Many readers have asked me this common question: “Where do I enter the value of my second house in the calculator while planning for retirement?”. The answer to this “depends” on one’s circumstances. Most people who have second property get rental income from it and would like such an income to continue into retirement. We…

Suman asks, “Sir, What return should I use while planning for retirement? I wish to retire by age 50. I am currently 30 years of age”. Many people make two mistakes while planning their finances. The most common mistake is to assume equity mutual funds offer a 12% return and use that to compute the…

A reader asks, “I am 39 yrs old. I am planning to take early retirement in the next 15 months. I have a savings corpus of 1 Cr INR. My monthly requirement is 50 K INR. I need help with two things: 1) advice if this can be done  and 2) If yes, then investment…

A reader asks, “how can I regularly withdraw every year, say 7 per cent per year, from the corpus in my 18-year-old PPF account towards my yearly expenses”. There are two aspects to consider here: technical feasibility and practical feasibility. Once a PPF account has completed 15 years, there are two ways to keep it…

A reader who prefers anonymity writes, “I am 50 and have just started thinking seriously about financial planning for retirement. From reading your articles, I see that you recommend keeping it simple – invest in Nifty 50/Next Nifty 50 index funds and a gilt fund”. “I can invest about Rs. 1.5 lakh per month. Is…

Ajay writes, “Dear Pattu Sir, I am 28 years old and wish to retire by 50. I have designed a simple retirement plan with EPF and a Sensex index fund, 50% each. I arrived at my corpus using an online retirement calculator. Can you please review the assumptions made in the calculation and let me…

In this article, let us discuss how much equity one should hold in an investment portfolio after early retirement and how will it differ from normal retirement. Equity exposure after retirement is a tricky business and requires careful consideration, the primary being, what is the retirees’ experience with capital markets? Today we have retirees mis-buying equity…

The strong bull market after the March 2020 market crash has been a gamechanger for anyone who had significant equity exposure for the last two years or so. See for example this reader-audit: My net worth doubled in the last financial year thanks to patient investing! As regular readers may be aware, I had close…

A young reader writes, “Hi Sir, I’m 27 years old, recently finished my PG & earning 1.2 Lakhs per month post-tax. Using my first few months salary, I have paid off my UG education loan & a property loan. I have to start paying my PG loan EMI of 35,000 per month from Oct”. “Currently,…

We received this question on how to generate monthly income that handles inflation from a retirement corpus. “Hi, Pattu Sir, I read about reaching 45x annual expenses in this article: How I plan to achieve financial independence and move to my native place. Considering this as a thumb rule, I have a query. Assumption: My…

Here is another interesting question from a reader who wishes anonymity: I have the following question: Should I stop investing in mutual funds? I am a government employee working in academia. My income is stable, and I wish to retire at the normal age of 60. My current age is 37, and so far, I have…

A reader who wishes to be anonymous asks, Hello, I was avidly reading about your answer to a 30-some reader. It was surprising that you need an 8+ crores rupee to sustain a lifestyle with 40000+ monthly expenses. And I am very worried (despite living in my own house-fully paid up, owning another property worth…