You got a raise. Where did it actually go?
The same ₹1 lakh salary buys five very different lives depending on the city, and every raise quietly gets absorbed by rent, upgrades and keeping up. This lifestyle inflation calculator, built on Ankur Warikoo's video on one salary across five cities, shows how much of each raise you really keep and what you would have if you held your spending flat.
Your money today
Your raises and habits
How much of ₹1 lakh does rent take?
In Same Salary But 5 Different Lives, Ankur Warikoo follows a ₹1 lakh monthly salary, roughly ₹80,000 to ₹85,000 in hand, across Indian cities. Rent is the first and biggest line where the lives split apart.
And if you buy a home instead
The video also compares a home loan EMI as a share of take-home pay. Mumbai is the clear outlier, at close to half your salary.
Bengaluru landlords often ask for up to 10 months of rent as a deposit. Lock away ₹3.5 lakh for three years and, at a 10% return, you give up roughly ₹1 lakh you could have earned on it.
The video cites TomTom's 2025 index, which ranks Bengaluru the second most congested city it tracks. That works out to about seven full days a year in traffic. Valued at around ₹577 an hour on a ₹1 lakh salary, the lost time is worth close to ₹1 lakh a year.
Maharashtra and Telangana charge ₹2,500 a year and Karnataka ₹2,400. Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan charge none.
For the higher HRA exemption, only Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai count as metros. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Gurugram do not, despite their rents. Under the new tax regime there is no HRA exemption at all.
Spending so nobody thinks you are falling behind
In The SHAME ECONOMY Is Keeping You Poor, Ankur Warikoo argues that much of what eats a raise is spent for other people's eyes. These are figures cited in the video.
The video adds that 28% of Gen Z cardholders carry an average of ₹28,000 outstanding within three months of getting a card, at 40 to 50% a year in interest. That is pressure spending turning into debt.
Go through your last three months of bank and card statements. Mark every spend you made mainly because of how it would look.
For every ₹1 you spend to keep up, first save or invest ₹1. If the dinner costs ₹2,000, it really costs ₹4,000, and you will skip the ones that do not matter.
Set your limits for weddings, trips and gifts before the invite arrives. A decision made in advance is far harder to override in the moment.
What is lifestyle inflation?
Lifestyle inflation, or lifestyle creep, is when your spending climbs every time your income does. The raise changes how you live but not how much you keep. Take a ₹1 lakh monthly take-home with ₹70,000 of spending. An 8% raise adds ₹8,000 a month. Prices rising 6% push the same lifestyle up by ₹4,200. If half the raise then goes into upgrades, that is another ₹4,000. Your monthly savings end up ₹200 lower than before the raise.
How much of my raise should I save?
The videos do not set a fixed percentage. A rule Monzy suggests is to first cover inflation on what you already spend, then save at least half of whatever is left. On the example above, that means keeping ₹1,900 of the remaining ₹3,800 rather than spending all of it. Use the calculator to test a few lifestyle shares and watch how the 10 year gap changes.
Does holding spending flat mean I can never upgrade?
No. Flat here means flat in real terms. Your spending still rises with prices every year, so you keep exactly the life you have today. The calculator shows what that choice is worth in rupees. You can then decide which upgrades earn their cost, instead of letting every raise disappear on its own.
Which Indian city lets you save the most on a ₹1 lakh salary?
According to Ankur Warikoo's video on living on the same salary in different cities, rent takes about 60 to 70% of in-hand pay in Mumbai, 40 to 50% in Bengaluru, 30 to 35% in Delhi and under 20% in Indore. A smaller city leaves more surplus each month, while a metro usually offers higher pay and a faster career ceiling. The video suggests judging a city on four things: space, time, surplus and ceiling. Monzy's Kitna Chahiye calculator shows what your own city costs.
What is the shame economy?
It is the spending people do to avoid looking like they are falling behind. Think dinners out you did not want, a destination wedding gift, or a phone bought on EMI. In Ankur Warikoo's video on the subject, 70% of people surveyed felt a purchase made under social pressure was a mistake. His fix has three steps: audit the last three months of statements, save ₹1 for every ₹1 of pressure spending before you spend it, and decide your limits before the invite arrives.
How does this lifestyle inflation calculator work?
It runs two versions of your future side by side. Both start with the same take-home and spending, and your take-home grows by your yearly raise. On the flat path, spending rises only with inflation. On the creep path, spending also absorbs the share of each raise you choose. Whatever is left each month is invested and compounded monthly at your expected return. The gap between the two totals is what lifestyle creep costs you. Tax changes, job switches and one-off expenses are not modelled.