It is a terrible idea to open a fixed deposit in your spouse’s name with your money. In general, this arrangement is a terrible idea with any taxable instrument. Terrible, because of the complex way in which the interest income will be taxed. Of course this is applicable only if you are a law abiding…
Continue reading →These are the latest FD calculators: Download the FD calculator (suitable for FD durations in months and years) Update Oct 2013: Download the FD calculator (suitable for FD durations in months and years) with pre-tax and post-tax annualized yield for each month of investment. Download the FD calculator (suitable for FD durations in days) Download…
Continue reading →Part I: A Step-By-Step Guide to Long Term Goal-Based Investing Download the Step-by-Step Goal-Based Investing Calculator Macros need to be enabled. Macro used is derived from Excel Workbook A standard goal calculator is also included for comparison. Part II: The What, Why, How and When of Portfolio Rebalancing Rebalacing Simulator Lite: Suitable for investors unfamiliar…
Continue reading →Rajesh Dalmia a certified financial planner and director of Mandar Learning Academy has authored an impressive do it yourself financial planning guide for investors to understand the basic features of insurance planning and goal-based investing. The guide has four excellent calculation charts that enable one to calculate Necessary life insurance cover Corpus’s needed for retirement,…
Continue reading →‘Conflict of interest’ is a concept poorly understood by most Indians: from the dislodged BCCI chairman for obvious reasons to a school teacher offering private tuition. Conflict of interest also looms large in the Indian financial advisory business. I would bet that more than 95% of financial advisors get remuneration of some sort from mutual…
Continue reading →If you are holding fixed deposits, you could use this calculator to compute: tax you need to pay each financial year after accounting for TDS advance tax instalments to be paid (if applicable) This calculator is a spin-off my recurring deposit calculator which was featured in OneMint. The calculator was requested by Anshu and is…
Continue reading →This summer I am spending quite a bit of time with my 16 year old nephew. He is a philosopher, writer, artist and entrepreneur! He makes money by doing chores for his parents. He makes money by doing drawing assignments and other odd jobs for his friends! When I asked him where this money goes…
Continue reading →Question 2: Name mutual fund types with near zero probability of money-loss? I am big fan of lowering risk and tax. Before I save and invest I try to choose instruments with minimum risk and tax out-go. Of course the type of risk differs: loss-of-money-risk when saving and loss-of-value-risk (or inflation risk) when investing. Choosing…
Continue reading →‘How much risk an investor can take’ and ‘how much risk he should take’ are two very different things. ‘Invest as per your risk appetite’ is half-decent advice. However it is not universally valid. A person who hates equity can choose to avoid it only if he can afford to regularly invest a sizable (often…
Continue reading →One of the first steps towards taking control of ones financial life is to list down all long-term and short-term goals that one needs funds for. The next step is to use a calculator to estimate how much one needs to invest for each goal independently. The results can often be frightening and sometimes even…
Continue reading →Beginning to invest for a long term goal in accordance with a plan is an important first step. Once the investing process is underway, performance of the instruments chosen have to be monitored the portfolio rebalanced the goal plan re-evaluated annually and a few years away from the goal-date a plan to shift funds from…
Continue reading →A recurring deposit (RD) is a terrific instrument for meeting important short-term goals. If I can claim to have some financial discipline it is because I observed my parents open RDs for meeting their short term goals ranging from paying insurance premium to my school fee. For the new generation of investors I guess the…
Continue reading →Use this suite of calculators to compute SIP and lump sum returns, compute SIP corpus and determine SIP amount needed for a goal. This represents an upgrade of my understanding of (a) excel functions and (b) the compounding process. The calculators also help illustrate a common error in converting monthly returns to annual returns. First…
Continue reading →“Applying for term insurance? Be sure to be honest when you apply and disclose all relevant facts. Your (nominees) claim cannot be rejected” Does this advice sound familiar? I have offered it to others myself. The question is, is this advice correct? The answer is ‘Yes’ but … there is no guarantee that the claim…
Continue reading →Recently subra wrote an article on Payoff Mortgage or Invest…continued. Here is a calculator to fortify the argument I have modified my financial freedom calculator to accommodate immediate lump sum investment to the lender to check if that option is better than investing the money for retirement (aka financial freedom) The excel file explains the…
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