“Uncle I am just starting my Articles for doing CA and since I get a stipend I wish to start saving Rs. 1000 a month”

It was a 19 year old girl who made this statement…and I was really impressed. So I had to take this conversation ahead.

First her background. Her parents are also savers and investors so this girl has heard words like mutual funds, sip, equity funds, risk, insurance, etc. Her father is also a CA and there are a few CAs in the family – which means investing, corporate finance, etc. is a part of the dinner / lunch table talk.

She had done some reading and wanted me to select a fund for me. I said ‘find your own fund’ but I will help you with 3 fund houses. She found her own fund, and that too was good. There is a far greater pleasure in teaching than in sales. So the learning had started on a good footing. I asked her what her goals were.

Her goals were very typical of a upper middle class kid. She wanted to go to an Ivy League college to do her MBA – but she would consider IIM A or ISB also. She knew it would cost her Rs. 100 lakhs if she were to do it abroad and she would fund it through dad funding, scholarships, and a loan co-signed by her Mama (an US citizen).

She wanted to earn for a few years at least in the USA so that she could repay her loans, and fund her travel to the US and Europe. She would then join a big 4 firm and work in US, China, Hongkong, Dubai before she came back to India. She was already learning Chinese as a second language/ hobby – saying this could enhance her chance of getting a China posting.

She wanted to do a sip of a small amount so that she could learn to live on her earnings (small her stipend was Rs. 8k per month, but her dad was spending on her anyway). No expensive phones (uncle anything more than Rs. 8k for a phone is a criminal waste), no expensive dresses (which was anyway being funded by well to do parents), …and this kid was hoping to fund at least Rs. 2L of her requirement from her savings / investment. She was clear that she did not want PPF (too boring too long – for your gen types not for me), no bank FD (too boring), and she did not need ELSS.

She wanted to do a sip which would AUTOMATICALLY go up by Rs. 500 every year – this eliminated Franklin Templeton – because they do not have an auto top up. This brought her to Icici and Hdfc.

She dilly dallied and then chose Icici Pru Discovery fund – realizing that it is for a life time kind of an investment – she would suspend investing if she became an NRI !!

I deal with many kids, but so much of clarity at 19? I guess maturity and clarity have nothing to do with age. A 16 year old Sachin Tendulkar was mature and his friend at 43 is still acting like a baby.