Your Rs 70,000 salary may secretly be an asset worth crore, says CA as he explains the math

For many working professionals, a monthly salary often feels like a number that disappears almost as quickly as it arrives. Rent, bills, groceries and EMIs tend to dominate the conversation around income, leaving little room to view it as anything beyond survival cash flow. But a recent explanation by chartered accountant and finance educator Nitin Kaushik is prompting people to rethink that perspective. According to his breakdown, even what seems like a modest monthly paycheck could represent something far more valuable: an income stream that is financially equivalent to owning a crore-rupee asset.

Taking to X, Kaushik explained that a monthly salary should not be seen merely as money entering a bank account. Instead, it represents the yield generated by an individual’s most powerful financial asset: their ability to earn. To illustrate this idea, he presented a simple comparison between salary and passive income generated through savings.

Salary and FD

For instance, a person earning Rs 70,000 a month makes Rs 8.4 lakh annually. If someone wanted to generate the same income purely through passive returns from a fixed deposit, they would need a much larger pool of capital sitting in the bank.

At a typical pre-tax interest rate of around 7 per cent on a safe fixed deposit, the math becomes striking. To produce Rs 8.4 lakh a year in interest income, an individual would need approximately Rs 1.2 crore invested. In other words, someone earning Rs 70,000 every month is effectively managing an income stream that behaves like the return generated from a crore-plus financial asset.


Kaushik further pointed out that the required capital rises even higher when interest rates fall. If safe returns drop to around 6 per cent, generating the same annual income would require roughly Rs 1.4 crore in savings. That means a salaried professional earning Rs 70,000 a month could actually be producing income comparable to someone who already holds more than a crore in passive investments.


The comparison becomes even more compelling when future salary growth is considered. Unlike a fixed deposit, which remains largely static apart from interest, a person’s earning power has the potential to increase over time. Salaries in many of India’s growing professional sectors have risen at an average rate of about 8 to 10 per cent annually over the past decade.

If a 30-year-old professional earning Rs 70,000 a month manages to grow their income by around 8 per cent each year, their monthly earnings could reach roughly Rs 1.5 lakh by the age of 40. To generate that level of income through passive interest alone, an individual would need an investment corpus of about Rs 2.5 crore.

Blind spot in finance

Kaushik argued that this perspective highlights a common blind spot in personal finance thinking. Many people focus intensely on investing small amounts of money in the stock market or other instruments while overlooking the enormous growth potential of their primary income source. In reality, a single skill upgrade, professional certification or well-timed job switch can increase earning potential dramatically in a short period of time.


Unlike financial markets, where consistent high returns are difficult to achieve, career growth can sometimes deliver sharp jumps in income. A strategic shift in skills or industry can increase an individual’s market value by as much as 30 per cent within a year, effectively revaluing the “asset” represented by their human capital.

Through this lens, salary becomes more than just a monthly inflow. It functions as the yield generated by an asset that an individual owns entirely: their skills, experience and earning ability. Kaushik’s explanation reframes the way many professionals may think about their financial position, suggesting that their career itself may be the most valuable wealth-generating engine they will ever control.