From gold and LIC policy to SIPs and crypto: How investment habits changed from Boomers to Millennials to Gen Z

In 1994, a young woman joined HDFC in Kolkata and, like many salaried Indians then, began saving a few hundred rupees a month in a recurring deposit. There was no app, no Systematic Investment Plan (SIP), and she knew nothing about the share market. Three decades later, an 18-year-old in Thiruvananthapuram was already six years into investing—using his father’s demat account during the Covid-19 lockdown, before he was old enough to open one of his own.

Between these two decisions lies the story of how India transformed the way its people build wealth. One generation saved because it had few alternatives; the next invests because it has many. That, perhaps more than anything else, is what financial inde pendence looks like.

To understand how all this has played out, ET Wealth spoke to seven investors between the ages of 18 and 67. Their portfolios look wildly differ ent from one another. Each of them started investing in a different India, with different products and a different idea of what money was even for. We explore how today’s young investors differ from their parents.

The careful saver

For 67-year-old Bengaluru-based ad vertising professional Pratap Kumar, building wealth started with saving, not investing. When he began earning in the late 1980s, money was always tight. “Those days salaries were not that high,” he recalls. With two sons to educate and household expenses piling, whatever he could save went into safe and familiar options. Gold was one of them. He regularly put money into jewellery shop instalment schemes. “You paid every month, and after 24 months you could buy gold by adding a little extra money,” he says. He also contributed to his provident fund while working in a salaried job.

Those savings later helped him build the first floor of his house. When he left his job in 2001 to work on his own, he became an LIC and general insurance agent for a couple of years to earn an additional income while building his business.

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