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…

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…

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!)….

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…

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…

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…

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…

Asan Ideas for wealth (AIFW) is a Facebook group on personal finance, run by Ashal Jauhari. I have been a ‘active’ member there for a little more than 2 years now. Here are some things the group has taught me. If you spend too much time in a forum, people tend to think (incorrectly) that you…

The worksheet used by Dr. Uma Shashikant during her workshop on strategic personal finance is presented in this post. The sheet allows a user to review present and future (projected) cash flow and can be summarized with a flow chart.   I have modified the sheet so that a user can easily input the following.  …

This post is meant for financial advisors, who care to take me seriously, considering my diatribes here and at FB group Asan Ideas For Wealth. I would request investors to read and comment on this important issue. Why am I writing about this?  Becuase over the years a few CFPs have asked me, “how do…

Living in a hotel after retirement has been my fantasy for long.  Let us calculate how much it would cost to live in a hotel after retirement. Yes, this is a fantasy post and I will never be able to pull it off, but it is intriguing to calculate the costs and consider the benefits of…