First of all let me make a distinction between a saver and an investor. A saver puts his money in instruments which give fixed or very closed to fixed kind of returns. Examples of this are bank fixed deposits, PPF, National savings certificates, Endowment insurance policies, Retirement plans fully in debt instruments, etc. etc. These […]
Most of the Governments of the world have been subsidised by the middle class. Let me explain. The biggest borrower in India is the Government of India – about 80% let us say. Now this government along with the RBI can decide the interest rates for most of us. They decide: at what rate PPF […]
I was talking about frugality to a guy whose knowledge of English does not include this word. Here he was all 29 years of age, not a penny saved, married to a woman who was spending most of her income. Earnings of this couple was in the region of Rs. 20 lakhs per annum and […]
One person came to me saying ‘This is a financial plan that my planner has done, is it good?’. The plan was elaborate – cash flows for 10 years into the future, what product for each goal, rate of return assumption, – all this was there. It ran into 59 pages and could be […]
A friend called me with a surprising question. Let us call him M.D. He bought a house in Navi Mumbai for about Rs. 80 Lakhs, – of this about Rs. 55 lakhs was funded by a loan from the State Bank of India. Over the last 4 years he had paid a lot of interest, […]