A reader asks, “I recently read your mutual fund investment journey. I then read similar stories shared by readers about their financial independence. One common feature in all these stories is the high salaries involved. My salary is quite low (I am ashamed to disclose it). I don’t see any immediate prospects of increasing it”….

Here are a set of questions to determine how secure your financial life is. Personal finance is all about protecting our family against extreme situations (aka outlier risks). Everything we do, buying insurance, saving, investing etc., falls under this protection act. So let us get started. Don’t worry if you answer “no” or “not yet”…

A reader asks, “I’m unable to understand the need to venture into debt funds for my needs. What are the advantages they offer on the alternatives for the long term – PPF, EPF, SSY etc.? I’m primarily saving for retirement, and currently, almost all of my debt part is into epf and ppf (about 50%…

Satish asks, “Sir, I am 24 years old and will be receiving my first salary in Aug 2022. My basic pay is close to Rs. 35,000. The gross pay is about Rs. 63,000. The take-home after TDS and EPF deductions is close to Rs. 50,000. I need to give Rs. 10,000 to my parents each…

A young reader writes, “I am a recent graduate, who used to dump his money all on a Nifty fund I picked at random. But with your videos and articles, I now have an idea about choosing funds. But I still am confused about asset allocation. Other than an Index fund, I have no idea…

On the 10th of August 2022, the Ministry of Finance announced, ” any citizen who is or has been an income-tax payer, shall not be eligible to join APY from 1st October 2022″. Further, “In case a subscriber, who joined on or after 1st October 2022, is subsequently found to have been an income-tax payer…

A reader wants to know,” Will the Public Provident Fund (PPF) interest rate be increased after three successive RBI repo rate hikes?” The PPF interest rate does not directly depend on the RBI repo rate. Some history is in order to appreciate how small saving interest rates are decided. Several committees that have discussed the…

When Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams could not find a publisher for a one-page book on “Everything you need to know about financial planning”, he was forced to write a 368-page book – Dilbert and the Way of the Weasels. (Ref: MyMoneyBlog) You don’t even need a page to hold all the advice that Adams gives. All…

In this article, Srivatsan (a regular and popular freefincal guest author) offers a different take on the lemon spoon race video which recently went viral. Srivatsan, who would only like to be referred to as a “long-time reader” of freefincal has written several articles here before and is responsible for adding the Earnings power box…

The impact of inflation over the long term can be devastating to our finances as shown recently – Inflation has reduced Rs. One Lakh to just Rs. 5741 in 41 years! The only way to beat inflation or at least keep pace with it is to invest right. But what does “investing right” mean? Many investors…

A reader wants to know if he can now rebalance his portfolio by shifting funds from fixed income to equity since the market is down. A discussion. Yes, we think this market “correction” is a great opportunity to rebalance our portfolios and increase equity exposure. However, this opportunity is only applicable to certain investors. Many…

A reader writes,” Sir, I read your 2021 personal finance audit, where it says,  I have been investing for my son’s future since Dec 2009 (a month before he was born). Then it was an 18-year-old goal, and now it has become a 6-year-old goal. Last year I reduced the equity allocation from 67% to…

A reader writes, “Dear Sir, I read two articles that you had rebalanced your long-term portfolios twice last year (April and Sep 2021). I was in two minds after reading this. Should I rebalance now and book some profits into fixed income or should I wait a bit more? I decided not to rebalance because…

A reader asks, “Sir, I love travelling and would like to go abroad on holiday once in two years. How do I plan for this without affecting my other long-term investments? When we went this summer it was a disaster as I had to stop investing for my retirement for five months. I don’t want…