Archive of Articles and resources for financial planning
There are some grey areas in personal finance and there are some downright dark areas. One such dark area is how a couple should prepare for parenting duties once a child is on the way. Dark, because there are several possibilities and each would impact the present and the future in several ways. Child birth…
Continue reading →Life insurance, health insurance, accident insurance and critical illness insurance are tailor-made fortification products that help a family tackle unpleasant and unexpected developments. Be it expenses due to hospitalization, or loss or decrease in income due to death, accident or a critical illness. I refer to them as fortification products because they protect the families…
Continue reading →A little more than seven years ago, my expenses dropped to ‘normal’ levels after my father passed away (post a prolonged battle with cancer). I had been in a regular position for less than two years then and was taking stock of my cash flow and investible surplus (money net of all expenses). Immature me,…
Continue reading →When I posted a checklist for DIY investors: What it takes to do your own financial planning, Ashal Jauhari had the following to say. I would like to think he gave vent to his frustrations (about time too!): “Dear Pattu Sir, I’m in DIY mode. Please tell me the BEST Term plan and the BEST…
Continue reading →Here are ten questions that every investor should answer. I have inserted links to relevant posts for some questions. If you are DIY investor or intend to be one, ask yourself these questions. If you have engaged a financial planner, ask these questions to the planner . If you have any suggestions that would help…
Continue reading →I wrote a guest post for Avadhut Nigudkar’s website, financewalk.com aimed at financial career aspirants. The monthly financial tracker I have been using for the past 6 years was modified to include the goal analysis sheet from the automated mutual fund tracker The sheet allows you to keep track of investments for financial goals as well as…
Continue reading →Survival is a human instinct. The memorable line from Jurassic Park, “life will find a way!”, is relevant not only to all living organisms but also to pretty much everything that we humans do. Diversification in general, is something that we do by instinct. We do not fill our wardrobes with only cotton-wear or with…
Continue reading →My wife hates personal finance! If I want her out of the room, all I need to do is to utter words/phrases like, freefincal, goal-based investing, CAGR, retirement planning (most effective!), just about anything that is not metallic, shiny and yellow in colour! Therefore, you can imagine my surprise when she handed me a diary…
Continue reading →Most freefincal readers would be familiar with this question and perhaps more familiar with the answer – do not hold more than 3 or 4 funds. More funds do not mean higher diversification! So why bother writing another post on this? In academia, we have a saying: there is no such thing as a dumb…
Continue reading →Is early retirement in India possible? Can a 45-year-old with ‘enough’ saved up, hang up his boots and avoid a full-time job for the rest of his life? In this post, I do a feasibility study considering three different scenarios for early retirement to determine the most practical approach. Early retirement is a phrase that…
Continue reading →Should disciplined long-term goal based investors use mutual fund systematic investment plans (SIPs) or rupee cost averaging? This question has been bugging me for long and personally, I hate a SIP I think it is a product tailor made for mutual fund distributors and sold to lazy people. Should intelligent investors buy SIPs? Here is…
Continue reading →Whether you are contemplating early retirement or are close to your natural retirement, here are four simple calculators than can answer four important questions: What is the corpus required for financial independence in retirement? How long will my retirement corpus last? How much can I withdraw from my corpus each year? What is the rate of…
Continue reading →Here is a list of ‘qualifications’ necessary to do your own financial planning. This is not a ‘find a financial planner, if you cannot find the time to do it yourself, post! I am writing this for two reasons: out of irritation and fear. I am irritated that time and again financial planners and mutual…
Continue reading →What is that I hear? Do you wish to engage a financial advisor/planner? Congratulations! A wonderfully positive step that has the potential to change your financial life. Do look before you leap though! Are you aware of what you are getting into? Whether you are planning to engage a planner or are already using their…
Continue reading →Create your own personal financial plan with this excel-based financial planning template. Ever since I made my first retirement calculator, I have had several requests to make an integrated financial plan creation tool. The only reason I took this long to make it is sheer boredom. I thought, since I had already made most of…
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