₹200 crore to retire? How social media is making us all deluded about money.

What’s interesting is that the median answer was ₹200 crore. That got me thinking about how many people have unrealistic goals, and where else this kind of collective delusion shows up. Let’s look at the most common areas.

Investment myths

Another common myth is related to the state of real estate in India. The popular narrative is buying property is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that there is huge demand and limited supply. But according to PropEquity, residential housing sales declined by 9% in 2024 compared to 2023. Only the super-premium segment seems to be growing and garnering all the media attention. According to Anarock, real estate inventory is still hovering around 12-16 months, which is considered a highly liquid market. If you can put aside the narrative and be patient, it’s still a buyer’s market.

Similarly, many people believe the stock market is a magical place that gives you a 20% return every year. However, stock market returns are highly volatile and provide a return in line with India’s nominal GDP, which is in the range of 9 – 12%.

Futures & options is another space that many claim to have cracked. But according to a Sebi report, 93% of retail investors lost an average of ₹2 lakh each in FY22-24, for ca ollective loss of more than ₹1.8 trillion. Only 1% of individual traders managed to earn profit exceeding ₹1 lakh after adjusting for transaction costs.

‘College is overrated’

Another common delusion relates to education. There are stories of influencers who dropped out of college and now own a ₹40-crore business empire. The first thing to note is there is no way to verify such stories. Even if it were true, this would be an extreme outlier. A quality education from a tier-1 institute offers a good quality of life and a safety net to boot.

True, social media is the main culprit behind these collective delusions. There are short videos in which unicorn founders speak eloquently about unit economics, scale and building a profitable business. Ironically, their unicorn businesses have never generated a rupee in profit or positive cash flow.

There are also videos in which young people are asked how much they expect their future spouse to earn. Some proudly said, “ ₹100 crore a month.” Somebody should ask them a follow-up question: “How many zeros are there in 100 crore?” Such delusions are truly damaging to common sense.

At the end of the day, we are all living in a bubble that represents 0.01% of India. It is important to step out and talk to regular people – your security guard, the person who sells you coconut water, or your auto driver – to realise basic common sense is worth much more than ₹200 crore.

Sandeep Das is the author of ‘How Business Storytelling Works’ and ‘Why your strategy sucks’.