Category: Psychology and Wisdom

Do you know how to write your financial goals? How many lines or words does it take? Think about your retirement goal for a moment. Now if you thought, “I have to generate a corpus of 5 crores in next 30 yrs” is a goal, you are mistaken… to a really large extent! While this way of defining goals is better than not defining a goal at all, this is not how you’d do it if you want to be inspired each moment as you work towards that goal. After a point, you’d just be lost again in your daily life. There is another way of writing financial goals and today, I show you how to do just that.
 

Let me ask you a simple question. When are you excited about watching a new upcoming movie? What if I tell you that there is a new movie out soon, called “Kuch Log”? Will this tiny bit of information do anything in your mind? Does it excite you any? Does it inspire you to go to theatre and watch the movie? No! .

But what if I show you a trailer? Some exciting snapshots of the actual movie that give you a feel of how it will look like? The best tantalising glimpses?  Won’t it then, create a shift in your mind and motivate you to actually consider watching the whole movie?  I’d say Yes! . In the same way your financial goals defined in just one dry, boring line, with a target amount & date can not motivate you enough. It can motivate only those people who really are disciplined and committed in life .

In this article, I’ll share something very personal about us at Jagoinvestor. This process, is what we do with our clients. The way we work with them, goes way beyond traditional financial planning. Instead of just goal setting in the traditional way, we do something additional called Goal Visualization! . Goal Visualization is converting your target amount and target date into a more descriptive paragraph and see how your life will be in future . It gives you more clarity and what you actually want your goal to look like .

Here’s an example…

Year : 2040

I am retired now, and living in my native town of Bangalore. My house is a little far away from the city because I like to spend most of time in nature related activities like hobby farming and some social causes like consulting with poor farmers on how can they use today’s technology in their work.

I am trying to get back to my routine work, these days, as I’ve just returned from Australia , where I spent a month-long holiday. Next year’s destination is South Africa which recently got added to my list as the next world cup is there! I have all the time now, to go watch my country win there. It will also give my wife a chance to explore various historical sites of that country, which she loves a lot. Its part of my “30 countries I visit before I die” target that I had set for myself.

It gives me immense pleasure and satisfaction, when I teach mathematics to a group of 30 poor students who can’t afford a fee! That’s exactly I am doing these days. As I am retired now and really love the subject, I want to help in sharing my knowledge any way I can.

Me and my wife go for a daily walk in the morning; we have been doing it for years now, the last 20-25 years in fact. We have made sure that we won’t be victim of deteriorating health which will make all the money we have saved, all our lives fruitless! We have always done our best to keep ourselves on the move and now we have joined one the biggest health clubs in the city. It’s cost us more than 70 lacs for a lifetime membership, but it’s been worth the cost and it gives us all the time and resources we need from it, whenever we visit it.

I have generated enough wealth in my life which takes care of my basic needs and luxuries in life. I never have to think twice, before buying  something important. Money does not come in the way of my leading the kind life which I always dreamt of! I have achieved this! While I like to live simply, I have created a situation where money is the last thing which I have to worry about, as far as my life is concerned.

I have spent most of the time working for software giants across India and US, and  I never felt as if “This is exactly what I want to do!” Now I am free of those worries, which came in the way of  my desired life. I feel I am really spending each day of my life the way I always wanted to, not the way I am forced to because of various reasons in life. I am happy!”

Goal Visualization is not Dreaming

Goal visualization is not dreaming ! . You need to have a visions in life and this goal visualization is looking at how your vision will look like in future . Remember that Dhirubhai Ambani never had a goal of have 5 crore in retirement , He had a vision and that vision inspired him each moment in his life to move forward. To do anything which makes his vision true .

Goal Visualization gives you the power, it inspires you ! . It makes you crave for your financial goal which you create for yourself. You will not believe but most of our clients discover themselves and are amazed to find out how they themselves wanted their future life to be , and it happens only after they approach us to work on their financial life. There is less of number crunching here and more of human activities which connect to a person , motivates them and fills them with energy.

Your Action today after doing Goal visualisation

When you do goal visualization, go into the future and see yourself – Are you are happy? Excited to see yourself getting what you really want?  Then, come back to reality (come back to NOW). The next step is to answer a bigger and important question. You now, have to write what commitments are you willing to make, what efforts are ready to do today which can lead you to the goals you want for yourself.

It goes a little like this…

Year : 2011 ( Today)

I was actually thinking of upgrading my car from Santro to Honda as my salary has gone up by 100% in last 3 yrs, but If I look closely now, I feel that it was a “wish” created out of nothing. It’s not actually a  “need” !.  If I ask myself whether it’s really required, I see myself answering “Not Really”. I can actually continue with same Santro for next 3-4 years. Better that I, use my increased income to reach my retirement goal at the earliest.

My wife has subscribed to a gym membership but her trips to the gym are very limited. On second thoughts, we will stop paying 3,000 per month fees and better use Rs 150 per day pass every time she goes. Anyway she goes about twice a week, so it would save 1,800 bucks without compromising what we are doing right now. It’s just that we have to relook things and restructure them.

