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In November 2025, Kolkata-based diagnostics centre founder Arup Kumar Samanta, 62, was diagnosed with tongue cancer. At the time, he was investing Rs.29,000 every month in equity mutual funds through Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs). Even after surgery, partly funded by health insurance, and 30 radiation sessions, he did not stop a single SIP. Five months on, he tells us over the phone from Kolkata—still struggling to speak, but with spunk in his thoughts and composure—that since his business income is ongoing, stopping his SIPs never crossed his mind.

Every year, ET Wealth partners with Crisil to bring you an empirical study on why staying the course with your SIPs pays off — and what it costs you when you don’t. Numbers tell one part of the story. The more interesting part is what real people actually do when life or markets test their conviction. This story travels across India to meet two kinds of investors: those who kept their SIPs going despite personal crises, like Samanta, and those who stopped when markets turned volatile.

ARUP KUMAR SAMANTA, 62
Kolkata, Diagnostics centre founder
SIP amount:Rs.29,000/month
Investing since: 2007
Crisis: Tongue cancer, diagnosed November 2025; 30 radiation treatments
Goals: Retirement, children’s education, two flats in Kolkata; all funded or in progress
Why he didn’t stop: Business income was unaffected; insurance covered most surgery costs; stopping never made financial sense
SIPs missed: Zero
Note:If my income is going on, I should continue my SIP.”

The ones who held

Tragedy can strike in many ways. For Bengaluru-based Jagan Mohan K.B., 41, it came in December 2025, when he lost his job. Until then, he had been investing Rs.2.4 lakh monthly in SIPs. With guidance from his financial planner, Wealthy.in, he chose not to stop SIPs entirely, but optimise them instead. SIPs linked to long-term goals were paused, while those funding essentials such as his emergency corpus were retained. His monthly SIP outflow dropped to Rs.70,000—still a sizeable amount.

Also read: Do SIPs really work? ET Wealth-Crisil SIP Study shows long-term SIP investors have almost zero chance of losing money; here’s why

Jagan’s ability to adapt to uncertainty was shaped early in life. In February 1998, when he was a teenager, his hometown of Coimbatore was hit by a series of 13 bomb blasts. His father’s business collapsed, plunging the family into financial distress.

Things improved in 2005 when Jagan secured a job at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) through a highly competitive selection process. But with a modest starting salary, he began looking for additional income streams and got drawn into a popular multilevel marketing (MLM) company in South India. Initially, the money flowed. His lifestyle improved and spending became reckless. Soon, he was juggling 30 credit cards, five personal loans, and debt exceeding Rs.30 lakh. At the same time, his father—still rebuilding after the 1998 setback—had turned to equity day trading. With markets booming in 2006 and 2007, the family, in different ways, had become leveraged to a future no one saw coming.

Then came 2008. The global financial crisis wiped out his father’s equity day trading portfolio and brought down the MLM company Jagan was associated with. The episode taught him the importance of disciplined saving. Ironically, his next attempt at “regular investing” was through a chit fund run by his uncle, at a time when chit funds were largely unregulated. Meanwhile, an overseas posting with TCS in Malaysia helped him repay his debt through favourable currency arbitrage. But more hard lessons followed after his father’s death, when his savings were depleted again and his health insurance fell short. That became a turning point. With the help of a financial planner, he mapped his goals, structured his SIPs, and strengthened his insurance cover.

He bought health and term insurance, and began investing through SIPs. By the time he lost his job last year, he was financially well prepared: debt-free, adequately insured, with savings set aside for his children’s higher education, and in the habit of investing nearly 50% of his salary—about Rs.2.4 lakh a month—through SIPs. So when layoffs cost him his role, he reduced his SIP contributions but did not stop them entirely. Though still between jobs, he has since started a consulting firm advising startups, and continues to invest `70,000 a month through SIPs.

