From Savings to Investments: Shivendra's Journey to Financial Independence

In 2020, Shivendra Sharma wanted his father to buy him a car. His father was willing to look at a Maruti Swift or a Hyundai Grand i10. Shivendra wanted something more expensive. The argument that followed ended with one line from his father. “Jab khud kamaoge tab value pata chalegi.” You will know the value of money when you earn it yourself. Four years later, Shivendra bought his own car for about Rs 15 lakh, paid from his savings, with no loan. He is 25 now, a product designer and front-end developer at a technology startup in Gurugram, with an investment portfolio worth about Rs 63.5 lakh. Most people featured in this series are ordinary earners building serious money, who were savers first and then spenders. Shivendra is not. “I did not want to live only for the future,” he says. “I wanted to enjoy my earnings while I was young.” How he managed to do both is the more useful part of his story. Shivendra grew up in a middle-class Lucknow household where any big purchase was discussed at home first. His father, a salaried administrative manager for nearly three decades, believed in saving before spending. His mother kept a careful eye on household costs. He was drawn early to how websites, logos and apps were designed, and taught himself graphic design with free tools and online tutorials. While studying for a BTech in computer science in Lucknow, he added UI and UX design, HTML, CSS and JavaScript, mostly through YouTube and side projects. The money started small. In 2020, two clients paid him Rs 1,000 each for logos and visiting cards. In 2021, freelance work brought in about Rs 28,000. In 2022 came his first international client, a US business that paid about Rs 55,000 for a full branding job, from logos to an online menu website. “This was the first time I realised that combining different skills could significantly improve my earning potential,” he says. After graduating in 2023, he joined a European technology company in Gurugram as an intern. What followed moved fast. He also received a one-time bonus of about Rs 3 lakh in 2023 and a retention bonus of about Rs 3 lakh in 2024. Alongside the job, he still takes on projects from some of his old freelance clients, which he says bring in about Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh a year. He credits the climb to range rather than any single skill. “A person who knows only one thing may find it difficult to remain relevant if that particular job profile changes or becomes redundant,” he says. His work now spans product design, front-end development and working alongside founders, engineers and marketing teams. His own formula is blunt: half of it is believing in yourself, a quarter is showing up every day however dull the work, and a quarter is learning something new. This is where his story parts company with the rest of this series. Shivendra has kept a rough tally of what he has spent on himself and his family. That is roughly Rs 34 lakh. He reckons he could have had another Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh invested had he postponed some of it. “I do not regret spending on these things,” he says. Some of that money went home. He covers part of the household expenses in Lucknow, has taken his parents on holidays and wants to support his younger sister, who is studying fashion design. “Being financially successful is not just about having a large investment portfolio,” he says. “It is also about being able to take care of the people who supported me when I had nothing.” Manimaran , whose story ran earlier in this Everyday Crorepatis series, also spent heavily when big money first arrived, renting a Ford Mustang and spending about Rs 23,000 on fuel in a single month. The difference is in the sequence. Manimaran had no investment plan during that stretch. Shivendra bought his car while his SIP was already running. He started his first SIP in 2023, once a regular salary arrived, at about Rs 15,000 a month. It rose to Rs 35,000 in early 2024, Rs 60,000 later that year, Rs 1 lakh in 2025 and Rs 1.5 lakh in 2026. That is ten times in about three years. Rs 1.5 lakh a month is half of his Rs 36 lakh package before tax. “Whenever my salary increases, I try to increase my investments rather than allowing all the additional income to be consumed by lifestyle expenses,” he says. One consequence is that his portfolio is young. About four of every five rupees he has put into SIPs went in after January 2025. He has already felt what a fall feels like, too. A 15% to 20% drop, he says, was emotionally difficult even with a long horizon. His response was to keep an income and expense tracker, separate investing money from spending money, and stop checking his portfolio every day. He also owns up to early mistakes: gadgets bought on impulse, freelance taxes and invoices he had to learn about the hard way, and stocks bought on online tips that did not work out. His fund money is spread across index, flexi-cap, mid-cap and small-cap funds. Close to 30% of the total sits in fixed deposits , EPF, gold and liquid funds, a cushion he keeps deliberately. “I do not want my entire portfolio to be exposed to equity market volatility,” he says. His NPS holdings, like his equity funds, remain market-linked. His protection is unusually complete for a 25-year-old: term insurance of about Rs 2 crore, a Rs 10 lakh health policy with a Rs 25 lakh super top-up, separate health cover for his parents, personal accident cover of about Rs 50 lakh, and about Rs 3 lakh set aside for emergencies. Shivendra’s discipline is real. But three circumstances helped, and they deserve plain mention. The first is pace. His monthly pay went from Rs 50,000 to roughly six times that in about three years, through a retention hike and a job switch. Few careers move that quickly. The second is his side income. The Rs 5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh a year from freelance work helped fund some of his bigger purchases. The third is housing. He worked mostly from home until February 2026, and his company has since provided shared accommodation. He has had no significant rent to pay. For contrast, Mayuresh, profiled earlier in this series, pays about Rs 38,000 a month for a rented flat in Thane. Shivendra wants Rs 1 crore by 27, Rs 2 crore by 30, a home by 32 or 33, and Rs 10 crore or more by 45, with financial independence somewhere between 40 and 45. On returns alone, these goals look reachable. Rs 1.5 lakh a month for another two years adds Rs 36 lakh on its own, taking him to roughly Rs 1 crore by 27 even if markets deliver nothing at all. Assuming he holds that monthly amount steady for 20 years and earns 10% a year, Rs 10 crore by 45 is within reach without any further step-ups. The harder part is keeping that Rs 1.5 lakh a month going. Company-provided housing will not last forever. Freelance income may not continue at the same level. And a home purchase in his early 30s will compete directly with his SIP. His father’s warning in 2020 was about learning the value of money. Shivendra learned it, and drew a slightly different lesson from it as well. “I do not believe in saving every rupee and postponing all happiness until retirement,” he says. “For me, the objective is to build wealth while also enjoying the journey.” This article is based on the personal financial journey, disclosures and projections shared by the individual featured in the story. Future corpus estimates, pension calculations and retirement projections are based on the assumptions provided by the individual, including expected investment returns, prevailing tax laws and current NPS/PPF rules, all of which are subject to change. Pension amounts will depend on the final corpus, annuity rates available at the time of retirement and applicable tax rules. The PPF interest rate is notified by the government every quarter and may change over time. This article is intended solely for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment, tax or financial planning advice, or as an endorsement of any investment strategy. Readers should assess their own financial goals, risk appetite and consult a qualified financial or tax adviser before making investment or retirement planning decisions. Financial Express is launching a new series highlighting real experiences with money, investments, and the taxman. Did a sudden tax rule catch you off guard? 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