In college, my monthly expenses were around ₹10,000.
Within a few months of my first salary, they had gone up 5 to 7 times. I bought branded clothes, Apple AirPods and a Garmin watch.
It was my first job, and I had no savings.
So where does your salary hike disappear every year? Into lifestyle inflation: your spending rises every time your income does. Each hike pays for a few upgrades that soon feel normal, so your savings stay flat. To keep a hike, pick the share you'll save before the bigger salary arrives, and move it out on salary day.
(My book, Quit 9to5, comes out in January 2027. Join the Quit 9to5 waitlist to hear when it's out.)
Why does a hike feel big for only a few months?
Because your mind gets used to anything it has every day. Psychology calls this hedonic adaptation: the mind's habit of normalising whatever it repeatedly touches.
I remember my first flight. We were flying to Goa for a family vacation, and both sides were connecting, so we technically took four flights. I celebrated that I had sat in an airplane four times.
For a while, I kept counting the flights. Then slowly it became normal. The same happened with my first iPhone and my first laptop.
It all becomes normal in the end.
A hike follows the same curve. In the first month, the bigger salary credit feels like a reward. A few months later, it's your normal salary, and whatever it bought feels ordinary. Plan your hike knowing the thrill won't last.
Where does the extra money go?
Mostly into wants: more comfort and more experiences.
In my upcoming book, Quit 9to5, I describe money as a stress minimisation tool. We spend it in three places:
Needs: survival, matched to modern standards. Food, a stable home, clothes, basic healthcare and education.
Wants: comfort, which reduces physical stress (an AC, an ergonomic chair, a better mattress), and experiences, which reduce mental stress (travel and entertainment).
Work: what it costs to keep earning, like the commute, work clothes, meals and tools.
Your food and rent were already covered before the hike, so each extra rupee finds a want. Every upgrade looks reasonable on its own, which is why the hike slips away without anyone noticing.
When you go looking for your last hike, look under wants.
Want the full picture? The first chapter goes deeper into what money buys and the side effects that come with it. Join the waitlist on quit9to5.in.
Why does an upgrade turn into a trap?
Because the upgrade stays on your monthly bill long after the thrill is gone.
Over time, a lifestyle upgrade turns into a necessity, and that traps you in your job.
You keep upgrading, so you never seem to have enough money. Your life now costs what your salary pays, so you can't take a break from earning or build something of your own. I wrote more about this money trap in Why Do People Stay in Jobs They Hate?
Every upgrade you add raises the salary you can't live without. Count that before you buy.
What does a spent hike cost you?
It costs you months of freedom. To count them, you need your runway: the number of months you can live without a salary.
Runway = Savings / Monthly cash burn
Cash burn is what you spend in a month to live. (The full maths is in How Much Savings Do You Need Before Quitting Your Job?)
Say you earn ₹80,000 a month, spend ₹50,000 and have ₹5 lakh saved. Your runway is 10 months. Then you get a 10% hike: ₹8,000 more every month.
If lifestyle inflation takes it, the hike hits both ends of the formula. At the top, you still save ₹30,000 a month, so your savings grow no faster than before. At the bottom, your cash burn becomes ₹58,000, so the same ₹5 lakh now lasts under 9 months.
If you save it, you put away ₹96,000 more every year. At ₹50,000 a month, that's about 58 days of freedom.
Do you see it? The same hike can shrink your runway or grow it every year.
I price big purchases this way too. At ₹50,000 a month, a ₹10 lakh car costs about 600 days of freedom. Before any upgrade, ask if you want it more than the days it costs.
How did I keep my lifestyle flat?
After those first-salary mistakes, I stopped upgrading my lifestyle every time my income grew, and I started saving.
I began with about 40% of my salary and pushed it to 70-75%. In my 9to5, I never went on a foreign trip or bought a vehicle of my own.
I worked in a 9to5 for about 3 years. By the end, I had saved enough for 3 to 4 years of freedom. Those savings gave me the confidence to quit my job and build a career on my own terms.
Even today, my monthly expenses sit around one-third of what I earn. I save 65-70% the day the money hits my account.
That's the whole method: let your income grow while your lifestyle stays where it is.
How do you keep your next hike?
Give it a job before it arrives. Once the bigger salary lands, lifestyle inflation gets to it first.
Find where your last hike went. Download the last 3 months of transactions from your banking app and sort them into needs, wants and work.
Pick your hike's savings share now. Decide it while the hike still feels like extra money. The bigger the share, the faster your runway grows.
Move it out on salary day. Raise your automatic transfer to savings in the same month the hike starts, so the money leaves before you get used to it.
Is it wrong to enjoy your hike?
No. There's nothing wrong with wanting new experiences. The trouble begins only when the lack of one feels like the end of the world. If not having an iPhone feels like life falling apart, that's a problem.
So enjoy the upgrades you choose, and keep each one small enough to give up without panic.
My college self lived on around ₹10,000 a month. Whatever you earn today, you already have far more than your college self ever did. Your next hike can buy you time.
Thought exercise: Imagine your salary drops back to what it was 3 years ago, starting next month. Write down the expenses you'd cut first. Those are the upgrades your hikes bought. Now decide what your next hike will buy instead.
Want to keep your next hike?
I've put everything I know into first-principles frameworks in Quit 9to5, my book coming out in January 2027: how to build your runway and walk out of salaried work when you choose.
Join the Quit 9to5 waitlist so you don't miss the launch.