For many of us who write or talk about money, there are some short cuts we use -heuristic – if you may!

Let us look at some of the things…

1. To be able to save you need a budget: This is right and wrong. The word budget unfortunately like the word diet, exercise, discipline, etc. has a negative tone to it. So let us look at it in a different way. You need to be able to put together some money for your goals. So when you write down your goals, say it loud and ask yourself how it feels. For example “I want to learn Sanskrit” or “I want to learn Swimming” sound very nice to me. However, I do not allot any time (or energy) towards this. I have let many chances pass by. So somewhere I am asking myself “is it REALLY my goal”. If it is my goal why am I not allotting any ENERGY towards it? (Time, I have a lot of it). The way to look at your money available is to ask yourself “Am I allotting to things that I have towards a goal”. If yes, you are doing fine. If no, you need to re-prioritize your goals. Check goals that you are doing for society. If you do not like them, give it up, it will de-stress you. Clearly, if it does not work, it is not for you. Forcing yourself to budget sounds good, but if you do not like it, it will backfire like your last diet plan.
2. Follow this formula: Too many people – especially the so called experts who have not met say 1000 INVESTORS at least on a one-one basis, bluff. They tell you “this worked for me, so it will work for you”. Bullshit. Complete bullshit. What works in diet is true in financial life too. One sure fire way of losing weight (and turning healthy) is to give up white sugar, packaged foods, and dairy products. Not all of us can give these up just one fine morning. Many of us struggle. Maybe for you the way forward is to REDUCE consumption slowly. Maybe create cheat days – say I will eat sugar only on Sundays – or stuff like that. Every person is not the same. Some people are different. They need the same solution packaged in a different way. I have been investing in equities since 1979. Now it comes easy for me to look at the market and say “its a sector rotation, not a market crash”. However, if you have bought NBFC shares EVEN ON ITS WAY DOWN, you might be sitting on a 15% capital loss and wondering what to do. I may have bought more, or even sold, with a clear mandate to buy at a slightly lower level. Equity investing is about luck, luck, skill, emotion, and math. In that order.
3. I did not get into debt, so you too should not. Well I never ever borrowed to buy an office (Harshad Mehta ki Jai ho, he had taken my portfolio to stratosphere, so I bought an office by selling some shares of Gillette, Mazda, ACC, Siemens), house, car, …NEVER borrowed. However, for you it might be a different scenarios. YOU have to battle YOUR life priorities. I cannot tell you “I did it, so can you”. It is like telling a smoker “it is all about will power”. Actually tobacco addiction is really tough to fight. Stop telling people “if you have the will power you can pay off all your debt”. People struggle to pay off debt. People are emotional about debt. People go into debt paying for some loved one’s medical expenses. If you don’t know all that, shut up your goddamn mouth. You have no business advising. Talking to people about using their will power is easy. Actually using it to get good results – moneywise or healthwise is not exactly easy.

Actually there are more – much more of course, but 3 is what people remember! and 650 words is the tops of what people read.