I am a 23-year-old girl living in Mumbai and the sole breadwinner of my family of 4. I work as a Graphic Designer at a publishing company with an in-hand income of ₹27,000 a month. I am sharing with you how I started my investment journey, and I hope to learn more from Freefincal’s articles.
About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives for the benefit of readers. Some of the previous editions are linked at the bottom of this article. You can also access the full reader story archive.
Opinions published in reader stories need not represent the views of freefincal or its editors. We must appreciate multiple solutions to the money management puzzle and empathise with diverse views. Articles are typically not checked for grammar unless necessary to convey the right meaning and preserve the tone and emotions of the writers.
If you would like to contribute to the DIY community in this manner, send your audits to freefincal AT Gmail dot com. They can be published anonymously if you so desire.
Please note: We welcome such articles from young earners who have just started investing. See, for example, this piece by a 29-year-old: How I track financial goals without worrying about returns. We have also started a new “mutual fund success stories” series. This is the first edition: How mutual funds helped me reach financial independence. Now, over to the reader.
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My CTC is ₹29,000 a month, out of which ₹2,000 goes straight to my PF account. This shall be my fixed-income instrument. Coming back to the expenses, on the second of every month, once my salary gets credited to my salary account, an amount of ₹22,000 is auto-debited to my mother’s account for handling household expenses, and the remaining ₹5,000 gets auto-debited to my savings bank account.
Out of the ₹22,000, I have specifically requested my mum to keep aside ₹2,000 every month as savings because I may have to resign from my current job once I get a better offer from another company. Resignation at my current job means serving a notice period requiring me to save up at least one month’s salary. I am proud to say, I have at least saved 2 months of my pay in liquid cash. I have been at my current job for the past 2 years or so, and I told my mum to save that ₹2,000 from January 2023, and now she has over ₹30,000 just in cash.
Out of the ₹5,000 I have saved in one month, I have started two SIPs and made lumpsum in the third. First is the Nippon India Large Cap Fund, for which I pay ₹1,500, and it gets auto debited on every 20th of the month; the second is the UTI Nifty 50 Fund, for which ₹1,000 gets auto debited on the 15th of every month. Once I saved over ₹35,000 as cash in my savings account, I decided to make a lump sum payment of ₹10,000 towards the Parag Parikh Flexi Cap Fund in April 2024. It would take me more than 4-5 months to get back to save the amount I had invested in the Parag Parikh Fund.
Coming to financial goals, my plan this year is to change jobs and get at least 35,000₹ in hand. With every job change, I have tried to increase my savings, and once I get a new job, I am planning to save at least 10,000₹ every month to create my emergency fund. Once I have saved up my one month’s salary as an emergency fund, I wish to increase my investment amount even more.
There’s always this tussle between increasing the emergency funds in plain cash or putting that cash into mutual funds. My other goal would be to afford a PC/Laptop of around 1-2 lakhs (I need a good quality setup because the design requires maxed-out PC specs). Better quality laptop = Upskilling = Better job. After buying this laptop, I wish to save up for courses in UI/UX design (I am a self-taught graphic designer, but companies ask for certification for UI/UX roles). I want to change careers from Graphic Design to UI/UX design cause UI/UX pays more, and I am interested in that role.
Anyway, that’s how my investment and financials work. I don’t worry much about my investments much and focus on how to earn more income. I do wish to save for retirement, but the money that I am earning now won’t be enough if I don’t upskill first to earn more money. Market volatility doesn’t worry me, but what worries me the most is whether I can pump in more money. What if I loose my job? And also unforseen conditions which may put me in a position to not allow me to make more investments. But hey, that’s what money is for. To create a cushion for life’s vulnerabilities.
I also don’t have any debt/EMI, and I am only spending, saving, or investing whatever little I have. Let’s see how it goes.
Reader stories published earlier:
As regular readers may know, we publish a personal financial audit each December – this is the 2022 edition: Portfolio Audit 2022: The Annual Review of My Goal-based Investments. We asked regular readers to share how they review their investments and track financial goals.
- First audit: How Suhas tracks his MF investments and reviews financial goals.
- Second audit: How Avadhoot Joshi evaluates his investment portfolio.
- Third audit: How a single mom is on track to financial freedom
- Fourth audit: How Gowtham started goal-based investing & took control of his money
- Fifth audit: Why my financial independence & early retirement plans were postponed by four years
- Sixth audit: How Abhisek funded his marriage & is on track to financial freedom.
- Seventh audit: How Rohit’s early struggles defined his investment journey
- Eighth audit: Why my investments are still on track despite job loss and lower income.
- Ninth audit: How a retirement planning calculation scared me to take action
- Tenth audit: I made several investment mistakes but have turned my life around.
- Eleventh audit: My net worth doubled in the last financial year, thanks to patient investing!
