It does not matter how much you earn. It does not matter if you CAN invest like Warren Buffett or like Mukesh Ambani.

IF YOU CANNOT SAVE, YOU ARE SURELY HEADED FOR THE POOR HOUSE.

If you are to take up a job at age 24 and you have to retire at age 58, you have 34 saving/investing years. You need to save and then invest about 15-20% of your income to be able to save and invest towards your goals – mostly retirement. If you did not do this, you are doomed. Completely doomed. We will not get into very deep math in this series, please accept these figures. Those who want more proof and evidence, you know where to find the calculators, right? go and search.

I AM NOT SAYING if you did this you will be SAFELY PROTECTED FOR LIFE, but if you did not do even this much, YOU ARE DOOMED for sure.


However, before I ask you to save let me ask you to get out of all debt. Car loan, credit card loan, personal loan, …all these loans are at a cost higher than what you can reasonably expect from INVESTMENT instruments.

Whatever be your financial position contribute to PPF and if you have voluntary provident fund, please take that. It ensures that there is a constant flow of money into some saving product.

How much returns should one expect in the ‘retirement’ portion of one’s portfolio? If your PPF is growing at 8%, your VPF is growing at a similar percentage, YOU NEED EQUITY FOR THE BALANCE – so that there is some kicker in the portfolio. Also if you are young YOU have a long long time to go. So a combination of mutual funds CLEARLY with a long term view, and on a SIP – top up SIP – which gives a return of (hopefully) of about 12-14% p.a. For the purpose of this series of articles, the word equity fund should be used to mean a large cap well diversified fund a.k.a Index fund.

Actually what matters is what is the REAL RATE RETURN THAT you should get in your total portfolio. You should get a REAL RATE OF RETURN. This means your return should be ‘Nominal return MINUS Inflation’ should be say 2% over a long period – say 40 years and you will create some serious wealth for yourself.

Read books showing how the REAL MILLIONAIRES do not show off their wealth, do not buy luxury products, and lead a simple life – they just have an abundant attitude and ability to attract wealth.

You Can Get Rich too – you need attitude.