Stories like this one are common enough now that they’re worth a fuller conversation than a single cautionary tale. Most people, ideally, would rather the next generation of earners learn this lesson cheaply and early, rather than the way Riya nearly did – with a stretched salary and a paused SIP. A handful of habits tend to make the real difference here, and none of them are complicated.

Ask what a purchase costs to wait for, not just what it costs to buy. The more useful question, before any loan – BNPL very much included – isn’t whether the instalments look affordable individually. It’s what share of income the commitment represents, and whether the purchase is worth that share. A loan taken mainly because it was on offer, rather than because it was needed, rarely survives that question.

Bring back “save now, pay later” for the small stuff. For anything discretionary – a gadget, a wardrobe refresh, a short trip – setting the money aside over a few weeks before buying works just as well as splitting the payment afterward, without the risk of losing track of it across five different apps. The purchase still happens on roughly the same timeline; only the order of operations changes, and the money waiting to be spent can sit in a liquid fund rather than doing nothing.

Separate good debt from bad debt before taking either. A home loan, an education loan, or credit against a genuinely productive asset tends to fund something that appreciates or expands future earning power, usually at a transparent and manageable cost. Debt taken for consumption that loses value the moment it’s used is a different animal entirely, particularly once fees and interest are counted in fully. BNPL, more often than its advertising suggests, falls into the second bucket.

Understand what BNPL does – and doesn’t do – to a credit score. Timely repayment is supposed to build trust with lenders over time; missed payments erode it. The complication with BNPL is that many providers in India don’t report repayment behaviour to credit bureaus at all, so responsible use often builds no credit history whatsoever, even though a default can still cause real damage. That asymmetry – limited upside, real downside – is worth knowing before treating BNPL as a stepping stone toward future credit.

Start investing early, even with small amounts. The money that quietly went toward Riya’s installments was, underneath it all, a story about where income goes by default rather than by choice. Every rupee spent on an avoidable instalment is a rupee that loses its chance to compound. A SIP started early – even a modest one – has an advantage no clever borrowing arrangement can replicate, and that advantage is simply time.

None of this argues for giving up convenience altogether. It only argues for paying for that convenience with a bit of awareness – which is, in the end, exactly what Riya’s fifth instalment finally taught her.