This finance influencer might know how to solve Gen Zs money troubles

My fan-girl moment had come. And no, I hadn’t just emptied my bank account buying Taylor Swift concert tickets! I was finally getting a chance to spend a couple of hours, on a Google Meet call, with my favourite chartered accountant, Lavanya Mohan. Why does a CA have a micro-fandom, you might ask? Because, while every other influencer is telling you how to spend your money, Mohan is telling you how to save, invest, manage and control your money. And she does this in plain speak—minus the jargon of bulls and bears, the pomposity of financial gurus, or labyrinthine Excel sheets. This month, she puts all her knowledge into print for her first book, Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees (Simon & Schuster India), which talks about not just how money works but also how we can make it work for us.

Often seen sporting a mic in hand, Mohan is the kind of content creator, you’d call fin-fluencers. Every day, she doles out advice on Instagram, explaining which credit card may work for you or why Gen Z spending on fitness is not as bad as it’s made out to be. Most of her content—ranging from understanding cryptocurrency to the current budget—is in fact, just an effort to boost a new generation into financial literacy.

If following Mohan has taught me one thing, it’s that we need to talk about money directly and efficiently. So why are we, millennials and Gen Z alike, still struggling with all things money? Mohan agrees, “What with inflation, unstable jobs, peer-pressure, and more. It’s brutal out there.”

She explains that the rise of social media and the gig economy have only made our lifestyles more expensive. “Your salary might cover rent and other basics like utilities and such—but you now need extra cash to go out with friends, for drinks with colleagues, go for a cricket match or a music concert. In short, have a social life.” Millennials are also facing the financial realities and struggles of being the ‘sandwich generation’—stuck between caring for ageing parents and ensuring quality lives for their children. “Our parents might be drawing pensions, but it isn’t always proportionate to inflation,” she adds. 

Mohan doesn’t have to remind you what your mom already says on repeat: that boomers had a simpler life but a more effective understanding of finance. Saving was a key value for them—you earn, you save, you invest in permanent assets, and you secure your and your family’s future. “We [millennials] had more exposure in terms of the many options out there, thanks to the internet,” she explains, “but Gen Z has too much information; they are quite overwhelmed.” The TMI she’s referring to here is the increase in the various investment tools and choices, from the more old-school stocks, bonds, and gold certificates to the newer rabbit hole of all things crypto. 

Back in the day, the salaried could save and then buy a house. Millennials in India, especially those in a double-income household, can still consider it, but Gen Z has almost completely given up on the home ownership dream, given the market and rising real estate costs. According to a report by Angel.in, Gen Z has less faith in savings and instead prefers to have money on hand to pay for what’s in their shopping carts, which can be anything from travel to their third Stanley cup. Mohan adds, “Gen Z has influencers in their faces, telling them the next must-have and must-buy, and they end up spending on those items. The attitude is largely, ‘What am I saving for? So, let me just take that vacation, buy what I want, and at least be happy.’ And honestly, with an environment this brutal, who can blame them?”

Millennials are not far behind and also struggle with overspending and the digital maturation of conspicuous consumption.  I nod along, copping to my millennial guilt, turning to her for advice on curbing online shopping, overall spending, and increasing our ability to save? “Simply observe your spending and expenditures for a month. Do nothing about it, just write it down. You’ll notice where the money is going—it could be Swiggy, eating out, got bored, so bought an ice cream—understanding your spending patterns could easily save you ₹2,000 to ₹3,000 per month, which eventually adds up,” she says.

A big part of our ‘invisible expenditure’ are subscriptions, which Mohan warns we need to be mindful of. “These days, we tend to subscribe to everything from Netflix, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime to Jio, Zee5 and Spotify. Do you really need all these?” According to a 2024 Ormax OTT Audience Report, India has about 99.6 million active paid OTT subscriptions, valued at $1.51 billion in 2024 alone. Mohan suggests contributing less to this and more to your own bank account by stopping one subscription, say Netflix or Amazon, for a month and observing if you really need that.

The other thing that is most likely making your bank account nosedive and increasing your ‘invisible expenditure’ is (IMHO India’s best invention of the century)...UPI. “Payment options have made buying things so easy and seamless that we often lose track of what we buy via UPI.” So, track these payments carefully as well, she says. A money diary is basically her go-to step one to saving. Once you see it all listed, you get a sense of where you’re overspending and sometimes the inanity of your spends—and this, according to Mohan, makes you almost immediately more mindful.  

Her next step actually sounds fun. “Save in full for that one item you want—maybe a pair of sneakers, that trip to Bali, or a coveted handbag. It might take a few months for you to reach the goal. And at the end of those five or six months, you might even change your mind and not buy the thing you saved for and just end up with a little extra cash in your account.” Mohan adds her hot take: There are no pros to buying anything on EMIs, unless it is an unforeseen emergency—medical or otherwise. Her steamier hot take to curb online shopping: “Delete Instagram.”

Ironically, Instagram is where Mohan shares a lot of her ‘how to save’ advice. And a bulk of her questions from millennials and Gen Z are around retirement—and not the faddier micro-version but the OG end-of-your-career variety. “We are an overworked generation, and a lot of us want to retire by 50. However, with increasing inflation, the plausibility is distant. Plus, with advancement in the medical sciences, life expectancy has gone up. So, if you were to retire at 50, you’d probably need your funds to last for another 30 years or so.” Mohan does have a recommended plan in place for a more practical retirement age: think 60-plus rather than 50. First, ensure you’re all signed up for your Pension Fund (PF) or the National Pension Scheme (NPS)—most workplaces in India offer this. Then aim to save 30 times your annual expenditure over a 30- to 40-year period, as your retirement package—so, if your annual expenditure is ₹12 lakh, your retirement fund needs to be around ₹3.6 crores. Basically, stop wasting time and start now! 

Generation gap aside, the other gap she feels strongly about has to do with gender. According to a government-led Periodic Labour Force Survey Report 2022-23, women rely on others to invest on their behalf and rarely make informed decisions on any kind of asset allocation. And if you go by valueresearchonline.com, women, for generations, have been encouraged to save, not invest.

Mohan recalls a forum she attended years ago to educate women about finance. She expected a room full of working-class women whose concerns would be about saving on meagre salaries. Instead, she was greeted by some of the most powerful women in the country whose handbags cost more than what the average Indian makes in a year, sometimes a lifetime! “This prompted me to think: if these (powerful and privileged) women, don’t have much of a clue when it comes to handling their personal finances, imagine the plight of the average women,” she says. “See, I grew up in a home where my dad would constantly talk about money because he was a CA. Then I became a CA, but I realised that I was an exception of sorts when it came to being a woman who was aware of managing personal finances… Gender has nothing to do with how well or poorly you can handle your finances. Your father or brother are just as capable of losing money as your mother or sister.” 

Since then, Mohan’s mission has been to talk money as honestly, simply and openly as possible. And her new book is a sort of culmination of her advice and her feed, be it to Gen Z or women who haven’t yet taken control of their own finances yet, or someone just struggling to wrap their head around all the lingo and options out there. 

Lavanya Mohan’s Money Doesn't Grow on Trees is out on Simon & Schuster India; ₹299