Review of Retirement Book “Retire Rich Invest Rs 40 a day”

POSTED BY Jagoinvestor ON August 12, 2010 COMMENTS (66)

How important is Retirement ? If you are not asking this question to yourself today, You are bound to pay for this in future. Thinking about retirement in early age is considered Joke in our country, every body is just running around buying cars, home, may be invest in couple of mutual funds without any plan and buy life insurance, but Planning for retirement is still a very untouched activity. With the advent of “Financial Planning” word in our country, Financial Planners are now doing Retirement Planning for clients , however even that Retirement Planning is not proper Retirement Planning is true sense .

Retirement Planning is a much much more complex process than we think and deserves a lot of effort and time if you want to successfully plan for your Retirement years . We are living in a different era, and uncertainity of not reaching our Target in retirement is much more in these times . We need a much well planned approach and systematic planning for every goal of our life and Retirement is a classic case of it.

PV Subramanyam, a CA by Education and a trainer by Profession has written a wonderful book, named “Retire Rich Invest Rs 40 a day” . I bought this book and read it and here are some of my thoughts on the book.

Review of Book

Easy to Understand : The first thing which amazed me about the book was that it was written in very very simple language, It was easy to understand all the chapters of the book. The book starts with a very nice Introduction of why Retirement is more important in these days to plan and how we under estimate our retirement needs. I am reading Subra’s Blog from a long time now and his way of writing is very different than his way of writing on blog . I must say that I consider his book to be very simple than what I had expected ๐Ÿ™‚

No Complex Calculations : The book gives all the calculations in a easy to implement “tabular” format and its easy for anyone to actually implement the learning from the book without diving into the complex calculations .

Step by Step Guide for self-planning : The book goes through all the steps of retirement planning in easy way and anyone can easily understand and do their Retirement Planning. It would require dedication to really go through the book and understand the various concepts the author has tried to explain. With some effort and dedicated mind its a great way to plan your own retirement.

Good Examples but lacks Graphs/Charts : The book have good examples in between , which woul be very helpful in understanding the chapters and what they try to convey. But if you are a kind of reader who like to see lots of Images/Charts along with text, the book misses on that part.

Introduction of Investment options : While it might sound that the book is only for readers who already know a lot of stuff , Its not true . In between, there is good insight about various investment products one can invest in and it givesย  a fair understanding of what should be the action plan after one plans for his/her retirement.\

Book reading Session in Pune

There is a book reading session conducted in Pune on this coming Sunday on 15th Aug and Subra mailed me personally to invite all the readers of this blog who wants to join them . The entry is FREE .

When : Sun , 15th Aug , 10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Where : Season’s Hotel , Aundh, Pune (Map)

You can meet PV Subramanyam and Deepa Venkatraghavan, Editor Moneycontrol.com there . I would say who ever can go should definately go to the Book reading session and make the most out of it .

Buy the Book

You can now get the book shipped FREE to your Home at Rs 299 , and thats 25% discount on the price, Click to buy , Buy the Book : Retire Rich Invest from Flipkart.com

Buy from Infibeam : 30% Discount (Thanks to Rakesh for the link)

Conclusion

I am not an expert on any topic by any means and this review should be taken as my views on the book only. Overall The book is very good and is recommended to all. While the book targets people at any stage of life , Its must have for people who are in early stage of their life.

66 replies on this article “Review of Retirement Book “Retire Rich Invest Rs 40 a day””

  1. Rakesh says:

    Hi Manish,

    Now we can get the book at homeshop18 for 239/-

    That’s a good deal. We can save 15% more than the flipkart

    1. Great … thanks for updating us !

  2. Anil says:

    Hi Manish, I got to know about Jagoinvestor.com last week while searching on Best Term Plans on net and am getting impressed. However guess there is lot of archives and not sure how much time i will take to browse all entries and hence thoy to give a shot by checking with you of related posts for my queries. I am specifically interested in below :
    1) Best Mutual funds in today sceneario under various categories
    2) Term Insurance plans
    3) Medical insurance plans

  3. Mahesh says:

    Sunil,

    I have read the books under the Happionaire series – Invest The Happionaire Way (even the new soft-cover one with the extra preface) as well as Happionaire’s Cash The Crash and I suggest you immediately read it. You will realize how to look at investing from a totally new perspective, and you really can’t call yourself an investor if you haven’t read it. I benefited a lot from the first book, because it got me started in the journey of investing. But Cash The Crash gave me a lot of insight to benefit from every time something negative happens.

