This is the archive of all our articles related to how financial freedom and early retirement (FIRE)
Financial freedom seeker and early retiree, Balaji Swaminathan shares his experience in an extraordinarily forthright interview. Balaji retired in his 40s in India after having achieved financial independence. He explains how he planned his investments and when and how he decided that he was ready to retire. Ever since I wrote a post on ‘Is…
Continue reading →Here is a simple tool to check if you are on track to early retirement. It is also suitable for normal retirement and will work on Google sheets as well. Users can enter the current value of the corpus from online portfolio trackers. It is basically an Excel retirement calculator, with a focus on tracking….
Continue reading →This is an analysis of my mutual fund investing journey in particular, the growth of my retirement corpus. The aim of this post is only to share my insights. The main reason I did this analysis is to explore the possibility of creating a tool to automate this analysis. My first ever equity investment was…
Continue reading →Each December, I conduct a personal financial audit. I take stock of my financial goals and other aspects of personal finance relevant to me. For the last couple of years I have been sharing the gist of such audits at freefincal: This may help interested readers to conduct one themselves: how to conduct a personal…
Continue reading →‘What is your definition of financial freedom?’, is a question I get asked by readers from time to time. Opinions and definitions in this regard vary widely and often a matter of convenience. Some call it financial freedom, some, financial independence, some early retirement! Here is my take on this subject. The following should have…
Continue reading →Each December, I conduct a personal financial audit. I take stock of my financial goals and other aspects of personal finance relevant to me. Last years audit can be found here. This year, as a forerunner to this post, I had written about how to conduct a personal financial audit and invited readers to conduct one themselves….
Continue reading →A little more than seven years ago, my expenses dropped to ‘normal’ levels after my father passed away (post a prolonged battle with cancer). I had been in a regular position for less than two years then and was taking stock of my cash flow and investible surplus (money net of all expenses). Immature me,…
Continue reading →Is early retirement in India possible? Can a 45-year-old with ‘enough’ saved up, hang up his boots and avoid a full-time job for the rest of his life? In this post, I do a feasibility study considering three different scenarios for early retirement to determine the most practical approach. Early retirement is a phrase that…
Continue reading →Here is a list of ‘qualifications’ necessary to do your own financial planning. This is not a ‘find a financial planner, if you cannot find the time to do it yourself, post! I am writing this for two reasons: out of irritation and fear. I am irritated that time and again financial planners and mutual…
Continue reading →What is the worst that can happen to us from a financial standpoint? Life insurance will take care of our family upon our death provided, it is adequate and kept in force – check your cover here. Health insurance will take of a family member’s hospitalization provided, it is enhanced often enough to keep pace…
Continue reading →Each December, I conduct a personal financial audit. That is, I take stock of , financial goals what is the value of my investments for each goal. What is their worth? have I invested what I resolved to invest last December? Will I have enough to invest for all my goals in the year ahead? Review calculations…
Continue reading →This intriguing question was recently asked by my friend. Intriguing because it can be answered in two ways: In one word! Or by considering all possible ways an emergency fund would see some action! By action, I of course refer to emergencies only! American financial coach Dave Ramsey, often says, “Christmas is not an emergency!”…
Continue reading →This summer I am spending quite a bit of time with my 16 year old nephew. He is a philosopher, writer, artist and entrepreneur! He makes money by doing chores for his parents. He makes money by doing drawing assignments and other odd jobs for his friends! When I asked him where this money goes…
Continue reading →There are times when we have a large sum of money to be spent, not in one-shot, but over the course of a few years. Retirement of course is the most obvious and most complicated example wherein the corpus has to last from a few years to decades. There can other situations: a person who…
Continue reading →