Elsewhere, Aditya Chandra, a 36-year-old chartered accountant, gave up his credit card last year, believing it encouraged unnecessary spending. Keen to build wealth without relying on loans, he met his financial planner in 2022, who advised him to shift from multiple fixed deposits to mutual funds. At the time, Chandra was unhappy with his job in Gurugram because he felt he wasn’t getting compensated enough. A strong financial plan and disciplined investing gave him the confidence to switch jobs and move to Mumbai, despite its higher living costs. By October 2025, his SIP investments had peaked at `85,000 a month. Later, he reduced them to Rs.60,000, redirecting some money towards an emergency fund instead of stopping investments altogether.

Now settled in his new job, he invests Rs.1 lakh every month in mutual funds through SIPs. “Having investments and putting money regularly gives you the backing to stay strong in bad times,” says Chandra.

The question is: is partial continuation significantly better than a full stop, or is the gap small? “It depends from situation to situation, but in principle, investing something is better than nothing, because you are still getting units at a cheaper rate. It’s like if your business isn’t going well, you don’t shut it down, right?” says Shalab Gupta Bibhab, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Bibhab Capital, an Agra-based mutual fund distributor (MFD). “When you continue your SIPseven with reduced amounts, you are still in the ecosystem, your distributors are still in touch with you, the support, advice and guidance still continues. If you stop completely, you might just fall off the grid and lose touch,” says Prabin Agarwal, a Siliguri-based MFD.

MUSKAN RATHORE, 23
Agra, Telemarkete
First SIP: Rs.5,000/month (Dec 2019)
Stopped: 2020 Covid crash; withdrew all money
Time out of markets: Nearly three years
SIP now: Rs.6,000/month across four funds including gold and silver
Goals: Own home for parents, funding two younger sisters’ education, building a corpus for SWP later
Why she stopped: Panicked seeing her NAV fall; didn’t understand markets well enough at the time
Regret: Yes; Sensex jumped 83% in the year she sat out
Note:"I missed the best phase of my life. Had I stayed invested, my money would have gone up significantly.”

MADHU NAYAK, 53
Mumbai, Merchant navy officer
SIP when active:Rs.1 lakh/month
Stopped: January 2022
Why he stopped: Found better returns in currency futures and FCNR deposits (up to 10.25%)
Corpus today from the SIP he stopped:Rs.46.68 lakh
Estimated corpus if SIP had continued: Rs.1.17 crore
Opportunity cost: Roughly Rs.70 lakh
Regret: None
Note:"I found there were other avenues. I thought I could diversify.”

ADITYA CHANDRA, 36
Mumbai, Chartered Accountant
SIP before job change:Rs.85,000/month
SIP during transition: Rs.60,000/month
SIP now: Rs.1 lakh/month
Crisis: Unhappy at job, relocated from Gurugram to Mumbai
What he did: Reduced SIP, not stopped; redirected idle fixed deposit money into SIPs
Goals: Retirement, own house, wealth creation, zero loans
Why he didn’t stop: Saw weak FD returns (6% pre-tax, barely above inflation) as wasted money; SIPs offered better long-term value
Note:"Having investments and putting money regularly gives you the backing to stay strong in bad times.”

What Amfi data shows

The SIP contributions in the Indian MF industry continued to scale new heights in March, with inflows crossing Rs.32,000 crore mark for the first time. This, despite the S&P BSE Sensex losing 11.5% in March 2026. To be sure, most SIPs entering the MF industry are invested in equity funds. In March, equity funds saw net inflows (more money came in than went out) for the 61st consecutive month, totalling Rs.40,450 crore. Despite markets in turmoil due to the West Asia crisis, investors continued to invest in equities. Equity funds’ assets under management stood at Rs.31.98 trillion as of the end of March 2026, up by 8.6% from a year back.

The bad news is that in March, more SIPs were closed than opened. A total of 52.82 lakh new SIPs got registered, and 53.38 lakh SIPs were terminated, as per the Association of Mutual Funds of India (Amfi; the MF industry’s trade body). In simple words, for every 100 SIPs that got started, 101 SIPs got terminated.

