Follow these simple steps to learn how to close your loans and live debt-free. This week in ₹e-assemble, we shall discuss one of the most important money management problems for young earners – handling debt. You will be surprised as to how many people in their 20s and 30s nurse huge credit card debts, personal loan EMI and car loan EMI. In addition, many also have an education loan or later a  home loan or dream of owning a home ‘soon’. read more

This week in ₹e-assemble, we shall discuss how to track monthly expenses and manage them efficiently. ₹e-assemble is a series on the basics of money management aimed at young earners. If you ask me now, “how should I track expenses?”, I would say, “do not track, instead invest first and spend later”. However, I am jumping the gun. I need to put myself in the shoes of a young earner and discuss the issue of expense tracking and management. read more

I discuss simple ways to select a credit card, use it efficiently and maximize its benefits. This post is part of ₹e-Assemble: a series on the basics of money management for young earners. You will be surprised as to how many people do not understand how a credit card works and how many people get into huge credit card debt because they did not read the terms and conditions before using it.

A few years ago, I took my M. Sc class out to lunch. Since I rarely eat out, I wanted to figure out ball-park costs. One kid said, “just use your card, sir, swipe karo”. He assumed that if I swipe my card, I don’t need to pay the bill! Personally, I am not a fan of credit and inspired by Jack Reacher cancelled my SBI card as I was not using it. My wife has had the same Citibank card for the last 17 years (which do I use as mentioned below) and we have never once bothered to find out the benefits it has or used its reward points. We just are not wired that way. So you might be surprised to see this post from me. Am I the right guy to start a discussion on how to select a credit card? read more