Archive of Articles and resources for financial planning
When you get a home loan, are you really saving tax? Listen to Ashal Jauhari explain why it is an illusion to think that one can save tax by getting a home loan! Here are the videos of the third Chennai investor meet held on Sep. 2015. I was able to videograph only part of…
Continue reading →This is a guest post by Guhan Ramanan, a friend I got to know through the blog. I requested Guhan to share his money management journey and hence this post. Guhan is what I would call a ‘quick-to-understand’ investor.When he saw the value of managing money with a plan and in an organized way, a…
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 →“Which is the best way to accumulate gold for a marriage?” is a question often asked by parents, brothers and even the bride or groom to be. This is a discussion on a few smart ways to accumulate gold for a marriage. Some of you are thinking, ‘the best way to accumulate gold is not to!’. The…
Continue reading →All long-term financial goals would soon become short-term financial goals. Perhaps it is obvious that with the passage of time that a goal 18 years away, will soon become a goal 3 years away.Children’s education goal is the best example of this. ‘They grow up so fast!”, we hear everyone say around us. Question is,…
Continue reading →I usually love December. The Chennai Summer is busy recharging its batteries and therefore not in full force. The Carnatic music season seems to begin earlier each year, thanks to some prudent marketing. The semester is over, and for me, goal-based investing month starts! Dec 2015 was unique because of the Chennai floods! Most of…
Continue reading →This cyber Monday (30th Nov. 2015) or if you prefer, Buy Nothing Day (Nov. 27th 2015 or Black Friday) resolve to say NO to packaged financial products. There is no need for a pension plan or a child’s education mutual fund or a child’s gift fund (like the one from Axis where one has to invest…
Continue reading →November turned out to be one long month for Chennaites and most people in Tamil Nadu due to incessant rain. We were not affected by the rains much, but my desktop (technically my sons) and my laptop broke down in the space of 5 days. We had already spent too much money in handling minor…
Continue reading →Here is a seventh pay commission calculator based on the pay commission report which allows you to determine your new salary based on the pay matrix. Do share this sheet with your colleagues or friends who work for central or state governments. For pensioners: Seventh Pay Commission Revised Pension Calculation The six pay commission introduced…
Continue reading →A few years back, I took my entire M. Sc class to lunch. Don’t remember why. They probably coerced me into it! As someone who never eats outside, I was clueless about pricing and was trying to get a rough estimate as they wanted to go to a high-end place (relative to the campus cafeteria!)….
Continue reading →The most important input while planning for a financial goal is the current cost of the future expenditure. When the goal is several years away, the current cost is a crude estimate. For retirement, we can assume present lifestyle barring child’s education expenses and liabilities. For a Ferrari, we can enter the current cost. For a…
Continue reading →Financial services in India are regulated by SEBI. Only those registered as investment advisers with SEBI (SEBI RIAs) are authorised to provide financial planning advice. SEBI recently warned the public not to engage with anyone who is not a registered investment adviser. If you are looking for financial advice, here is how a SEBI registered…
Continue reading →Here are the remaining videos of the “Strategic Personal Finance” workshop conducted by Dr. Uma Shashikant, Managing director, Centre for Investment Education and Learning (ciel.co.in and moneykraft.com), at Bangalore on July 26th 2015. Segments I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, can be found here: Videos: Uma Shashikant on “Strategic Personal Finance” This post has parts III and…
Continue reading →Here are the videos of the “Strategic Personal Finance” workshop conducted by Dr. Uma Shashikant, Managing director, Centre for Investment Education and Learning (ciel.co.in and moneykraft.com), at Bangalore on July 26th 2015. Regular readers may have read the Nuggets from the workshop on “strategic personal finance” published earlier. It is hard to follow the slides because the hall…
Continue reading →A couple of weeks ago, I tried to login to my account with Quantum mutual fund. I had to enter my login name and password and difficult captcha* code. After getting the code wrong twice(age does take a toll), I was taken to another screen where I had choose by which way I could receive a OTP…
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