Apart from his house he has a liquid net worth or Rs. 67 lakhs. This has to pull him through 2 daughter’s education, their weddings and his old age. He has one house in the South – where his parents are staying – and his father is only 78..and hence, theoretically he can stay for say another 15 years or thereabouts. So the NW calculation has ignored both the houses.

Sadly he is unable to reduce his expenses – and he is more in a state of denial. He has sounded out a few people – his education qualification and experience are both impressive, but he is unable to find a job. Salary compromise he is happy to do, but he still does not have an interview lined up. His elder daughter is planning to do her MBA abroad – and this man has no heart to say he cannot fund it.

His return on his LIC policies is pretty poor – it makes sense for him to surrender them – he has a term insurance enough to cover the home loan – maybe he could take more SOON before the job is lost. If he pays of 30 lakhs of the home loan and if he pushes hard the interest rate could also be brought down asap. As a family they are unable to reduce their expenses – eating out, vacations, etc…are just the same – as if the job is still there. This of course has to stop….but a person of this age should know this. It is not the job of a financial planner to comment on the life style expenses of a client.

Many people have commented about children being in school when he is 53 years of age – his elder daughter is in college and second daughter is in class 12 – and sounds perfectly normal today.

He has no choice, but to dramatically cut down on his expenses…tell his children to get realistic about his education budget..and ask his wife to dramatically downsize the wedding of the children. Sadly, I do not think he can do it.

He has to sell the house and shift to a smaller rented house – and that will put some cash in his hands. Post indexation, there will be no Income tax to pay. I said ‘if you had not bought this house, you would have had more cash in investments’. His wife said ‘if we had not bought this house, we may have spent more’. Clearly when I say ‘do not buy a house, I mean that extra money should go into equities’. However if you are going to spend that money or keep it in bank fixed deposits, you might as well buy a house.

He will have to withdraw from his equity investment when it is good OR he will have to withdraw when he MUST – and that can be painful.

He has to find himself a job – but that is easier said than done. Very remote chances of a 53 year old being able to find a job in such a demanding market.

Well, frankly I have no clue what he will do…….but whatever he does, it will be a struggle…