JAGAN MOHAN K.B., 41
Bengaluru, Product manager turned startup consultant
SIP amount at peak: Rs.2.4 lakh/month
SIP after layoff: Rs.70,000/month
Crisis: Laid off December 2025, no notice
Emergency fund runway: 12 months
Goals: Child’s higher education (already funded), retirement, debt-free living
What he did: Stopped longterm growth SIPs, retained expense-linked SIPs; drew living expenses from emergency corpus
Why he didn’t stop entirely: Knew the opportunity cost of sitting out the market would exceed any short-term savings
Note:"The opportunity cost of missing those returns will be greater than what I would earn once I come back.”

The ones who stopped

Agra-based telemarketer Muskan Rathore, 23, began investing in December 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic. The eldest of three sisters, she worked alongside her studies at a private college to support herself, and her family. Her first SIP was Rs.5,000 a month.

But when markets crashed during the pandemic and lockdowns began, she panicked— first pausing her SIPs, then withdrawing all her investments. By the end of 2020, however, the Sensex had surged 83%. “I missed the best phase of my life. Had I stayed invested, my money would have grown significantly,” she says. She stayed away from markets for nearly three years before deciding to return. In 2024, with the help of Agra-based mutual fund distributor Bibhab, she restarted investing with a Rs.3,000 monthly SIP. “I stopped tracking my portfolio, stopped watching YouTube videos, and avoided WhatsApp groups where markets were being noisily dissected every minute.

But I started learning and tracking markets,” says Rathore, who says she was happy to finally see the ‘+’ sign in her portfolio. Rathore’s growth as an investor is evident; she topped her SIPs twice and started a new SIP. Today, she invests Rs.6,000 every month, including a scheme that invests in gold and silver to diversify across asset classes.

Rathore’s growth as an investor is evident; she topped her SIPs twice and started a new SIP. Today, she invests Rs.6,000 every month, including a scheme that invests in gold and silver to diversify across asset classes. Rathore regrets stepping away from the markets, but says the experience taught her valuable lessons. “Fix your goals and don’t fear equity markets. Just leave your portfolio alone—Kumbhakarna ho jao,” she says, referring to the Ramayana giant who slept for months at a stretch.

Mumbai-based mariner Madhu Nayak, 53, however, has no regrets about stopping his SIPs. An active market watcher and member of 16 WhatsApp groups with fellow mariners, Nayak had been investing Rs.1 lakh a month through a SIP started in April 2020. He stopped fresh investments in 2022, though he did not redeem his corpus. Instead, he shifted fresh surplus money to currency futures, which he still considers safer. The mutual fund investment he stopped contributing to is worth around Rs.46.68 lakh today.

The arithmetic is hard to ignore. From January 2022 to April 2026, 52 monthly instalments of Rs.1 lakh each (Rs.52 lakh) were never deployed. Back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that had he invested that money in his scheme at a conservative mid-point Net Asset Value (NAV), Nayak would have accumulated roughly 1.73 lakh additional units worth Rs.69.8 lakh today, bringing the total to over Rs.1.17 crore.

Siliguri-based tea plantation owner Sanjay Mittal, 60, first stopped his SIPs when Covid struck in 2020 because equity markets had fallen. He had started his SIPs in 2015. He eventually withdrew his MF investments and deployed the money in his tea business. “I found a better option in my own business. I felt that if I invested there, I could develop my business further,” he said. He came back to investing in MFs through SIPs in 2021. Mittal shows no remorse for stopping and withdrawing from his SIPs, saying that most of his financial goals have been met. His story shows that a quitter’s decision isn’t always irrational.

But what about those who make a considered exit, not a panic one, but still left significant gains on the table? “Every investor who exits makes the best decision they can with the information and emotions they have at that moment. But equity deserves the same patience we instinctively give to real estate or gold. Give compounding enough time, and the wealth it creates can genuinely surprise you,” says Aditya Agarwal, Founder, Wealthy.in.

The chosen path

Back to Arup Kumar Samanta in Kolkata. He is six months out of surgery, recovering his voice, running his diagnostic centre, and still contributing to his SIPs every month. Over the years, he has built a financial cushion around his family: two flats, SIPs for himself and his wife, and a son who now invests on his own. “If my income is going on, I should continue my SIP,” he says simply. Samanta’s story underlines a truth data cannot capture: that the real reason to stay invested has less to do with markets and everything to do with what — and who — you are investing for.