‘Your parents had pensions. You probably won’t’: CA warns millennials and Gen Z about delaying investments

For many young professionals today, retirement still feels like a distant problem meant for “later.” Monthly bills, rent, EMIs, vacations, and lifestyle expenses often take priority over long-term investing. But according to Chartered Accountant Nitin Kaushik, millennials and Gen Z may be underestimating just how financially difficult old age could become without proper planning. In a recent post on X, Kaushik warned that, unlike previous generations, most young earners today may not have pensions or guaranteed financial safety nets after retirement.

“Your parents retired on a pension. You probably won’t,” Kaushik wrote, opening his post with a reality check that quickly resonated across social media. According to him, many people continue behaving as though retirement systems from previous generations still exist. He pointed out that older generations often spent decades working stable jobs that came with benefits such as pensions, provident funds, and gratuity payouts.

That structure, he argued, has largely disappeared for younger professionals today. Kaushik explained that modern careers look very different. Most millennials and Gen Z workers are expected to switch jobs multiple times during their careers while navigating weaker job security and fewer guaranteed retirement benefits.


At the same time, life expectancy is increasing, especially among urban and educated households. According to him, many people today could easily live until 85 or even 90 years of age. This creates a serious financial challenge that many people are failing to calculate properly.“If you retire at 60, you still need enough money to survive another 25 to 30 years without a salary,” he wrote.



To explain the scale of the issue, Kaushik used a simple example. A person needing around Rs 75,000 per month to maintain a comfortable lifestyle today may require far more in the future because of inflation. “With normal inflation, that number won’t stay the same for long,” he warned, adding that the same lifestyle could eventually cost over Rs 3 lakh a month within the next 25 years.


And according to him, those estimates only cover basic living expenses. To maintain financial stability through retirement without running out of money, Kaushik estimated that many individuals may eventually need a retirement corpus of around Rs 6 crore. He also criticised the common habit of saving only whatever remains at the end of the month after spending.

“If your current strategy is ‘I’ll save whatever’s left,’ that’s probably not going to cut it,” he remarked. Kaushik then focused on the power of compounding and how delaying investments by even a decade can dramatically reduce future wealth. He explained that someone investing Rs 10,000 every month starting at age 30, with annual compounding of around 12 per cent, could potentially build nearly Rs 3.5 crore by the age of 60.


However, waiting until age 40 to start the exact same monthly investment creates a completely different outcome. According to him, the final amount in that case would remain below Rs 1 crore, roughly around Rs 99 lakh. “That’s a massive difference just because you delayed starting by 10 years,” he wrote.

Kaushik emphasised that the effort remains exactly the same, but time changes everything because compounding works best over long periods. He further explained that if someone starts investing late but still wants to reach the original Rs 3.5 crore target, the monthly investment amount would need to rise sharply.

Instead of Rs 10,000, the investor may need to contribute nearly Rs 45,000 every month to make up for the lost decade. “That’s the real cost of waiting,” he said. The CA concluded by reminding young earners that previous generations often had built-in financial protection systems that no longer exist for most workers today. “Your parents had a safety net. Most of us don’t,” he wrote, urging people to stop waiting for the “perfect time” to begin investing.