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 three years, I have been sharing the gist of such audits at freefincal. The idea behind doing is this to put some context into the several goal based…

A look at different ways in which couples – live-in or married, single income, or double income – manage money. Often, the need to list out financial goals, the need to systematically invest for them and the need to invest enough is highlighted here. What I never bother to state explicitly is, money management or…

Here are simple ways to check if you are spending too much. Money is meant to be spent .. sooner or later. Sometimes we spend because we want to and sometimes because we need to. Money spent sooner will affect our ability to spend as we much need to or want to later. It might help…

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…

Here is a list of personal finance calculators and tools available for Mac Excel 2011.  The screener.in stock analyzer is now available in Mac. Converting the Windows Excel tools to be Mac compatible is an ongoing effort and I shall update this page from time to time. I request the support of the Mac Excel…

I have received repeated request to write about investment options available for NRIs. However, since it is an area that I know little about, I requested fee-only financial planner Melvin Joseph‘s help to list the best NRI investment options in India. -=-=-=-=-=-=- India has the largest population of people living abroad in the world. As…

We all that know that one can invest up to Rs. 1.5L under section 80 to save tax*. However, are we making the best use of section 80C for tax saving? Have we cluttered the portfolio in the name of saving tax? Is tax saving an integral part of our goal planning portfolios? Here is an…

“If I have a lump sum, what is the best way to invest it in an equity mutual fund?”, is a question that I am asked repeatedly. In this post, let us discuss simple ways to invest a lump sum in an equity mutual fund. Lump sum in a debt mutual fund Let us first get…

This is a guest post by Bhavik Mehta. Bhavik is an avid Micro Cap Researcher and Personal Finance Writer. He has completed his CA and is a CFA (Certified financial analyst) and an FRM (certified Financial Risk Manager) . I requested him to write about how an investment portfolio is constructed. He was kind enough to…

With the government having approved the 7th pay commission pay hike for government employees, there is a furore and anger that the hike is not large enough. As with each pay commission, non-government employees grumble about how the govt servant is overpaid and not accountable enough. Next month I complete 10 years of contiguous govt employment….

Financial health refers to ‘where we stand today’ with respect to our finances and what we need to do in the coming years to handle future expenses and financial goals. In this post, I would like to describe a simple exercise to assess our personal financial health. This process can be automated with the integrated financial…