Puisa Kotha Hunibo? My experiment with an EMI

We’ve all seen them, the little EMI boxes that pop up while shopping online. You see something you want, and right there, almost instantly, you’re told how little you need to pay today. Just 10%… 20%… 23% of the actual price, and the product is yours. The rest can wait.

I wanted to know what that actually felt like. So, I tried it myself. I bought a product on EMI, fully aware that I was doing this as an experiment. In my case, I paid just 23% of the product’s price upfront, I had a repayment plan ready for the next three months. But honestly? The first feeling was… “damn, this feels good!”
Who wouldn’t like getting something they want without having to pay the full amount upfront? And that’s exactly what scared me. It was dangerously easy. And, in a strange way could get addictive.

I kept thinking: “What about someone who doesn’t have a repayment plan?” What happens when the next offer comes along, and then another one, and another?

Because the world has become exceptionally good at finding ways to make us spend. Travel. Shopping. Gadgets. Weddings. Education. Cars. Even the smallest purchases now seem to come with an “easy EMI” option. Money can feel almost frictionless.

And for Gen Zs, this is becoming the world we are growing up in. Debt and credit are increasingly woven into everyday consumption. You see something, you want it, and there is almost always a way to make it feel affordable right now. Nothing against someone who wants to take a loan. Sometimes, a loan can be necessary or even useful. But have your repayment plan ready.

Yesterday, my sister asked my mother how she developed the habit of praying before every meal. It made me think, that’s exactly what it is. A habit! Not a decision made fresh each time, just something wired in, no questions asked.
Perhaps financial discipline needs to work the same way. Before we take a loan, before we click “Buy Now”, before we choose that tempting EMI option, the first question should automatically be: “How am I going to repay this?”

The moment you take a loan, the repayment plan should come just as naturally as praying before a meal. Because the world will keep finding ways to make spending easier. We need to build habits that make thinking first just as automatic.

The original published article can be found at: My experiment with an EMI