Parag Agrawal, a technology and business specialist from Bangalore who has spent many years building companies and investing, applied a simpler approach to money in his family. Together with his wife Meghna and daughter Asavari, he adhered to the principle of earning, understanding money, and realizing that it never defines a person's identity.
Parag calls his daughter 'Bubble,' and for him, this became an early lesson: happiness does not require a price. Now that Asavari is preparing to enter university, Parag recalls five financial lessons he taught her over 17 years—not through lectures, but through family choices and conversations.
Asavari never received pocket money. If she needed something, she had to explain the reason and consider what she was willing to sacrifice for it. When she started her NGO, Parag did not provide her with any funds.
She sold her piano, redirected gifts related to Bharatanatyam, and used prize money from tournaments. According to Parag, after five years, the organization Shape the Future did not receive a single external rupee.
At home, birthdays meant receiving necessary items; wishes could wait or required earning. Asavari learned that wanting something does not mean it is necessary. Parag aimed for Asavari to view money as a tool, not a measure of success. For him, how a person uses available resources speaks more about them than the volume of those resources.
Thanks to this, she was able to raise 2.1 lakh rupees for children battling cancer, build a library, and organize free medical and ophthalmological camps. Parag believed that such decisions demonstrated her values in action.
Asavari grew up near a restaurant built by her mother, where profit and margin discussions took place at the kitchen table. Parag never isolated her from these discussions. By twelve, she understood the concept of margin, and by fourteen, the cost of a bad hire. Parag asserts that she gained this knowledge by listening to real-life decisions at home, not by sitting in a classroom.
When Asavari founded Shape the Future, Parag offered support, but not funding. He wanted her to first understand what she could create using the resources around her. For Parag, creating something before seeking external funding makes a person more responsible and attentive. More than money, he wanted her to realize the responsibility of the creation process.
Parag's ultimate goal was never to teach Asavari how to earn more money; he wanted to teach her how to earn it, use it wisely, and never let it define what truly matters.