Archive of Articles and resources for financial planning
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…
Continue reading →Inflation – a gradual decrease in purchasing power with time – affects all human beings. The average inflation in India is more than twice the average inflation in the US. Will inflation in India ever increase? Many seem to believe that after a long time (say a couple of decades later) inflation will decrease, as…
Continue reading →No matter how often we mention/promote/advertise that equity investments if continued over a long enough period would generate handsome returns, many investors seem to require constant reassurance and encouragement to continue their equity investments. A person who wishes to remain anonymous made the following SIP rolling returns analysis with Sensex data to provide his friends…
Continue reading →This is a guest post by Aditya Veera. Aditya has studied and worked in finance, but this is the first article on investment he has written. Hopefully it is not the last. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and has an evangelical fervour for low-fee, passive investments! You can find his…
Continue reading →PPFAS Long Term Value Fund is advertised with a tagline: Only for “truly” long term investors! The funds scheme document states, “Investors should note that this scheme is suitable for investors who have an investment horizon of minimum 5 years”. Unfortunately,this can give investors the wrong notion that ‘long term’ implies duration of 5 years…
Continue reading →A long term investor should: recognise all the risks associated with the financial goal estimate the monthly investment needed (estimate not determine) understand the need for spreading the investment risk (asset allocation) understand the need for diversification within an asset class, choose investment vehicles wisely initiate investments as quickly as possible without worrying about perfection…
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