When you make a fixed deposit, you have already made your first investment. So when you make a fixed deposit, open a recurring deposit, open a PPF account, buy a ULIP, do a SIP in a mutual fund, YOU HAVE A PORTFOLIO!

NOW that you have a portfolio it is necessary to make a list of those investments and keep track of all that in ONE PLACE. Sure, you can keep track if you enter all this in www.valueresearchonline.com, yahoo finance, moneycontrol, Myiris, …there are a lot of choices – ALL FREE.

You could even keep it in excel if you do not trust these websites.

Surely there would be paid options where you can enter all the details of your portfolio – it will keep track of your dividends, interest, capital gains, tracks your expenses, and creates all the documents necessary to file your return.

Why do we need to do this? To know exactly what %age of your money is in which asset class, when you need money what is the sequence of assets to sell, how efficient is your investing, of course filing your IT return, etc. etc.

It is also important that your spouse knows about what you have done (or doing) so that if you drop dead (NOW!!) she will know how to take things forward. Of course it is difficult to be very accurate, but dammit make a start, NOW.