Two of the biggest financial goals for Indian parents are education and wedding. Both are getting more expensive at a scary pace. And if you wait too long to start, the math becomes brutal. Let me walk you through what I think you should do.
Education inflation is running at 10% to 12% a year. That means costs double every six or seven years. A degree that costs ₹10 lakh today might cost ₹20 lakh in seven years and ₹40 lakh in fourteen. Wedding inflation is even worse, around 14% a year. So wedding costs double every five years. If you think a decent wedding costs ₹20 lakh today, in ten years it could be ₹75 lakh or more. I am not trying to scare you. Okay, maybe a little. But the point is real. You cannot rely on fixed deposits or PPF to keep up. They give you 7% or 8%. Inflation is eating you at 10% to 14%. You need to invest differently.
For a girl child, the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, or SSY, is still the best fixed income option out there. It offers 8.2% tax free interest as of January to March 2026. It matures in 21 years. And here is the key part. You can withdraw 50% of the corpus after your daughter turns 18 for her education. The rest stays for marriage or other needs. You will not find a better guaranteed return with zero tax anywhere else. The limit is ₹1.5 lakh per year per account. So if you have one daughter, you can put in ₹1.5 lakh. If you have two, you can open two accounts and put in ₹1.5 lakh each. Start as early as possible. The account has to be opened before the girl turns 10. The sooner you start, the more time the power of compounding works for you.
For wedding costs, I think you need equity SIPs if the wedding is more than seven years away. Fixed deposits and PPF simply cannot keep up with 14% wedding inflation. A diversified equity mutual fund SIP started early gives you the best chance of building a corpus that actually matches what weddings will cost in the future. Yes, equity is volatile. Yes, there will be years when the market goes down. But over seven to fifteen years, equity has historically beaten inflation by a good margin. The key is to start early and stay invested. Do not panic and sell when the market crashes. That is when you are supposed to keep buying.
For education, the mix depends on your timeline. If you have less than five years, you might need to lean more on debt. Fixed deposits, debt funds, maybe some hybrid funds. But if you have ten years or more, equity SIPs are your friend. The same logic as weddings. The longer your horizon, the more you can afford to ride out market volatility.
One more thing. Start early. Seriously. I cannot say it enough. If you have a newborn, open an SSY today if you have a girl. Start a small SIP for education and wedding. Even ₹5,000 a month can grow into something meaningful over 18 years. But if you wait until your kid is 10, you have lost a decade of compounding. The math is brutal if you wait. So do not wait. Your future self will thank you.