From ₹2,500 salary to ₹6 crore wealth:Learn 7 financial lessons from Gujarat man’s journey to riches

Grijesh Agal, 51, from Ahmedabad, has a very different story from the usual assumption that anyone with assets worth crores must either have a high salary or have inherited a large fortune. He began his career as a medical representative in Udaipur in 1998, earning a monthly salary of just ₹2,500. Today, he has assets worth more than ₹6 crore across mutual funds, shares, real estate and gold. His journey has not been easy. He stopped his SIP after his portfolio fell by 70% in the 2008 market crash. But during the COVID pandemic in 2020, when his portfolio fell from ₹90 lakh to ₹65 lakh, he did not panic and continued investing. His approach changed between the two downturns, and his ₹7,000 SIP grew to ₹57,000 a month. Here are seven key financial lessons from Grijesh’s journey… 1. Your career is your first and biggest investment Grijesh grew up in an ordinary middle-class family in Salumbar, Rajasthan. After completing a BPharm and an MBA, he began his career with a job in pharmaceutical sales. When he moved to Ahmedabad in 2004, he gained an understanding of business and the equity market. After joining Eris Lifesciences in 2009, his annual package was ₹6 lakh, which later rose to ₹9 lakh, ₹15 lakh and ₹21 lakh. Grijesh built his wealth not because his salary was high at the start, but because his earnings grew with his career and he consistently channelled those earnings into investments. 2. Starting early is important, but having a sustainable plan matters even more When he was earning ₹15,000 a month in 2006, Grijesh started with a ₹20,000 lump-sum investment and a monthly SIP of ₹7,000. This amounted to 47% of his salary. However, he had a home loan, a car loan and family responsibilities at the time. When his portfolio fell by 70% during the 2008 recession, he was forced to stop his SIP because of the financial pressure. This shows that starting to invest early is not enough; to stay invested during difficult times, one must also have a strong financial foundation. 3. Repay debt and channel the EMI savings into wealth creation Grijesh first focused on paying off his home loan. After clearing his first home loan in October 2010, he restarted a ₹7,000 SIP in December 2011. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, he also repaid a second home loan of ₹20 lakh. Once the loan was cleared, he used the money that had been going towards EMIs to increase his SIP. Becoming debt-free was not the ultimate goal; the real benefit was putting that freed-up cash flow towards the next goal. 4. Turn salary hikes into an opportunity to increase your SIP Grijesh never allowed his SIP to remain stagnant. As his salary increased, his SIP rose from ₹7,000 to ₹15,000, then to ₹30,000, ₹50,000 and finally ₹57,000. When his CTC rose to ₹15 lakh in 2016, he invested the ₹25 lakh lying in his savings account as a lump sum. His simple formula was: income growth + higher savings + larger SIPs + time = a bigger fund. 5. Do not let money lying in your savings account remain idle Despite running SIPs in 2016, around ₹25 lakh was lying unused in Grijesh’s savings bank account. When he reviewed his portfolio with his mutual fund distributor, he invested the surplus money in the market. Apart from an emergency fund, leaving a large amount of money in a bank account without a specific purpose leads to a loss of returns. 6. A market crash tests not just your portfolio but also your behaviour After seeing heavy losses in 2008, Grijesh did not repeat his mistake in March 2020. When his portfolio fell from ₹90 lakh to ₹65 lakh, he continued his SIP instead of withdrawing the money. They have not withdrawn any money from mutual funds since 2011. As a result, their mutual fund portfolio, built through a total investment of ₹1.34 crore, is now worth ₹2.78 crore. 7. Not Every Decision Has to Be Perfect Grijesh made a few mistakes too. In an effort to prepay his home loan, he did not opt for the company’s ESOPs, which would be worth around ₹1.40 crore today. Stopping his SIP in 2008 was also a wrong decision. Despite this, he managed to build assets worth more than ₹6 crore. Today, he owns three flats, one plot and 200 grams of gold. He also has ₹2.78 crore in mutual funds, ₹37.9 lakh in shares, and investments in fixed deposits and PPF. Grijesh, who started his pharmaceutical company in 2021, aims to build a corpus of ₹7.5 crore to ₹10 crore by the age of 58. What Is a Step-Up SIP? A step-up or top-up SIP is a facility that allows investors to increase their SIP amount by 5%, 10% or any other percentage of their choice every year or at a predetermined interval. If your salary increases every year, increasing your SIP can multiply the benefits of compounding several times over. Grijesh used this approach to build assets worth more than ₹6 crore, starting with a salary of ₹2,500.