Nikhil Kamath’s Advice For GenZ; How To Save Money & Invest As A Young Professional?

Anyone with a little interest in business is sure to know of the illustrious duo Kailash Nadh and Nikhil Kamath, the co-founders of the startup Zerodha. Their huge success has made them living legends within the country, and both freshers and established names in the industry look up to them for valuable tips and advice.    

Their wishes came true when in a recent interview with Sharan Hedge, Nikhil Kamath opened up about his life and career. Over the course of the talk, Kamath shared some useful information for aspirants who were seeking to build a name for themselves in the business field.   

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Kamath’s advice was directed at young professionals working in the top five cities, and it touched on topics like investments, savings, and making wise choices in life.

Reduce Cost Of Living By Moving to 2-tier Towns

For starters, Kamath has some useful advice for freshers on how to choose a city to work in. He points out that the cost of living varies with the city one works in and making the right choice can lead to better savings.  

Bustling MNCs such as Bangalore, Pune, or Mumbai may offer robust job opportunities and they are favourite spots for corporate offices. But the cost of living in these cities can be significantly high. Starting with rent, food, and other daily expenses, saving while living in a tier-I city is a difficult task.  

Kamath believes that living in a city that is not so expensive can help young professionals make better savings even if it makes work commute longer. In fact, with the pandemic and the subsequent work from home culture, shifting to this model has become a trend among the urban workforce.   

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Kamath says, “When I started working some 18 years ago, notwithstanding the inflation back then, I think my pay must have been INR 8000 a month,” and adds, “Where you live and how you live, kind of define how much money you need to earn. So first advice, if you can work from home and you are living in an expensive city like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, it might be prudent to go out and explore a tier 2 town”.

Nikhil’s Advice On Investment And The Next Big Thing

The next topic that Kamath picked up during the interview was investing wisely. Describing himself as ‘traditional’ when it comes to investing, Kamath advised young people to play it safe in investments.     

He recommends putting 20-30% of the income into stocks and another 30-40% in asset classes with low risk such as gold, fixed income, tax-free bonds, etc. However, more importantly, the remaining must be kept in the form of liquid money, real estate, or anything that will be readily available for use.  

Kamath also spoke extensively about emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies and Defi projects, and other investment options like hedge funds. At one point the conversation took a personal turn as Kamath spoke about the five people he likes to surround himself with.   

When asked about what is likely to become the next big thing in the market, he said that content creation certainly has the potential.   

“I think content creators are not just for entertainment, branding or news consumption. In many ways, content creation will become so relevant tomorrow,” he said.  

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