We grow up believing one thing about wealth: Buy property. It’s almost cultural. A house means stability. A second property means ‘real’ success. Rental income means security, guaranteed income for life. But somewhere along the way, the dream became heavy. Heavy EMIs. Heavy loans. Heavy responsibility. Heavy dependence on interest rates we cannot control. And…
Continue reading →‘Money cannot buy happiness, ‘money is the root of all evil’; Marriage is just a union of two souls. Isn’t it? Why bring money into the picture and spoil the sanctity of the union? Right? Many similar statements sound cool, but we all know the cost associated with survival. Marriage can change your financial life…
Continue reading →This is a National Pension Scheme Fund Screener to shortlist consistently performing NPS schemes. You can also identify NPS schemes that offer a higher return than the benchmark while maintaining lower risk. This is similar in design to the freefincal Equity Mutual Fund Performance Screener. Inside, you get discounted links to our robo advisory tool…
Continue reading →In the world of personal finance, there is a silent disease that kills more wealth than market crashes or recessions. It isn’t ignorance. It isn’t inflation. It is Hyper-Optimisation. It is the irresistible urge to shift your money from an instrument giving 12% to one that might give 14%. We call this the 2% Itch….
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, we have a 25K salary-to-25X corpus growth story. About this series: I am grateful to readers for sharing intimate details about their financial lives, which benefits us all. Some of the previous editions are linked at the bottom of this article. You can also access the full reader story archive. Opinions…
Continue reading →We publish a list of stocks with low volatility and momentum each month. We provide data for BSE 500 and BSE 100 stocks. Update: Starting March 2026, the screening metrics have been significantly updated (details below). There are now three different screener files available. (1) Stocks with low volatility and momentum from the BSE 100…
Continue reading →Should you drop everything and rush to invest Rs. 1.5 Lakhs in PPF before the 5th of April every financial year? No, that never made sense even before the advent of the new tax regime. Now that most taxpayers have chosen the new tax regime, no 80C instrument makes sense anymore (unless it is part…
Continue reading →As I write this, the Sensex is back where it was a little over two years ago. For most young people who started investing in the last few years, this could be their longest “bear market”. Congratulations. As expected, doubt has begun to creep into several investors’ minds. Should I exit? Should I pause investing?…
Continue reading →Building wealth is not a static event; it’s an evolution. As your income grows and your experience deepens, the “one-size-fits-all” advice of your early 20s starts to feel restrictive. To help you navigate this journey, we’ve developed the Wealth Evolution Framework. By identifying which quadrant you currently inhabit, you can move away from guesswork and…
Continue reading →A reader says he is 52 and wants to retire in three years and “needs a minimum of 1.5 Lakhs per month for the next 15 years”. He needs to know the total corpus required. There are a couple of issues here that need to be addressed. We shall assume that the current expenses are…
Continue reading →Readers often ask us if there is any ideal or optimal equity exposure after retirement. This question is tricky to answer as it depends on the individual, but some general guidelines or thumb rules are possible. Asking this question on the verge of retirement without prior market experience can be harmful. It is essential to…
Continue reading →We discuss how to create a resilient investment strategy for retirement. This requires the following: (1) A large cash buffer for emergencies, (2) A guaranteed income source that handles partial expenses for the entire duration of retirement (also known as an income floor) or guaranteed income that increases at a rate close to inflation for the…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, “Like most engineering graduates in India, I pursued a non-IT engineering major but ended up joining an IT services company as a campus recruit. Unfortunately, the 2008 recession delayed my joining by almost a year. Even today, I regret wasting that precious year. With some additional effort, I could…
Continue reading →Momentum investing has become one of the most talked-about factor strategies in India. The headline numbers are attractive — Nifty 200 Momentum 30 backtests often show 14–15% CAGR, and AMC momentum funds have seen rapid AUM growth. But a 19-year NSE backtest raises an uncomfortable question: is the momentum premium real, or is it simply…
Continue reading →A frequent criticism by those who encounter freefincal articles or videos is, “This guy is very pessimistic about equity investing”. I also often get asked why that is the case. Please allow me to explain. There is a difference between lack of faith and pessimism. If I lack belief in equity, I will not go…
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