I save around Rs 5,000 a month, but after doing the goal visualization exercise, now I am committed to achieve it at any cost. I am not just committed, reaching my financial goals is my sole focus now. I will car-pool, I will cut on my smoking, I will limit my outings (at least the ones that do not matter), & I will cut down wherever I really can.  I will not compromise on things which I love or add to my family lifestyle and happiness, but I will be really merciless when it will come to things which I truly don’t want in my life. I will be now committed, on finding a better opportunity to work, I will get out of my comfort zone and take some hard decisions in life to make things happen now. I am going to start my SIP next week, Wait… why next week? What’s stopping me from doing it today?  What’s keeping me from doing right now? I will call someone right now and find out how its done! I will not let “I don’t know” kind of excuses come on my way! I’ll use “I just want it at any cost, no matter what” kind of energy to reach it.

This is the new mantra of goal setting which we are trying to incorporate in each person we meet or each person we encounter at Jagoinvestor. We give them food for thought, we make them connect to their own financial life and show them the power of doing Goal Visualization and not just scribble some numbers. If we were just computers, it would have worked! .

We make them write these things down. We do more of listening and less of instructing, because we make people instruct themselves!

Goal Visualization is not a replacement of Goal Setting

Note that goal visualization is not an alternate of traditional goal setting , rather its a supplement and additional exercise to make your vision stronger , make your commitment more strong and a reason for you to look at your goal with high priority and seriousness.

I hope you appreciate the fact that this way of goal visualization is better than fooling yourself with something like “I want to create 5 crores in 30 yrs for my retirement?” . It only gives you a short-term orgasmic happiness and then you start you day next week in the same manner as if nothing happened ! , unless you are high on discipline to save for that goal . Only then it can work ! . If you mix goal visualization with traditional way of goal setting , it can be much better than just goal setting and finding a number which you need to save monthly .

If you don’t take action after reading this post, it would be waste of your time truly speaking. So now, is the time you start writing down your goals in detail and visualize it. Do it right now! Not later, not after dinner today, not on the weekend and definitely not when you are free!

Send your goals visualization to me (A strong exercise)

What about this ? Download this Goal visualization sheet, Take two prints, You fill one of them and let your wife fill another (incase you have). Goal visualization is a joint family exercise, not just yours. It has to be taken by your spouse separately. You will be amazed to see how much it differs for you and your partner even if the target amount and date was same. You two, might visualize it very differently.

Once you are done with the goal visualization, send the filled sheets to me at  manish [at] jagoinvestor [dot] com. I’ll do my level best to look at them and give my comments if they are of any help to you. I don’t guarantee that I will get back the next hour, but I will try to get back as soon as possible . This exercise alone however, will give you some power to take action which you are missing till now in your life!

Comments ? You can also pick up a goal and do goal visualisation on the comments section too. See if you feel it is strong enough! , Do you feel it helps you to generate some commitment and leads you one step closer to taking action ?

Disclaimer : The examples given in this article for goal visualization are created just for article and it’s not a real example of some person.

How many different types of information, do you have stored in your head, relating to your financial life? Your PAN? Your policy details and where they are stored? That fixed deposit, which you opened up some years back? Maybe, you’ve kept the documents in the top cabinet of the red almirah, but no one has any clue about it! And if someday, God forbid, you die suddenly, and your family needs information in a hurry, where do they look? Where do they go? Yeah, eventually, they will figure it all out, but only after a whole lot of time wasted (weeks, months, even a year!) and a lot of heartburn! Why not create a better situation for them ?

How about spending a few hours to make an emergency kit which has all the info, they might need at any point of time, so that they don’t have to get frustrated every time, they figure each investment / insurance policy, home legacy? Isn’t that a great idea? Here’s an example. Just to find out how to get the insurance claim settled, they have to start from scratch. They will start enquiring with others, search the internet (if they know how), and various other means. They might not have a clue that whom to contact and what options they have. Won’t it be the better, if they can find everything directly from you? TODAY? The kit is a kind of ready-to-use first aid box, only it relates to your overall financial life. Handy dandy for your family, if you’re disabled or immobilized or… dead! What normally, would take many months for them to find out – by playing connect the dots – can be given to them before hand, ready made & beautifully packaged! 🙂 This might seem embarrassing to many, but bluntly out, you choose!. Minor shyness / embarrassment now, or huge problems & inconveniences to your family later. Note that this whole emergency kit making will not help you today much, but a lot to your family at some later stage, read this article

What all details you can have in that kit?

• Important Details of your life
• List of important documents and their locations, eg.,  Passport, Driving licence,  PAN etc.
• Important instructions for them to carry out, once you are dead. Eg., insurance claim process, steps to selling off some property, claiming the bank account, investments etc.
• Important contacts, like the CA , lawyer, your stock broker and their details.
• List of all assets and liabilities you have
• All your investment and bank details

Following is the sample of how you can store that information in a tabular form.

Who should make this kind of Document ?

If your spouse and parents are financially literate and are from this generation who surf internet, know how to find out information somehow, you won’t fully appreciate the beauty of this whole exercise. I’ll bet my hat however, that that isn’t the case :). Most of the spouse do not take much interest in these financial matters . Ergo, you can see, how important this document can be for your family! This can turn out to be one of the best gifts you ever make them.

