goes where you decide, not where it drifts.

Where the money usually hides

If you track for a month, these are the usual suspects:

Subscriptions you forgot about. Open your UPI apps and check recurring payments. Netflix, Spotify, YouTube Premium, Hotstar, Amazon Prime, a gym membership, that meditation app you used for two days. Most people pay for 3-5 subscriptions they barely use. That’s ₹1,500-3,000/month.

Food delivery. The most dangerous one. ₹350 for a biryani on Swiggy that costs ₹200 if you walk to the same restaurant. The app adds delivery fee, platform fee, GST, and packaging charges. Order twice a week and that’s ₹3,000-4,000/month. You don’t notice because each order feels small.

The ₹500 effect. Small purchases you don’t think about: a phone cover from Amazon (₹499), a book you won’t read (₹350), a gadget you forget about in a week (₹999). Individually meaningless. Monthly total: ₹3,000-5,000.

Convenience spending. Uber when you could take the metro. Packaged salad when you could chop vegetables. Premium everything because it’s “just ₹100 more.” These add up.

I’m not saying cut everything. That’s miserable and doesn’t last. I’m saying: know the number. If you’re spending ₹9,000 on Swiggy and you’re okay with it, fine. But know it’s ₹9,000, not “oh, maybe ₹3,000-4,000.”

When I started my SIPs in 2012, the first thing I had to figure out was: where would the money come from? I went through three months of credit card and bank statements. I found two subscriptions I’d forgotten about, regular spending on things I couldn’t even remember buying, and way too much money going to eating out. I wasn’t living extravagantly. I just wasn’t paying attention. Once I tracked it, I found ₹12,000-15,000 a month that I could redirect without changing my lifestyle in any meaningful way. That’s what funded my first SIPs.

The one rule that changes everything

Most people save what’s left after spending. That number is usually close to zero. Flip it. Spend what’s left after saving.

If your take-home is ₹60,000 and you want to save ₹12,000:

1. Salary day: ₹12,000 auto-debits to SIP/RD
2. You have ₹48,000 for the month
3. Spend ₹48,000 however you want, guilt-free

This is the simplest budgeting strategy that actually works. You don’t need a spreadsheet for every coffee. You just need one auto-debit.

Common mistakes

The bottom line

You’ve found the money to save. But a few thousand rupees a month doesn’t sound like much, does it? Next up: why it’s a lot more than you think.