Here's a quick, honest health check for your debt load: add up all your EMIs and divide by your monthly income. That ratio — your debt-to-income — tells you how much breathing room your cash flow actually has, and it's worth knowing even if the answer makes you wince a little.
The rough guideline: under about 36% is generally considered comfortable. Above that, EMIs start meaningfully squeezing everything else — savings, discretionary spending, your ability to handle a surprise cost without borrowing again. At ₹60,000 income, that 36% line sits around ₹21,600 in total monthly EMIs; beyond that, most households start to feel the strain even if every payment is technically being made on time.
Why this single number matters more than tracking each loan separately: it's easy to feel fine about a home loan, fine about a car loan, fine about a personal loan, while the combined weight of all three is quietly leaving you with almost nothing free at month's end. The ratio forces you to see the total commitment in one place.
If your number comes out above 36%, that's not an emergency — it's information. It might mean prioritising payoff on the costliest debt before taking on anything new, or it might just mean being deliberate about not adding another EMI for a while. Calculate it once now, and recheck it before any new loan, so you always know how much room you genuinely have before you commit more of your income away.