    Regards,

    1. Mahesh

      Thanks for giving the info on the book ,. I have also not read that book , will look at it soon !

      Manish

  4. Sunil says:

    Hello Manish,
    I want to know your comments on the below books.. could you please let me know befor atually buying them.

    Author : Yogesh Chabria

    Happionaires Cash The Crash
    Happionaire

    1. Sunil

      I have not read the book , but i have heard that its good for whatever its purpose is .

      Manish

  5. subramanyam says:

    Milind you are right. However do you expect the impact of one book to be such that EVERYBODY in the country will start doing that? Well even a Prime Minister who is so good cannot have such an impact on his own cabinet! Using your own argument if all individuals spent all the money the economy would be still greater? Actually no. Not at all. This is the American thought process, and is wrong.

    And my argument is create your corpus. If somebody wants to smoke 20 cigarettes a day, well it is his choice. I benefit as a shareholder of ITC, and the smoker benefits, he will not need a retirement corpus.

  6. Milind Kotibhaskar says:

    Dear Manish,

    I purchased the book and have read it. Of course , the book is quite good and guides us about retirement planning but I have a specific comment. In the chapter 5 ( Retire reach by Investing Rs 40 a day ), the author gives some suggetions about how to raise Rs 40 per day. These suggetions include,
    1. Stop smoking ( very good suggetion from health point only )
    2. Do not visit the restaurants.
    3. Avoid shopping
    4. Use Energy carefully and save money ( again a very good suggetion from Green earth point only ).

    Ok. Now my simple question is . If the Indian consumer stops doing all of above things and starts saving money, how are we going to expect a return of 18 and 21 percent from the equities? I mean if we stop buying things, spending money, how the companies will make profits, how new jobs will be generated, how te economy will grow? When I was young, owning a car was a big thing and ordinary salary man like me could not afford a car. Today, the young employees working under me are having better cars than me. That is why Indian economy is growing and equities are able to give good returns.

    So I feel that the author should not harp on saving but simply state the fact that readers should manage to raise Rs 40/80/120 per day.

    What is your opinion Manish?

    1. Milind

      You have co-related your small savings with growth of economy with tightly ๐Ÿ™‚ . These small savings like stopping smoking or restricting visits to restaurant will not limit the growth of economy, because firstly its not going to impact the growth in huge quantam ๐Ÿ™‚ and other part is it will be done by a small section of society who is smart enough to implement these point . the book is read by just 50,000 people till date . so out of crores of people in India its just few thousands who will do these things .

      I think it will not impact the growth in any way.

      Manish

  7. N.BHARANIDHARAN says:

    Hi This is bharani. I want to buy the book “Retire Rich Invest Rs.40/- per day.

    Kindly suggest me how to get the book.

    Waiting for your Reply at the earliest.

    Regards,
    N.BHARANIDHARAN

    1. You have two options

      Either click on the link at the bottom and it will take you to a website where you can pay online and the book will come to your home at Rs 270

      OR

      second option is to buy the book from some physical store like crossword at Rs 400 .

      Manish

  8. Tarun Jain says:

    Just got “Retire Rich: Invest Rs. 40 a dayโ€ via Flipkart…

    I am impressed .. Hardcover binding, glossy paper and effective contest in simple language, all in just 277 Rs at my door step in 36 hours of ordering ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Tarun

      Nice to hear that .. but you didnt wait for results of forum winner ๐Ÿ™‚ . May be you could have saved this ? hehe

      manish

    2. T.S.ASHOK says:

      Hi,

      I got through “infibeam” for Rs.200 within a week.. Started Reading.. Nice..I am reading very slowly as I need to follow..

      1. wow 200 is a good price . Seems like they are clearing the stock now !

        Manish

  9. Balbir says:

    Hi Manish,

    I am curios to know the investment option for the senior citizen (60+ age). Usually they get the lump-sum amount from PF after their retirement. I understand that investment on this age group should be done in the debt fund and should not be too exposed to the equity market. I am wondering if I can recommend ‘UTI Mahila unit’ fund as debt fund to my relatives (senior citizen). I also heard post office has 9% interest rate for the senior citizen.

