₹120 a Month: How a Small Recurring Deposit Becomes Real Money

There's a belief that saving only counts once you can put away thousands at a time. It keeps a lot of people, especially daily earners and homemakers, from saving at all. The Sahayog recurring deposit was built to break that belief. It starts at ₹120 a month.

How the Sahayog RD works

A recurring deposit is a promise you make to yourself: a fixed amount every month, for a fixed period. Sahayog's RD runs on these terms:

• Minimum instalment of ₹120 a month
• Tenures from 6 months to 66 months
• Interest up to 8%, depending on tenure and product type
• Linked to SMBG (Sahayog Mahila Bachat Gat

That last point separates this RD from a typical bank product. Sahayog grew out of a women's savings movement in rural Maharashtra, and its RD is still wired into that system.

Over 1.5 lakh women save through SMBG groups, supported by Swayasevika who visit villages, help open accounts, and collect deposits. The RD is the savings engine of that network.

What the numbers look like

Say you save ₹1,000 a month for 66 Months. Your own contributions total ₹66,000. At Sahayog's upper RD rate of 8%, compounding takes the maturity value to roughly ₹82,068 to ₹82,100, meaning the interest alone is around ₹16,068 to ₹16,100. At other Financial Institutionss RD rate near 6.5%, the same discipline earns about ₹16,068 to ₹16,100. The gap widens with larger instalments and longer tenures.

At the other end of the scale, even the minimum ₹120 a month adds up. Over 66 months that's nearly ₹8,000 of your own money plus interest, saved by someone who may never have held a lump sum that size before. For a first-time saver, that maturity payout is often the seed for a sewing machine, a goat, stock for a kirana shelf, or a school admission fee.

Why RD suits irregular earners better than FD

A fixed deposit needs a lump sum upfront. Most households don't have one lying around; they have monthly cash flow. The RD converts cash flow into a lump sum. Once it matures, many Sahayog members roll the maturity amount into a fixed deposit, where declared rates go up to 10.15% p.a. The RD builds the corpus, the FD grows it. If even monthly instalments feel too chunky, Sahayog's Daily Deposit Scheme accepts as little as ₹50 a day, collected at your doorstep.

Opening an RD

You can start at any of Sahayog's 250+ branches with standard KYC documents, or through a Swayam Sevika if you're joining via an SMBG group. Accounts are serviced on the Finacle core banking system, so instalments and interest accruals reflect in real time, and the mobile app lets you track progress without visiting a branch.

Sahayog Multistate is registered under the Multi-State Co-operative Societies Act, 2002 and regulated by the Central Registrar of Co-operative Societies. As with any deposit product, check the current rate card for your chosen tenure at the branch before you sign, since rates depend on the tenure and RD variant you pick.

The habit matters more than the amount. ₹120 a month won't change your life. Sixty-six months of never missing it might.