If I say that I never frowned at the prices of air tickets, I’d be lying. Most of us are always on the lookout for cheap flight tickets. This holds especially true for those who love to travel. Believe me, I have a friend who once booked a ticket only because it was cheap. He…

As I opened my investment tracker spreadsheet for this month, I realised that I have been at it for the last ten years. This is how tracking investments have changed my life and why I strongly recommend it. Today I can invest more for retirement than my target investment. That was not the case when…

The cost inflation index for the financial year 2021-2022 was recently announced. We compile 40 years of cost inflation index data to understand the devastating consequences of inflation and why our singular focus should be on beating inflation for our long term goals. The cost inflation index (CII) is not a measure of true price…

The cost inflation index in India is currently published with 2001-02 as the base year. It was earlier published with 1981-82 as the base year. You can find both data sets here. That is from 2001-02 to the current financial year – this is the list to be used for income tax computation – and…

This is a list of free data sources that can be used for DIY investing and analysis. It is the culmination of years of searching – the fun and frustration of hunting for reliable information online far exceed that of using a readymade list, but it might hasten better analysis. So here we go. This…

We all know the reason for investing in ample amounts of equity for long-term goals. It is to beat inflation. Or, in other words, to get a return higher than what typical fixed income products offer – a good measure of realistic inflation in India for day to day expenses (services tend to have higher…

You may have come across articles in your news and discover feeds on “how to become a crorepati with PPF”. There is only one reason such articles get written: for traffic. “PPF” in itself is an attention grabber. Add the emotional hook “crorepati” to it then it is a magical combination. It is possible to…

Sharad asks, “Have you ever analysed property as a long term investment option? If I have a debt-free second house, should I liquidate it and invest in markets or continue to hold the property for the next 15 years? Assuming all the other things like emergency expenses etc., are taken care of. What is the…

Alok asks, “dear pattu, sir, thanks to your articles, we have started investing with confidence for retirement and my son’s education (he just turned two). There is one aspect we are not able to decide on. Should we invest for our son’s marriage expenses or not? My wife says no, but I am not sure….

Many of us have in this situation before. A reader who wishes to be anonymous writes, “Dear Pattu Sir, I need help with two issues. First, I understand why we should not mix insurance and investment, but my father forced me to buy a LIC policy with an annual premium of about Rs. 50,000. The…

In a Q and A session held on our Youtube channel yesterday (linked below), we encountered two similar questions: Kohila asks, “we have two goals, retirement, our son’s education which is 8 years and 12 years away. Should we use the same mutual funds for both or separate funds?” Bala Gurunathan asks, ” I have…

I received this question from a reader who prefers anonymity. “Dear Pattu sir, I recently became a parent and started investing for my son’s college education expenses (UG). I am debating whether to include post-graduation (PG) costs into my goal. I did my MBA with an education loan. The fear of completing that loan made…

In this article, we discuss the benefits of portfolio rebalancing. Many investors find the topic difficult to understand and implement. So let us begin with a discussion of the basics. When we create a projection on Excel, we assume a 10% or 12% return from equity. On a spreadsheet, our money grows each year by…