    Please let me know if you have written some article on this topic also ๐Ÿ™‚

    The basic thing need to consider the security of capital and handsome consistent return, may be Monthly income.

    Please let me know know on your recommendation on how to proceed in this.

    Thank you,
    Balbir

    1. Balbir

      Its not mandatory that one should have money in debt fund , at the end its all about how much confortable a person is with equity , a person like Subra (subramoney.com) is older enough (aourd 50+ my guess) and still have 95% + in equity and even in his retirement I am sure it would be 80%+ .

      So if a person is knowledgable and comfortable , they can stay in equity .
      But as this is not true with most of the people , we like to say that old = debt ๐Ÿ™‚ .

      Senior citizen saving scheme is the one you are talking about which gives 9% , one can park the money there but its for limited period of 5 yrs (extendible with 3ys ). UTI mahila scheme is debt oriented , not purely debt fund , so equity element is also there , but for a not very conservative person it would be a ok investment .

      Manish

  10. subramanyam says:

    Ujwal,

    One of the thumb rules (and I hate them!) is to say you require 50 times your annual expenses at retirement. That means you require about Rs. 3 crores. This will fetch you an income of approximately 15 lakhs – post tax. After using 6 lakhs, the balance has to be added back to the corpus…

    1. for what age group this applies to ? around 30 ? what about 45+

      Manish

  11. Ujjwal says:

    Manish/ Subramanyam,

    I am 45 and want to retire when I am 50. I have my wife( she is 44) and we do not have any kid. Our life expectancy is 85 years. Our monthly expenses are about 50K. I have no pension.
    What should be my target Retirement corpus considering we need cashflow from the retirement corpus for the next 35 years.

    1. Ujjwal

      You have less time in hand, and you have not mentioned what is your current worth . It would depend on a lot of things, I would suggest you buy subra book and do self planning . It not too much work ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

  12. Subramanyam says:

    try ebay and infibeam. Somebody said he has bought it from ebay…not sure though ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Yes, they sell outside india , I got this

      Manish

  13. sukumaran says:

    i think infibeam delivers it ….not sure..here is the linke..

    http://www.infibeam.com/Books/info/network-18-publications-p-ltd/retire-rich-invest-rs-40-day/9789380200071.html
    infibeam has a list of countries where it will deliver..

    Deliverable Countries: This product ships to United Arab Emirates, Antigua, Austria, Australia, Barbados, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bahrain, Bahamas, Bhutan, Canada, Switzerland, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Dominca, Egypt, Spain, Finland, Fiji, France, United Kingdom, Grenada/Carricou, Greece, Guyana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland (Irish Republic; Eire), Israel, India, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Kuwait, Cayman Islands, Sri Lanka, Luxembourg, Monaco, Mali, Montserrat, Mauritius, Maldives, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Nepal, New Zealand, Oman, Philippines, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Yemen, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Singapore, St. Kitts/Nevis, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Trinidad and Tobago, Taiwan, United States, Saint Vincent, South Africa, Zimbabwe.

    1. Great

      Thanks nice to know ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

  14. kamlesh says:

    Subra/Manish,

    Do you have the book available for sell for an overseas (indian)crowd. Through amazon or some other online merchant ?

    kamlesh

    1. Kamlesh

      Right now , there is not a way to get it out of india , you will have to ask someone to carry it for you ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

    2. subramanyam says:

      there are some websites like infibeam, and perhaps flipkart which might ship it for you. Or there is always the trusted ebay!

  15. subramanyam says:

    Manish,

    Pattu is one person with an IQ of 140+ – now I have warned you :). Pattu Franklin Templeton has a calculator on their website and so does I Pru. Check the difference in their final answers. Too many calculators are available and it makes the reader either too scared or too cocky. Frankly calculators are sales tools – unless a prof. of IIT creates it (sorry I had to take a dig). One more issue is that in imperfect sciences like Economics, markets, etc. excel projections are a joke – assumptions are vague and go wrong. Read my article in MoneyMantra about illustrations, you will know what i Mean. Manish – Pattu reads Markowitz’s Nobel Prize winning paper on volatility – do i need to say more?

