₹1 crore, left alone, quietly becomes ₹25 lakh.

At 7% consumer inflation, prices double roughly every ten years: which means the purchasing power of static money halves on the same clock. ₹1 crore kept idle buys ₹71 lakh worth of today’s life after five years, ₹51 lakh after ten, and about ₹26 lakh after twenty. Nothing was lost on paper; everything was lost in what the paper can do.

Inflation itself isn’t a villain. A gently rising price level is what keeps an economy spending, building and hiring: an economy with zero inflation is an economy holding its breath. The problem is one-sided: the system is designed for prices to rise, so money that merely sits is designed to lose. The only rational response is to make your money grow at inflation plus something: every year, after costs and taxes.

The defence has three parts, and only one of them is a product. Keep your earning power compounding: skills raise income faster than prices. Keep your lifestyle inflation below your income growth, especially in the first five to seven earning years, because that gap is where investible surplus is born. And put the surplus to work in growth assets matched to your horizon, so compounding fights on your side of the table instead of the other one.

Flip on the “today’s money” toggle and watch nominal wealth deflate into real wealth: then price your goals honestly.