Avijit asks, ” I am in my early forties now (completed 42 this July) and have some ad-hoc investments in MF and stocks so far. I took your goal-based planning course last year. However, since then, I have been only reading one article after the other without making up my mind. I call this analysis…

Let us discuss an interesting question received on our YouTube channel. “How can we build wealth that lasts generations?”. This is a topic close to my heart not because I desire to do so but because I have seen wealth erode in my family from one generation to another and I would like to do…

Get the freefincal robo advisor tool to plan from start to finish for retirement (early, normal, before and after), non-recurring financial goals (child education) and recurring financial goals (holidays, appliances etc.). The tool would help anyone from ages 18 to 80 to plan for their retirement, six other non-recurring financial goals and four other recurring…

A reader who prefers anonymity asks, “Dear Pattu Sir, my wife is not interested in personal finance. She is not interested in know where our investments are or how they are tagged to our goals.” “She has never done an online transaction before had no clue of how to pay bills online and how many…

I recently received this email: “I am a 41-year-old salaried single lady, and stumbled upon your blog site recently, in my quest to effective portfolio management. I have realised that I have made lots of financial mistakes to date, like not investing enough in mutual funds or PPF, too much diversification in the stock portfolio,…

In this article, let us discuss a question received from a reader: My financial goal is my child’s higher education. I’ve 6 yrs for that. What should be my investment strategy?  Let us assume that the reader has practically nothing saved up for this goal and that she has little experience investing in market-related products (mutual…

A reader asks, “Had watched many of your videos on asset allocation. I have a question in mind for which maybe I don’t have proper data to back it up. Example: In my case, let’s says I started investing at the age of 26-27and. I have saved enough money for short term goals.” “All my…

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…