    1. Subra

      Thanks , I got that , Will go through that volatility paper : http://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/~zhouxy/download/mvjump_part2.pdf ,. correct me if its a different one .

      Manish

        1. Gowri

          Thanks for the link ๐Ÿ™‚

          Manish

  16. pattu says:

    I know the formulae involved (in any case one has your calculators). My point is if the formulae were included in an appendix then one can arrive at a corpus. At present its difficult using the book since I feel the excel instructions are unclear.
    A formulae will make a calculation precise.

  17. pattu says:

    I got Shubra’s books only to find out what to do with the corpus when you retire. I got it after Shubras response to your post
    http://jagoinvestor.dev.diginnovators.site/2010/05/how-to-think-about-retirement-planning-video.html

    There is one chapter on this which is good. However aspects like annuity/FD ladders which he mentions in the comment, are not covered. Of course not all aspects can be covered since the book aims at the layman.

    I have one major criticism: No formulae are given for calculating corpus. Steps to use excel are given which are not clear without screenshots.
    I think an online calculator link should be provided. The tabular format helps get an estimate only with several assumptions which may not be valid for all.

    I hope Shubra writes a more advanced followup book. May have difficulty with publishers I guess!

    1. Pattu

      I think subra didnt put the formula’s as they would be sacry one’s as fas as i know . He might wanted to make it simple and very easy for people to calculate so he provided tables which one can refer of his situation .

      If you need formula’s you can find it out , or let me know i will give you those .

      Subra , any comments on Pattu reponse ?

      Manish

  18. Joseph Anand says:

    Hello Manish,
    I wish to congratulate you for all your articles on PERSONAL FINANCE . Needless to say, they are written in simple language that every Tom, Dick and harry can understand easily. I expect more such articles from you.

    1. Joseph

      Thanks ๐Ÿ™‚ . will keep writing on this ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

  19. Chandra says:

    is there anyway we can get soft copy of the book.

    1. Chandra

      No , there is no soft copy of this book

      Manish

  20. Subramanyam says:

    the best fund to hold for a life time is a company called Tata Investment Corporation – do some research and you will know why.

    1. I will do my homework to study it ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

    2. dilip says:

      Subra,

      Please let us know the reasoning for Tata Investment Corporation being a good holding. Open the secret box! ๐Ÿ™‚

      thanks

      Dilip

    3. Kaval says:

      subra,

      we are waiting for answer. Please don’t keep the fingers crossed

      1. Kaval

        I think you should do your own research on the topic, You someone wants to eat the fruit , its better to pluck it on its own ๐Ÿ™‚

        Manish

        1. subramanyam says:

          i agree with Manish..look at websites only for getting hints, not for cooked meals. Pick the balance sheet of Tata Inv Corp and it screams a buy…websites cannot do a detailed analysis..anyway if you wish to invest you need to do it yourself..

        2. T.S.ASHOK says:

          Manish,

          This is not fund. This is a stock. Am I right. Please correct me..

          1. Yes

            Seems to be a stock , because subra said “balance sheet” .

            Manish

  21. Prashant says:

    Hi Manish,
    I liked your earlier topic “List of Best Equity Diversified Mutual Funds for 2009”

    Could you please write the same for year 2010? Appreciate if you could highlight best 2010 Mutul funds etc.
    Thank you

    1. Prashant

      Will do that soon

      Manish

  22. Rakesh says:

    My apologies.
    Usually my posts appear instantly, today i had waited for over 30 minutes and still it did not appear, i was wondering why?

    Rakesh

    1. Rakesh

      Sometimes , the comment might need my manual approval and I might have a look at it after 12 hours , so its fine to wait for some hours sometimes ,may be a day ๐Ÿ™‚ .

      Generally it does not happen ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

  23. Rakesh says:

    Manish,

    Do you get commission from Flipkart, i have been trying to post another link giving 30% discount which would benefit fellow members but the same is not getting posted. However other general message is getting posted.

    What to expect?

    1. Rakesh

      Calm ๐Ÿ™‚ . Your message is not getting posted because any comment with a link will go in SPAM if its your first time link pointing in comment .
      I have configured it that way to fight spamming, I manually marked it as “no-spam” right now , so now it will appear .

