The 4% withdrawal rule for retirement planning assumes excessive equity allocation (50-75%), which makes it impractical. To make this worse, the 4% rule is often misunderstood and misapplied, so it is not a useful tool for retirement planning for most people. Here is an alternative idea. What is a safe withdrawal rate? The safe withdrawal…
Continue reading →In this article, SEBI RIA Abhishek Kumar reviews SEBI’s Draft Circular on Revised MF Categorisation Rules. About the author: Abhishek is part of a freefincal’s curated list of fee-only financial advisors and a fee-only India member. He can be contacted via his website, sahajmoney.com. If 8 out of 10 stocks in your funds are the same, are you diversified or…
Continue reading →Last year, when we published the Unified Pension Scheme vs National Pension Scheme Calculator, many readers were surprised that we used a single formula to determine future NPS corpus by treating it as a step-up SIP. Since then, several users of that tool have asked us to explain the formula. So here are the details….
Continue reading →The mutual fund industry frequently discusses how a specific fund or fund category is an “alternative” to a fixed deposit. Is this true? Which mutual fund is a good alternative to a fixed deposit? The short and factually correct answer is none! No mutual fund or fund category is a substitute for a bank FD….
Continue reading →These are the mutual fund taxation rules for FY 2025-2026. These are derived from Manmohan Sethumadhavan’s fantastic Capital Gains Taxation Rules Ready Reckoner for FY 2025-2026. Surcharge and cess rates are to be added to the tax rates shown below. Equity-oriented MF (>= 65% Domestic Equity Shares) Investments redeemed on or after 23 July 2024…
Continue reading →I have been investing for my son’s future (college and other expenses) since Dec 2009 – a month before he was born (He is 15 now). Here are some lessons from this journey. When I started investing for this goal, money management basics were almost in place, except for term insurance, which I got a…
Continue reading →This is a debt mutual fund screener for portfolio selection, tracking, and learning. It also includes hybrid funds that invest in bonds. It will satisfy investors who wish to invest in money market funds, banking PSU funds, etc. The credit quality of the bonds in the portfolio and the bond maturity profile can be tracked….
Continue reading →Super top-up health insurance is designed to cover medical expenses that exceed a certain limit the d. Given the continuous rise in medical costs and the complexity of medical tests and procedures today, having extensive medical insurance coverage is crucial. However, while purchasing super top-up insurance is necessary, buyers must be aware of an important…
Continue reading →Sebi-registered investment advisor Abhishek Kumar offers a balanced, data-driven perspective on a social media post that claimed index funds are “guaranteed” to underperform the market. About the author: Abhishek is part of a freefincal’s curated list of fee-only financial advisors and a fee-only India member. He can be contacted via his website, sahajmoney.com. The “Guaranteed Underperformance” Myth The assertion that…
Continue reading →Two communities know the benefits of approaching a SEBI-registered fee-only financial planner who charges a flat rate (not a percentage of your assets): freefincal readers and members of the FB group Asan Ideas for Wealth. More than 1000 freefincal readers are working with the advisors on the site’s curated list. However, even in these communities,…
Continue reading →A social media post last week had a striking banner: “From 1 July 2025, IRDAI allows health-insurance claims for hospital stays as short as two hours.” SEBI RIA Abhishek Kumar explains what changed and what didn’t. About the author: Abhishek is part of a freefincal’s curated list of fee-only financial advisors and a fee-only India member. He can be…
Continue reading →This index fund screener is based on tracking error and returns difference wrt benchmarks (aka tracking difference). It will help users evaluate how efficiently an index fund has tracked its underlying benchmark. It will also help them understand how tracking a midcap index or the Nifty 100 or 500 differs from tracking the Sensex or…
Continue reading →In this edition of the reader story, “Two years ago, I made a decision that reshaped my relationship with money, risk, and peace of mind. Last year, I shared how after losing six months’ worth of income in futures and options (F&O) trading, I stepped away from the chaos and adopted systematic investing. It wasn’t…
Continue reading →A reader has pointed out an error in the Capital Gains Ready Reckoner regarding the indexation of listed and unlisted bonds/debentures. According to the 4th Proviso under Section 48, indexation is not available for debentures/bonds. Abdul says, “In your Freefincal capital gains tax ready reckoner, there is an error regarding the Indexation on the Listed…
Continue reading →This ETF screener is based on tracking errors and differences (ETF return minus index return). It will help users evaluate how efficiently an ETF has tracked its underlying benchmark. The tracking error is the ETF’s standard deviation minus index monthly return differences. The lower the tracking error, the more efficient the ETF is in following…
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