Basic Finance questions
Forget those long lessons on Brexit, fiscal deficit, government’s budget…can you answer these basic questions about yourself. I mean how accurately can you answer these questions without referring to any piece of paper? Assuming that you are about 30-35 years of age and have some financial footprints…and here are the questions:
How much do you earn per month?
What is your gross annual salary and what is your take home pay?
What is the amount accumulated in your Provident fund account?
What is your net worth?
How much debt are you carrying on yourself today?
In how many mutual funds have you invested?
Can you list them?
Do you know why you choose each of those schemes?
How much is your monthly expense?
Can you break it up into: food, clothing, travel, entertainment, and others?
How much are you investing for a particular goal (I do not invest at all is a correct answer too)?
How much is your monthly payment of debt?
When do you become debt free?
How much are you investing for your retirement?
I am not trying to find out how much of finance you know. The question is how much of personal finance you know about YOURSELF. If you and your wife can answer these questions (Independent of each other and without referring to any paper) YOU are in the top 1% of the country who are financially aware of their personal finances.
Sounds too simple? Get the simple things right. Brexit will take care of itself.
MPSingh
The last paragraph is most appealing (as very often).
Niyaz
Dear Subra sir,
I’ve always had a doubt regarding ‘financial goals’
My contention is that many in my generation (I’m 30) cannot be sure regarding how many kids we’ll have, where in the world we’ll be residing, even the nature of the job we’ll be doing after 30 years. Doesn’t that preclude making even reasonably accurate predictions about retirement fund etc?
I had the same issue when my FP asked me about my goals and I stuck to generic ones like son’s education, sons marriage, retirement fund etc
Any wisdom for me?
Karthik
Me and My wife is part of 1%. Very happy that i am following you and you made me to think to consolidate in one excel all the information ( except details of monthly spend)