Here is a set of slides from the DIY investor meets that hopefully might convince you that there is more to investing than getting high returns. That is, a return above inflation (called a real return) is only one side of the investing coin.

Consider some product or a service or a fee  that costs 10L today.  For an inflation rate as shown below (8%), the cost will increase with time as shown by the blue line. read more

Here is a step-by-step guide for planning your child’s education and marriage.

1. When to start planning. The moment the pregnancy is confirmed!

2. What do to first? Evaluate your insurance cover and buy more if required.

3. How to evaluate insurance cover?  Let us consider a couple with a two-year-old child. The male is the sole breadwinner. What would happen if he were to die today?

The wife will have to read more

Are you considering the purchase of an endowment policy? Perhaps a cash back policy? Perhaps your friendly agent told you about a policy or a “magic plan” that would offer constant pension guaranteed by the government? Please read the following before buying an LIC policy or any insurance policy that has an investment component associated with it.

A request to readers who understand the pros and cons of mixing insurance and investment: Please consider sharing this post with your friends or relatives with the sharing buttons the on the left. read more

“Why should I invest for my child’s future needs like education or marriage?”, asked a reader. “Why can’t I simply get them an education loan?”, “why can’t they foot their own marriage bill?”.

Well, we need to invest what we can for the simple reason that life does not pan out the way we plan. Especially when their school graduation is years away. While retirement is the number one financial goal, anyone who says they will not be spending a dime for their children’s college education/marriage are either not yet parents or just not being practical. read more

This is a guest post by S R Srinivasan, who is one of the most erudite users of freefincal. I had the pleasure of interacting with him twice at the Bangalore investor workshops. He talks about money management and growing wealth to new employees in his company and he kindly agreed to describe his approach and share his slide deck with us. Over to him.

-

In this write-up, I discuss an  engineering (methodical) approach to personal finance. I introduce the concept as growing wealthy using an engineering approach. I then describe the parts of the approach in some detail. A full presentation that follows this approach can be found below. read more