Squeezed upper (middle) class in Mumbai

When I was in college in early nineties, I used to dream of a job having a salary of Rs. 7000/month and I had little prospect of any inheritane. After 2 decades, I earn close to 60 times that amount by God's immebnse grace, got a small house in Mumbai. Yet, it is a constant strggle to save and dont feel monetarily stable at all. Meanwhile we have lived 7 years in Philippines and Thailand in relative oppulance and have seen real upper class lives. So our expectation and apirations is several nothes above that my salary probably can justify and there is lies the conflict and stress.

We spent Rs. 80k on schooling alone for our son. Another INR 30k goes for the driver, maids and assorted support stuff. We spend another INR 50k on running the home burner and assorted materialistic persuits. So, we spend anywhere between INR 1.6-2 Lakh every month to run the family leaving very little to save. We aspire for apartment that cost 4 Crore which would put our entire finances under stress that would require us to have loan of Rs. 1.5 Cr or so and Im not sure I want us to take that kind of stress at this point in life. We send about INR 10-15k to her mother who is not well. It doesnt help that she has a total indifference to deal anything to do with finance except spending and giving people more that she would ever get in return. When left uncontroled, she spent Rs. 180K in one month and when asked how she spent so much, she became indignant and went into her dreaded temper. Peance is better even if it cost money in modern lives. On the otherhand, inflation is eating away our savings. Efforts is budgetting is proven to be a futile experience. This is true of our society largely. Internet has got us many benefits and connected no matter where we are but it has also exposed us to many materialitic desires which is totaking its toll. We have gadgets galore but not iota of peace nd contentment. So only prodent thing to do for me now is to find a property to invest so money get locked. However, in Mumbai finding a property at reasonable rate is a challenge. So the strggle continues even though by God's grace the income is reasonable. Education in financial prudence should be taught to everyone but in homes of middle class in Bengal, money management is taboo and shunned in discussions. We pay for that for our lives.