I am not sure whether this is a compliment or an insult, but a CFP told me ‘what i like about your blog is you tell people what I love to tell, but cannot’.

Ok let me summarize some of the shocking things that a financial planner would like to tell his/ her client, but will not.

1. You ask for so much details about this investment that I am suggesting, tell me you….. do you have any clue what returns are you getting on your existing portfolio? I mean do you have any clue?

2. You like subramoney.com so much for being ‘on your face’ but why the ……. do you have 4 ulips?

3. When in hell did you ask me before you committed to buying that second house? For me it is a fait accompli is it not?

4. With such a small pension SIP that you are doing you Should be lucky if your son, daughter or somebody else will look after you.

5. You claim to be a genius in marketing – hey that does not mean you understand an iota of finance. In fact you do not.

6. Stop calling it your Rs. 2.5 crore house. Your dad paid Rs. 18000 for it. You inherited it. It is very different from earning Rs. 9 crores paying tax, supporting a lifestyle and paying EMI to buy a house costing Rs. 2.5 crores.

7. Of course you can retire tomorrow if you can sell your house in Santacruz, invest the money in a smaller house in Baroda, and eat daal and rice for the rest of your life. And ha! forget about falling ill. If you want to live in Mumbai – in the same house, your pension fund has to have one extra zero. Period. Do not argue.

8. Sure you can go to a Municipal hospital and get admitted – the support system you need to go there, stand in a queue, deal with them etc. is so tough to obtain that you may find it cheaper to go to a private hospital.

9. Old age care? What if it is available? you cannot afford it.

10. Insurance? of course you will not need it. You will not fall ill or die early – why waste premium? I agree with you. Please do not quote me outside that is all.

 

  1. Oh la la la…i wish, i wish, i wish my financial planner says ALL these things to my husband….Gawd we needed it 10 years ago. Had a good job, but still have ZERO net worth if you ignore the pf, ppf and house.

  2. Subra Sir,
    The problem is how many CFP dare to say this to a client who is or maybe paying him, I have seen the CAs scolding client like hell but CFP scolding client very tough…..

    I believe that CFP is a very difficult business to sustain,it is a good side business or a good hobby for do gooders but you need a main income source to do this, The people who are doing it can not in right sense of mind censure their client for all of his idiotic behaviour for which CFP is at no fault.

    But then this is life is it not…..

    Happy New Year

  3. Subra,

    For Point 6) , if he has inherited the house fair and square, it’s his 2.5 crore house. So what if his dad paid for it? Not seeing the point here.

  4. a person earning Rs. 10 lakhs and staying in a Rs. 2.5 crore flat and a person earning Rs. 100 lakhs and staying in a Rs. 2.5 crore flat have a completely diff attitude towards money.

  5. Subrabhai, a gentle addition– Baroda real estate is pricy these days, not what it was in the 1960’s. Plus medical care is expensive, not terribly good–they don’t seem to have a concept of continuing cases, you pay a freshers fee every three montbs.

  6. Point-2 taken.I think you are not in favour of ulips. Why ?The article has got valid points. Points to make us sit & organize our financial life,while we can.The article does not surprise me but awakens me ( I hope).

  7. personally, i learnt only from the school of hard knocks. ie losing a job .luckily i was only 25 and had no dependents. in anycase, most of us will awake only when it is too late

  8. sir…i wish i wish i wish i had a financial planner who told MY HUSBAND all of this..He just does not listen to me, and smokes a packet a day…I really wish we had somebody like you screaming at us…and telling us all this.

    if wishes were horses…well we are beggars for sure!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>