Beginner’s Guide to Personal Finance: A free e-book by Vinay Rai

This is a free e-book for absolute beginners and newbies to personal finance by Vinay Rai. Young earners and those who wish to organise their personal finances can use this book as a "starter kit" and begin 2020 with confidence

Published: December 12, 2019 at 11:26 am

Last Updated on December 29, 2021 at 5:15 pm

Vinay Rai, a health care automation analyst and personal finance enthusiast has created a free e-book for absolute beginners to money management. Young earners and those who wish to organise their personal finances can use this book as a “starter kit” and begin 2020 with confidence. The book is available for personal use at the end of this article.

About the author: Vinay Kumar Rai, a Mumbai resident, is a senior automation analyst at CitiusTech catering to Healthcare clients. Vinay loves to travel and read books on personal finance. He is a financial freedom seeker and wants to spread financial literacy. His personal money journey was earlier published here: How I turned my life around & charted my own money course

Readers can provide feedback on Vinay’s work using the contact details provided in the book. This can be treated as a companion source or a memorandum to the Re-assemble e-book previously published here.


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Beginner’s Guide to Personal Finance: Contents

Listed below are the contents of the e-book. The numbers indicate the page count.

Investing: A Journey 4
1. Financial Fortitude 4

What is Financial Freedom? 4

2. Life Insurance 5

 Why people don’t buy a Term Plan? 5
Things to do before buying term insurance: 5
Things to do after buying a Term policy: 6
Permanent Exclusions: 6
Procedure to claim life insurance if someone dies 6

3. Health Insurance 7

Why individuals don’t get personal health Policy? 7
Things to do before buying the health insurance policy: 8
How to Buy a health plan 9
Things to do after buying Health policy 11
Exclusions 11

4. Property Insurance 12

FAQs of Home Insurance: 14
Questions to ask before buying a Home Insurance: 15

5. How to Withdraw EPF & PPF 16

EPF: 16
PPF 16

6. Emergency fund 17

Why Emergency Fund is required? 17
How much to set aside? 17
How long one should maintain emergency fund 17

7. Personal Financial Checklist 18

Act I: Preparation 18
Act II: Action 19
Act III: Review 19

8. Investments Basics 20

Financial Planning: 20
Word of Wisdom: 20
Managing risk 20
Good Money Habits: 20
Investment basics: 21
Investment process 22
Investing mistakes: 23
*Products to stay away from 24
90% of the time all an investor need: 24
How to plan for your goals: 24
Why Equity? 24
Paisa Vaisa podcasts by Pattu sir on financial freedom: 25
Before starting an investment, one should learn the process? 25
How to construct a Portfolio for each goal: 26
Review Portfolio: 26
De-risk strategies – De-risking refers to a process of containing losses: 27
Rebalancing methods: 27
Review Mutual Fund: 27
Exit Strategies 28
Important links for Investors: 28
Myths about Investing 29
Qualities of Successful Investor 29
Lessons from Mutual fund investing 30
Things to do after investing in mutual funds? 30
How to ride out an economic slowdown? 30
Questions to ask before buying a Home? 31
5 Questions to ask before getting Married? 31
5 Questions to ask before having a child? 32
Questions to ask before Retirement? 32
Retirement Planning: Avoid these common mistakes! 33
Fund Manager Exit – What investor should do? 33

10. Mutual fund selection process 34

Investment Template: 34
Few Points before selecting mutual fund 34
Equity Mutual Fund 35
Debt Mutual Fund 35
Things to do after investing in mutual funds? 36

11. How to select an equity/debt mutual fund 37

What to look for in a fund offer document/Scheme investment document? 37
My Equity Hybrid Fund selection strategy using VR & Morningstar 37
My Debt Fund selection strategy using VR & Fund SID 41

12. Preferred Product Categories for specific time periods 43

1. For goals less than 5 years – No equity. 43
2. For Goals between 5 – 7 years 43
3. For Goals between 7 – 10 years 43
4. For Goals between 10 – 15 years 43
5. For goals more than 15 years 43
*Equity Categories to avoid: 43
*Debt Categories to Avoid: 43

13. Some personal thoughts 44

As one can see, it is fairly comprehensive covering all major topics that a newbie should know about money management.

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Cover Image of Beginners Guide to Personal Finance by Vinay Rai
Cover Image of Beginners Guide to Personal Finance by Vinay Rai

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Pattabiraman editor freefincalDr. 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, 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.
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Our new book for kids: “Chinchu gets a superpower!” is now available!
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Most investor problems can be traced to a lack of informed decision-making. We have all made bad decisions and money mistakes when we started earning and spent years undoing these mistakes. Why should our children go through the same pain? What is this book about? As parents, what would it be if we had to groom one ability in our children that is key not only to money management and investing but to any aspect of life? My answer: Sound Decision Making. So in this book, we meet Chinchu, who is about to turn 10. What he wants for his birthday and how his parents plan for it and teach him several key ideas of decision-making and money management is the narrative. What readers say!
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Must-read book even for adults! This is something that every parent should teach their kids right from their young age. The importance of money management and decision making based on their wants and needs. Very nicely written in simple terms. - Arun.
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