My 15 Crore Portfolio: Answering reader questions

Published: August 23, 2024 at 6:00 am

We published Analyzing the Growth of my 15 Crores Portfolio a few days back. This was a sequel to  My Journey to a Ten Crore Portfolio. Naturally, there were many questions from readers. Arun looked at them patiently (and silently) and answered the key ones in this article. If you have not read the first two parts, we suggest reading them and returning here.

Note: Arun has been extraordinarily transparent about his investment journey. There is a limit to how much we can expect a reader to share, which has long been breached here. If you are still curious, the only way is to contribute to our reader story section and put yourselves in the authors’ shoes.

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.

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My 15 Crore Portfolio Answering reader questions
My 15 Crore Portfolio Answering reader questions
Q1: Regarding the Pay / Onsite etc.
When I say not paid well, it is relative. For example, going onsite from a WITCH company differs from directly working for a US-based company. If you compare it with the Indian counterpart, the compensation with a favourable tax structure is still high during that onsite stint, enabling higher savings and investment.
I remember interviewing someone for a position lower than mine a few years back in the US, where his current compensation was three times mine (Maybe he was doing a time pass coming to that interview).  My savings are still high due to such onsite trips, but not something exceptional is what I meant to convey. Also, as Pattu said, we are confused about a middle-class mindset vs. being middle-class anymore.
I have moved out of WITCH and now work for a company that pays significantly higher, so the investment has shot up multifold in the last few years.
Q2: How are investments tracked? What apps/Websites are being used?
I maintain my Excel sheet, which I update at the end of every month. It captures Total PF value, Split of MF, Equity at end of the month (from NSDL statement), Total Investments in MF and Equity. There are additional values such as Debt notional gain per month, Dividend received per month etc. Some other parameters are well which I think it may help in future to analyze.   Only started maintaining this since 2020. So, it helps to get accurate data when there is a need.
I get a snapshot of data in Excel from MFU Online. This site helps to tag a folio to a goal. This way, the growth of specific goals and overall growth is easy to track month by month. For equity, the month-end snapshot is taken directly from ICICI.
In the first article, I used a simple Excel graph. Recently, I learned about Power BI. So, I used the newly acquired skill to plot the chart in the latest article.
I am becoming averse to uploading my data to VR or Kuvera, and manually adding them is not an option anymore due to the volume of transactions.
Q3: XIRR of the PF
It is quite hard to get the exact XIRR due to the volume of transactions. I am averse to loading them to some website to get the result. Instead, I did something simple.
Considered total investment for the month as on the last day. The final PF value as of Jul 2024 calculates XIRR in Excel. Value Research shows up as 14.71.
Few +/- deviation is no longer a matter of concern. So I will leave it at this time for now.
Investment is not linear—small investment in the initial year vs very high in the last few years.
Around 121K pm at 14.71% for 19 years is about 15Cr. It is of not much relevance other than being a mathematical calculation.  No one has done such a static SIP during 19 years of investment.

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.

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.