- Update: How I achieved investing nirvana.
- Twelveth audit: My financial journey: from novice to goal-based investor.
- Thirteenth audit: My journey: from a negative net worth to goal-based investing.
- Fourteenth audit: From Fixed Deposits to Goal-based investing in MFs.
- Fifteenth audit: My 10-year financial journey – mistakes made and lessons learnt.
- Sixteenth audit (part 1): How I achieved financial independence without mutual funds or stocks.
- Sixteenth audit (part 2): Lessons from my financial independence journey and future investment plans.
- Seventeenth audit: How I plan to achieve financial independence and move to my native place
- Eighteenth audit: I used the current bull run to reduce my mutual funds from 14 to 4!
- Nineteenth audit: How a conservative investor created his financial plan
- Twentieth audit: I plan to achieve financial independence by 46; this is my master plan
- Twenty-first audit: I have made many investment mistakes but am on course to financial independence by 45.
- Twenty-second audit: I felt worthless six years ago but have achieved financial stability today
- Twenty-third audit: My financial journey was directionless until age 40: this is how I made up for lost time
- Twenty-fourth audit: Why I increased equity MF investments by 275% and reduced PPF contributions.
- Twenty-fifth audit: How I track financial goals without worrying about returns
- Twenty-sixth audit: I am 24 and started investing 1Y ago, but what am I investing for?
- Twenty-seventh audit: How we plan to achieve a retirement corpus 50 times our annual expenses.
- Twenty-eighth audit: I thought equity investing was a gamble, but now I aim to hold 60% equity for retirement
- Twenty-ninth audit: My journey: From 5 lakhs in debt to building a corpus worth six years in retirement
- Thirtieth audit: My investment journey: From random purchases to a goal-based portfolio
- Thirty-first audit: My investment journey: from product-driven to process-driven
- Thirty-second audit: How a young couple is trying to balance travelling and investing
- Thirty-third audit: My journey: From Rs. 30 bank balance to financial independence
- Thirty-fourth audit: Our journey: From scratch to a net worth of 18 times annual expenses.
- Thirty-fifth audit: From a net worth of Rs. 6000 to auto-pilot goal-based investing
- Thirty-sixth audit: How I retired from corporate bondage at 46, two years ago!
- Thirty-seventh audit: How I learnt to keep it simple and build a net worth 19 times my annual expenses
- Thirty-eighth audit: How Abhineeth plans to achieve financial independence and build a house.
- Thirty-ninth audit: How Sahil plans to achieve financial independence by efficient tracking
- Fortieth audit: My Journey to a Ten Crore Portfolio
- Forty-first audit: Burdened with debt for several years, I am now aggressively investing in equity
- Forty-second audit: From Engineer to Librarian after Financial Independence and Early Retirement (FIRE)
- Forty-third audit: I lost six months’ income in F&O and ditched it for systematic investing
- Forty-fourth audit: My retirement plan to handle the harsh realities of the IT industry
- Forty-fifth audit: My investment journey: mistakes, 10 years of MF investing and recovery
- Forty-sixth audit: My MF portfolio is worth six crores despite multiple mistakes
- Forty-seventh audit: Saving, Investing, and Running Marathons: My 25-year Journey to Financial Independence
- Forty-eighth audit: Never Too Late to Start: How I Became Financially Savvy at 40
- Forty-ninth audit: My Investment Journey to a net worth 29 times my annual expenses
- Fiftieth audit: How I audit my portfolio without tracking returns
- Fifty-first audit: Financial Lessons Learned During and After a PhD
These published audits have had a compounding effect on readers. If you would like to contribute to the DIY community in this manner, send your audits to freefincal AT Gmail. They could be published anonymously if you so desire.
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About The Author
Dr M. Pattabiraman(PhD) is the founder, managing editor and primary author of freefincal. He is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He has over ten years of experience publishing news analysis, research and financial product development. Connect with him via Twitter(X), Linkedin, or YouTube. Pattabiraman has co-authored three print books: (1) You can be rich too with goal-based investing (CNBC TV18) for DIY investors. (2) Gamechanger for young earners. (3) Chinchu Gets a Superpower! for kids. He has also written seven other free e-books on various money management topics. He is a patron and co-founder of “Fee-only India,” an organisation promoting unbiased, commission-free investment advice.Our flagship course! Learn to manage your portfolio like a pro to achieve your goals regardless of market conditions! ⇐ More than 3,000 investors and advisors are part of our exclusive community! Get clarity on how to plan for your goals and achieve the necessary corpus no matter the market condition is!! Watch the first lecture for free! One-time payment! No recurring fees! Life-long access to videos! Reduce fear, uncertainty and doubt while investing! Learn how to plan for your goals before and after retirement with confidence.
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