In this article, reader Sampath explains why he had to postpone his plans for early retirement. His story is a lesson that we must be ready to adapt to the ups and downs of life. Dear freefincal readers, my name is Sampath. I will be 47 in Jan 2023. I have always been fascinated by…

In this article, we discuss how to audit a financial freedom or retirement portfolio. All long-term financial goals require periodic review to ensure that they are on track and in line with expectations and assumptions made while planning for the goal. Retirement is a unique financial goal because a corpus does not get spent within a…

A reader says, “I have a query about investment for my child’s future. We have been blessed with a baby boy this month, and I would like to start investing for his future and marriage”. “I plan to open a bank account (for the child) with my wife as the parent until my child becomes…

A new weekly podcast on money management, Let’s get rich with Pattu, produced by Ofspin is launching on May 29th 2023. Each episode will cover one aspect of money management – insurance, emergency funds, planning for retirement, financial independence and early retirement, buying vs renting and more. Readers who want their questions featured on the…

A reader says, ” I am a long-time admirer and follower of your blog. I started investing in 2010 after getting a job and am continuing. I am 37 years old, and my portfolio allocation is 72% equity (80% direct equity and 20% MF) and 28% fixed income”. “I wanted to invest for my newborn…

A viewer on our YouTube channel wants to know, “Which mutual fund category should I use to invest for a newborn child?”. It is heartening to note that you are seeking category names and not actual fund names. However, some work must be done before we can get there. Our investing mantra is process-first, products-last. …

If you are an avid non-fiction reader, you may have come across the phrase ‘keystone’ habit. Keystone habits are powerful and transformative habits that have the potential to trigger positive changes in other areas of our lives. Popularized by the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, keystone habits are defined as small, positive changes…

We often get emails from readers wanting to know if they are on the right financial path. Here is a simple check to find out. The answer to all questions below is a simple yes or no. The aim here is to maximise the number of yeses. Even if you can’t answer yes to a question…

It is not even May, and already 2023 is the year of AI and as Bill Gates recently proclaimed, the age of AI has begun. We recently discussed how ChatGPT could be a game-changer in personal finance. We also demonstrated Retirement Planning with AutoGPT and pointed out that the future of Investment advisory is informal….

AutoGPT is an open-source Python code using Open AI’s GPT4. Unlike ChatGPT, which requires human intervention at every step, AutoGPT can “self-prompt” and find additional information from its knowledge base or the web (depending on the application). It is supposed to be a step towards artificial general intelligence. They are also referred to as Task-Driven Autonomous…

Over the last few weeks, many readers have asked if they can sell their mutual funds or other investments to partially pre-pay their home loans due to steep loan interest rates after the RBI Repo rate hike. One reader wanted to liquidate his entire MF holdings to part-pre-pay and decrease investments to increase the EMI…

Many of us convert the salary received by Indians going abroad in local currency (USD, Euro etc.) into INR and assume that “they” are doing much better than us. This is, however, incorrect. The exchange rate does not help us compare the cost of living in the two countries. That is, it does not help…

The cost inflation index for the financial year 2023-2024 was recently announced. The index increased from 331 in the previous financial year to 348 – an increase of 5.14%. We compile 42 years of cost inflation index data to understand the devastating consequences of inflation and why our singular focus should be on beating inflation…

In this article, I expound my opinion that a single robo advisor exclusively built for a single advisor or trained with a single advisor (in the case of machine learning) can assist that advisor given enough time, input and practice. A few weeks back, SEBI RIA Swapnil Kende wrote an eloquent piece on Why good quality…

In this edition of the FAQ, we discuss the features of the Mahila Samman Savings Certificate, 2023, a new small savings scheme announced in Budget 2023 Who can invest? Women and minor girls via their guardians. Where can we open the Mahila Samman Savings Certificate account? At post offices or notified banks. What is the…