In 2023, when Nashik-born Tushar (24) received his coveted MBA degree from a premier Delhi institution, it was a moment of remarkable significance for him and his family. A voracious reader of literature “of all kinds”, Tushar’s MBA came after he explained the meaning of financial discipline in one of his exams.
Yet about a year down the line, despite landing an equally coveted wealth management role at a leading global multinational in Gurugram, he has “little to no savings” with him.
“I have responsibilities back home. Half my earnings go home and it will take me a while to accumulate some savings.”
That’s unlike Rishali (25), who came to New Delhi to work in a ‘Big Four’ last year and doesn’t have to act as an economic asset to her household just as yet. A year into the job, she says she has enough to sustain herself for three to four months in a metro city if she loses her job.
Both Tushar and Rishali fall under a corporate finance term called HENRYs — High-Earning but Not Rich Yet. By convention, most of HENRYs’ income is consumed in the economy by consumer spending, educational costs, and housing.
Author and internet entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo does not expect youngsters to be rich. “By definition, youngsters will be high-earning but not rich yet, because becoming rich requires compounding which requires time,” Warikoo said.
“I expect them to be financially disciplined,” he added.
Rishali has consumed all of Warikoo’s work as audiobooks in recent months during her 90-minute commute from work to the office.
“What they teach you in those classes works fantastically well in the corporate world when your firm is dealing with huge sums of money. But when it comes to the financial discipline in day-to-day life, Warikoo has really helped people like me,” Rishali said while referring to the difference between what she learned during her MBA and her passive consumption of Warikoo’s work.
Tushar never read Warikoo’s work but is aware of his influence.
“I work hard at my job and send money home. My peers have that kind of disposable money because they have not yet started taking on the responsibilities. To me, those responsibilities are important alongside working hard at my job. I have just started. So I also cut myself slack when it comes to partying a night out in the cyber city or HKV,” Tushar said while referring to Gurugram’s cyber city and Hauz Khas Village, the famous partying spots in Delhi-NCR.
The bestselling author Chetan Bhagat believes that ‘HENRY’ could be anybody “who is not there yet”.
“There is a certain audience that believes that the content they consume should also not just be interesting and entertaining, but it should also help them develop and help them get better,” Bhagat said while adding that people who want to earn more money among other priorities, get attracted to the content which will purportedly help them at it.
“I think these people who are not there yet (the NTYs) are the ones who are reading, listening, or consuming this kind of content,” Bhagat said.
The self-help genre has struck a chord with Indian youngsters, says Shailesh Sawlani, India manager of Audible, the Amazon-owned online audiobook and podcast service.
“Our 2023 listenership data reaffirms this, with Well-being and self-development topping the charts in the Top 5 most listened-to genres,” Sawlani said.
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Audiobooks and podcasts have gained considerable popularity as a screen-free form of entertainment while commuting, working out, or running errands, Sawlani added.
At its core, the self-help and personal finance genre’s growth is driven by individuals “looking to elevate their pockets of time with immersive content that helps broaden their perspectives.”
But between the lines, like Tushar, a big lot among India’s Gen-Z HENRYs are stuck between individual-focused expenses and the expenses of their dependents, mostly parents and siblings. That requires a different approach to the financial discipline amid the prevalence of Western ideas of development based on the financial freedom of an individual.
“There is always going to be a family perspective to it,” Kevin Missal, author of ‘Karna, The King of Anga’ said.
The financial discipline, Warikoo added, means that youngsters must “allocate money towards their needs or mandatory spends, their desires and their investments “, while also being cognisant of the limits for each area and stick to that budget.
Mukul Sharma
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