As regular readers may be aware, we publish a personal financial audit each December – this is the 2020 edition: How my retirement portfolio has performed in 2020. This time, we asked regular readers to share how they review their investments and track financial goals. Suhas was the first to do this: How Suhas tracks his…
Continue reading →ICICI Prudential Insurance has introduced a Single-Premium Annuity Plan called ICICI Pru Guaranteed Pension Plan. In this review, let us analyse its features, merits and demerits and evaluate if the plan has any value to offer. What Is It? ICICI Pru Guaranteed Pension Plan is a “Non-linked Non-participating Individual Annuity Plan” About the author: Ragesh G…
Continue reading →The “Code on Wages”(“Wage Code”) Act, 2019 aims to transform the old and obsolete labour laws into more accountable and transparent ones. The Act seeks to simplify the wage definitions and universally regulate the provision of minimum wages for all workers in India. In this article, we explain in simple terms what the new wage…
Continue reading →I am happy to announce the release of our new e-book: How to profit from Content Writing. Two professional content writers, Smriti and Deepti, share their experiences and insights on creating effective content, becoming a freelance content writer and generating regular income. You can buy the book at a 50% discount by paying only Rs….
Continue reading →Each year, I evaluate my retirement portfolio’s performance and my son’s future portfolio in a personal finance audit. Published since 2013 these audits hopefully would encourage similar action among readers. This year, readers have started sharing their audits – How Suhas tracks his MF investments and reviews financial goals. Two more such audits will be…
Continue reading →In this article, we discuss how to derive maximum benefits from credit cards. A credit card is a double-edged sword. If used wisely, it can be beneficial, particularly when faced with a sudden emergency: for example, unplanned hospitalisations. If used without appreciating how interest is charged, it can make our lives miserable. There are two…
Continue reading →Sanjay asks “I want to take up stock trading to generate extra income. How should I get started?” We asked Amit Aroa a full-time stock trader to answer this question; what Sanjay should be aware of and some resources he can follow to get started. Readers may also refer to the Day Trading Lessons of…
Continue reading →If you had Rs. 1000 in the year 1980, it would just be worth Rs. 63 in 2021 (down from Rs. 66 in 2020 and Rs. 68 in 2019) if we use the cost inflation index (CII) data published by the government. The trouble is this index is an underestimate and out lifestyle has changed…
Continue reading →This is an analysis of my stocks portfolio which has so far fetched a total absolute return of 22.58% (including dividends). Before we begin, several caveats and considerations are necessary. (1) The stock portfolio is about 16.5% of my equity mutual fund retirement portfolio; (2) The portfolio is relatively young and both the absolute returns…
Continue reading →In this article, we talk about the financial considerations in deciding between buying a new car vs used car and how to optimise our purchase and maintenance. We will touch upon other non-financial and practical considerations too. You may also refer to the prequel article in which we talked about the general Financial Considerations and…
Continue reading →Everyone amongst us shops online these days. Online shopping offers us the convenience of buying at our fingertips, doorstep delivery of goods, discounts on the MRP and much more. While we as finance enthusiasts tend to look at only the returns on our investments, savings also play a significant role- especially when your total corpus…
Continue reading →This is a term insurance buying guide that covers all the need-to-know essentials before you purchase a term insurance cover. About the author: Ragesh G R is a Software Architect with 13 years of experience. His interests are computers, personal finance, cars, technology, maths and music. He helps his friends and family with their personal…
Continue reading →Readers may recall, a year ago (Dec 21 2019), we showed that the return difference of Nifty 50 vs Nifty 50 Equal-weight index at an all-time high. This essentially means that only the top few stocks of Nifty were holding the market up. This was apparent from late 2017 to just before the 2020 crash:…
Continue reading →As regular readers may be aware, we publish a personal financial audit each December. This time, we asked regular readers to share how they review their investments and track financial goals. Suhas kindly agreed to share his method. You can also follow his regular reviews in his blog linked below. About the author: Suhas Bharadwaj…
Continue reading →We study 41 ELSS funds to find out which of them have consistently outperformed the NIfty 200 Total Return Index (dividends included) using the Dec 2020 equity mutual fund screener. Nifty 200 is a representative benchmark of the ELSS category in which funds are typically large cap oriented. since it is market capitalization-weighted, the index…
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