      Manish

  24. Rakesh says:

    My comments are not getting posted

  25. Rakesh says:

    Manish,

    Thanks for the article, I am a regular at Subra’s blog and his posts are very good and informative. By the way is there a way we can buy the soft-copy instead of hard-copy, its very easier to read soft-copy.
    Infibean is offering 30% discount on this book @ Rs. 279 that’s a savings of Rs.120. Quite a bargain.
    Below is the link –

    http://www.infibeam.com/Books/info/network-18-publications-p-ltd/retire-rich-invest-rs-40-day/9789380200071.html

    Rakesh

    1. Great ๐Ÿ™‚ . You saved 5% more ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

  26. Kshitij says:

    Hi,
    As I alway said, I like your blog.. ๐Ÿ™‚
    What type of investment do you suggest for retirement planning? Is pension fund way consider in retirement planning? if yes, then suggest good funds.

    I have read your articals about equity diversified funds, balance funds and debts fund. I would like to invest in these type of funds. But Now market has on the peek, mutual funds on thier highest NAV. So do you think, is it right time to invest in funds? if yes/no, why?

    Waiting for your comments.. May be many of investors like me has same question. This may help you to write new chapter in your blog..

    ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Ujjwal says:

      Dear Kshitij,

      I am sure Manish will comment. But here are some small comments from my side.

      I suggest you buy this book and then do a proper retirement planning. For example , do you know how much corpus you will need when you retire? This will depend on your expected lifestyle, inflation and life expectancy etc Once you have a target figure and you have assessed your other financial goals like childrenโ€™s’ education /marriage etc you can have a strategy to save a certain amount to reach your goal.

      I suggest direct investment in equity mutual fund as in case of a pension fund you are locked to that fund for long period. Over a long period funds performance do vary and thus if you invest in equity funds you can switch from bad funds to good funds on a yearly basis.

    2. Kshitij

      You should really invest in learning these stuffs ๐Ÿ™‚ for few months/year so that you are self dependent and confident. Retirement is a long term goal , Equity should be the main driver behind that goal , You can choose to invest in equity diversified funds or Pure equity if you can research well and pick some good stocks (a small part only , if you are not that comfortable) .

      There are some pension mutual funds you can take them also for long term . More than what you should do , its important to understand what you should not do . Dont take endowment plans , of put in PPF for you retirement (atleast not 100%) , dont buy unit linked pension plans if you cant do switching efficitenly .

      If you are investing for long term each month , they these questions like markets are on high ,is it right time to invest and all these things are all rubbish ๐Ÿ™‚ . Dont get into it , just take actions ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

    3. Hi Kshitij,

      Dont worry about the markets being at the peak. Just start making regular monthly investments through a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP). Even if the markets fall your costs will get averaged (Rupee Cost Averaging). And as Manish rightly said retirement planning is long term planning so dont worry about the short term peaks and falls. In the long run equities have given better returns than any other asset class. So go for equity mutual funds.

      Best Regards
      Gopal Gidwani

  27. Pingback: | Subramoney
  28. Subramanyam says:

    Manish,

    thanks a lot of nice words! No charts, no pictures – guilty as charged.

    The biggest worry about a book is it is static. For example if a simple notification comes saying all the NPS balance will be automatically transferred to the Senior Citizen fund, it would be a great scheme, but in the book I could not say too much about the scheme.

    Similarly somebody told me there should have been a chapter on equity trading. Believe me writing a book for children, adults, retirement, investments, mutual funds, etc. it is very, very important to keep it pure. For example cannot write too much about retirement if I am writing a book for children. Or the book gets to bulky – again challenging the buyer. Hence the format. However let me warn the people that this book should be treated as a pointer – at the ground it is your friend / planner WHO KNOWS YOU, I can only write generic stuff. That is why there are examples with disclaimers.

    Thanks Manish….thanks a lot.

    1. Subra

      I agree about the book being static , but I am sure there will be editions every now and then and those changes can be incorporated . Anyways it wont solve the whole problem . I think readers should take learnings out of a book rather than the facts and rules which are bound to change. At the end of the day one should read the book to change his perception and not knowledge building , in this era internet is the best place (and worst also in some way) to build your knowledge about something . I think you are mainly concerned for a scenario when one readers a book and the same book goes to person B who is now reading the old book , I dont think thats a very big issue ๐Ÿ™‚

      Manish

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