Let us get it right, the real rich do not borrow. Never ever for personal expenses, buying assets or personal INVESTING. Borrowing and investing is a very foolish thing to do for most people. Will a Mukesh Ambani or a Kumar Birla take a personal loan to buy shares? Tough to answer this question? No. […]

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One financial planner met a client and had the following details: A 38 year old man with a daughter from an earlier marriage (age 11) a son from the present marriage (7 years) a housewife, parents needing support and a mother in law dependent on him. (5 complete dependents, daughter partially dependent  – his ex […]

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I have handled this question many times, and have come out with similar answers. However here are some questions which are IRRELEVANT …. 1. How much has the house appreciated by: Many people write in to say ‘I paid Rs. 20L now it is worth Rs. 37 lakhs’…This is completely immaterial. Your house appreciating has […]

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I found a 78 year old man with a very strong balance sheet, but poor P&L account! What does it mean? Well he had a lot of assets – a nice big house which he was not using much, equities, bonds, and of course cash. Life long if you (and me) are brought up saying […]

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When you go to a financial planner you have some expectations, do you not? Let us see what are the legitimate expectations that you can have: – he should be able to articulate your goals more clearly. When you say “I want the best education for my daughter” he should be able to translate that […]

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If we have a debt (or a bill) we normally pay it on time, right? Hey no. Not always do we like to pay our debt or bills. We pay our bills only on the following conditions: 1. We acknowledge it as a debt: I borrow money from friend A and lend to the business […]

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Well there is no real Indian rule of 15, but I have just taken the American Rule of 25 and adapted to Indian conditions… What is the American Rule of 25? Well if you need an income of 100,000 a year and you are not worried too much about the rate of inflation POST RETIREMENT…then […]

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