Here is a simple illustration that will help you understand how growth and dividend-reinvestment mutual funds work. You can use it to decide which is better for you, taking into account the investment duration and your tax-slab. This is a re-publish taking into account changes made after budget 2014. When a mutual fund offers regular (typically) dividends…
Continue reading →What we know as Systematic Investment Plan is an investment strategy (not a financial product!) derived from what is known in the US as Dollar Cost Averaging. Obviously the term SIP sells better(than Rupee cost averaging) ! The Indian stock market is a toddler. Sensex data is available from only 1979. Many have argued with me that…
Continue reading →I am a fan of Carl Richard’s (Behaviour Gap) napkin drawings (who is not?!). From time to time, I have thought of similar sketches but never got around to actually drawing them on my own napkin – Excel. Here are few. The whole point of such a sketch is that it should be self-explanatory….
Continue reading →“I understand the need to beat inflation and the need for equity in a portfolio. I understand that the mutual fund route is a simple and convenient way to do it. However, I neither have the confidence, nor the time or inclination to create and manage a mutual fund portfolio. I also do not have…
Continue reading →A couple of weeks ago, I tried to login to my account with Quantum mutual fund. I had to enter my login name and password and difficult captcha* code. After getting the code wrong twice(age does take a toll), I was taken to another screen where I had choose by which way I could receive a OTP…
Continue reading →Asan Ideas for wealth (AIFW) is a Facebook group on personal finance, run by Ashal Jauhari. I have been a ‘active’ member there for a little more than 2 years now. Here are some things the group has taught me. If you spend too much time in a forum, people tend to think (incorrectly) that you…
Continue reading →As an offshoot to yesterday’s post, Non-intrusive term insurance comparison portals, let us look at simple ways to protect our online privacy. I am no expert. I write as someone who has repeatedly made mistakes in this area. First, it is important to recognise that every business is out to get your email and mobile no….
Continue reading →While trying to buy a term life insurance plan, it is natural to want a listing of premiums offered by all insurers. So we type, “compare term insurance plans” in Google and click on one of the first few links, without scrolling down the page. The trouble is, most (if not all) of the ‘popular’…
Continue reading →The worksheet used by Dr. Uma Shashikant during her workshop on strategic personal finance is presented in this post. The sheet allows a user to review present and future (projected) cash flow and can be summarized with a flow chart. I have modified the sheet so that a user can easily input the following. …
Continue reading →This post describes how one can calculate returns from stock investments including the declared dividends. There is a lot of confusion about this calculation with regard to how the dividend should be treated. In this post, return refers to XIRR, that is the personal rate of return. See this for more details: What is XIRR?…
Continue reading →Here is an e-book based on a (nearly) unabridged collection of 20 posts written earlier. I have not bothered to connect the chapters. I hope that will not spoil your experience too much. Perhaps only a reader who is used to my style and intent might find this collection useful. This is an experiment. Please let…
Continue reading →After reading well-spun yarn like ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, many start talking about the importance of financial independence and passive income. There is no free lunch in the universe and there is no such thing called ‘passive’ income. A look at some well-known passive income ‘streams’ and what it takes to make them count. Income…
Continue reading →A look at “How do I reduce clutter in my mutual fund portfolio so that it can tracked and reviewed easily?”. Typically mutual fund investors with few to several years of experience are interested in this exercise. The first step is to recognise clutter. I hold 8 funds. If I posted just that information at AIFW…
Continue reading →A look at ‘how much’ or ‘what is the corpus required for early retirement in India?’. I had earlier written a detailed post on this subject and the common misconceptions youngsters seeking financial freedom form after reading blogs like ERE and MMM. The central message of that post was, early retirement is possible, but one…
Continue reading →Type ‘comfort zone’ in Google and you only find articles that tell you to step out of it. So why am I asking you to step into it?! If financial literacy was a course, it would have an extremely small syllabus: 1) Understand the impact of inflation and design a way to combat it. 2)…
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