Purchasing Power
✓ Last verified 14 Sep 2026
The short version
Purchasing power is what a given amount of money can actually buy - it falls over time under inflation even if the number of rupees you hold stays the same or grows slowly.
₹10 lakh today and ₹10 lakh in 20 years are not equivalent in what they can buy, because prices rise in between. This is why financial goals - a retirement corpus, a child's education fund - need to be sized in future rupees adjusted for inflation, not today's rupees carried forward unchanged. A return that merely matches inflation preserves purchasing power without growing it in real terms; a return that beats inflation is what actually builds wealth.
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