Not how many kids listen to their parents. Well, this is not a new problem – 4000 years ago Socrates had this problem too.

I am talking about investing / making education or career choices, making marriage choices…kids blame their parents for everything!

I am not sure if you should ask or listen to you parents in areas that they do not know. When you have a toothache you go to a dentist, right?

If your mother/father said ‘sit down in a chair, I will attend to your toothache – NOT sure how many of YOU will listen to your parent, right?

We do not always listen to our parents when it comes to choosing our life partners. Or what career choices we should make…

However, we are willing to listen to our ‘Papa’ when it comes to investment advice – even though he was a Mining Engineer in Khudremukh?

I know of a SON IN LAW who ‘delegated’ his Equity portfolio handling to his father in law. So far good.

After a few years I saw the portfolio – it had almost all the blue chips -but about 100 shares each. So it had about 20-25 shares for a portfolio of Rs. 300,000.

I asked him on what basis did he buy the shares. He said simple, when a company declared a dividend of say 40%, he would call up the broker and buy that share…BECAUSE HE THOUGHT HE WAS GETTING 40% OF THE AMOUNT INVESTED as a dividend.

The son in law was a top banker.

If you earn your money with a great effort, at least make your money work a little harder!!

  1. Not Surprised.

    Came across a number of people in finance deptt of corporates, bothered about their companies funds lying used, feverishly putting/redeeming money to/from liquid funds Even for 3-4 days, but their OWN funds (lacs if not crores) earning pathetic saving bank interest FOR YEARS TOGETHER.

    Chiraag tale andhera…..?

    Robert Kiyosaki plenty much harped on the same thing. Not agree to all what he says, but here is complete agreement.. Your money should work hard for you.

  2. @wealthucreate,

    Wish things were so simple. Ever compared how many mutual funds have beaten their benchmarks, let alone peers, consistently over say 1yr, 3yr, 5 yr horizon? You will be surprised (and maybe shocked).

    You need to monitor your mutual funds performance too although It is much, much easier than tracking your direct equity portfolio. As they say “Trust in God but always lock your car”.

    Sawaari apne saaman ki khud jimmewaar hai. I, and I ALONE, am responsible for what happens to my investments. Now this is SIMPLE.

  3. Very true Sanjeev. But many take the credit only when things go right, even if unintentionally. And its also true that corporate finance guys aren’t always good at personal finance. Unable to understand.

  4. Hm but didnt he notice after his very 1st transaction that he actually did *not* get back 40% of his invested money as dividend ? And that his simple assumption could be wrong. And he missed noticing this for 25 shares ?

  5. Sanjeev Sir,

    I buy your point. Agree that performance of some of the funds have been not so good.

    The point here is, how many of us can beat the fund managers. Do we have the time and temperment. You may be able to beat him once but not regularly.

  6. People who selectively listen to parents blame them all their life! “I did Engineering because my father told me…I took dowry because my mother asked me to….”

    I am sure these people did not listen to EVERYTHING their parents said…but just a nice way of avoiding responsibility.

    I know one girl who did BSc (mom said do MBBS) then did MBA (dad told her), joined govt service (mom said that is best)…so they choose what is convenient. The blame the parent for what went wrong, that is all.

    that is why I did a post saying ‘Teach Children to think’ ….:-)

  7. i was ‘surprised’ when a banker told me XXX ulip is very good as she had bought it for herself.
    i was ‘shocked’ when i came to know she was not lying 🙂
    the insurance company managed to brain-wash them (despite mba in finance) enough to convert them into a customer, besides an agent…

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