Ideally, you should make your spouse aware of this. However many wives/parents don’t want to hear about death and deliberately don’t pay attention. This document is especially for those situation.  We must print it out and give one copy each to wife and one to your most trusted friend or relative. Also you can have this document stored in a Bank locker and tell a trusted friend about this fact that there is a location which has all the information which your family might need some day.

Important Instructions in the Document

Make sure, you mention all the things which you wish your spouse/parents/children to do or carry out.

It can be things like

1. Life Insurance claim procedure

Give them detailed instructions on what they should do to claim your Insurance amount from the Life Insurance company. It can start from contacting the agent, filling up the forms, making sure all the documents are in place, constant follow-up with company etc.

2. How to use your life Insurance money for future

Once they get money from your Life Insurance, suggest how they can channelise it into different instruments based on their understanding, risk-taking capability and the amount of ease you want them to have in dealing with those.

3. How to Break FD’s or redeem Mutual funds in case of emergencies

Put some details in, on how they can break the FDs or redeem the mutual funds, in your name, in case of emergencies.

Sample of an Instruction for Life Insurance Claim

Ajay has taken Amulya Jeevan Term Insurance policy for Rs 50 lacs cover. Ajay lives in Mumbai . He would write something like this.

Steps you should follow for claiming the Life Insurance cover money in case of my death.

I have a life insurance policy “Amulya Jeevan” with Sum assured of Rs 50,00,000. In case of my death, you should follow this procedure.

1. Meet our Agent named Mr. Funsuk Bangdu and ask him for the claim settlement forms , incase he is not able to give it to you , you can download it from LIC website
2. You should make sure you also have original policy document which I have kept at ________ .
3. Make sure you have you proof of title like PAN , Driving Licence etc AND marriage certificate copy .
4. Make sure you have taken my death certificate from ____________ which will act like my proof of death , this is Important ! .
5. Incase I die in accident, also have a proof of accident, this you can get from police station or hospital.
6. I have stored all the Medical treatment at ___________ , also keep with you just incase its required.
7. Incase LIC asks for my employer’s certificate, I have kept it at __________ or you can also ask my friend Robert who works with me and can help you on this , See this article to understand how someone you trust can help you .
8. Incase you face any issue in getting claim settlement, take help of Ombudsman whose address is as follows .

Shri S Viswanathan

Insurance Ombudsman, Office of the Insurance Ombudsman,

3rd Floor, Jeevan Seva Annexe,S.V. Road, Santacruz(W),

MUMBAI-400 054. Tel : 022-26106928, Fax : 022-26106052
Email :  [email protected]

Note : Worst case scenario — try to get help at jagoinvestor.com or contact Moneylife.com who can help you further in this regard!

This was just an example! You too, can mention detailed instructions for key things, which you feel can create issues for your family or where you feel they might get stuck because of lack of knowledge .

Download a Template

Now, this whole kit & caboodle won’t take more than a day, and it’ll be extremely helpful to your family and loved ones. And, to save your time and as my small New Years gift to you, I have created a template for you, to use 🙂 Just download it in any format (pdf , doc or image ) and fill it up .

Take Action today! Unless you take action, reading this article is worthless!. Share what you feel about this idea of creating a master document which would help your family in case of crisis. Do you want to add some more points which you feel i have left out? How much value do you feel one will add to his/her financial life by doing this? And aah… one more thing. Don’t forget to update this document every year 🙂

Bonus : Do you want to look at how our questions and answers Forum is helping VidyaSagar take his frist steps in personal finance ?

Suppose you have 3 buckets, and you have to put each kind of investor into those buckets!. What would be the criteria you will use?

In my experience of dealing with hundreds of readers and dozens of clients till date, I can categorize them in a very interesting manner which shows their knowledge and attitude towards personal finance. I call it “I know” or “I don’t know” model. If you look at all kind of investors, at a broader level, you can put them in 3 categories.

Lets see each of them and you can identify which one you fit in.

1. I know that I don’t know

The first category of investors is very basic and large in number. They are not very much familiar to personal finance concepts and how to manage their financial lives and mostly they have no idea on how good or bad their financial lives are.

These people are mostly careless in this area and don’t give sufficient time to manage their financial life. They take it as it comes. Many a times they are great in their respective fields, may be one of the best performers and very smart in what they do, but when it comes to personal finance or managing their own money, they are clueless.

People in this category are aware about the fact that they are not good at personal finance and they need assistance when it comes to recommendations, calculations or any kind of basic planning in area of money. They are lost in this overloaded world of information.

Who falls under this category?

Most of the salaried class people fall in this category. Software engineers, doctors, media personals, defense-personals and even self-employed. At times people related to finance like CA, CS, MBA finance also fall in this category!

Whats common in each of them is that they are modest enough to realize and accept that they don’t know. If you ask them simple question like “Does term insurance make sense compared to Endowment Policies ?” (read this and this), they would be very confused and might not come to a strong conclusion on their own. They will not have much idea on how to start.

Anyways, the point is not whether they know how to do it or they don’t, the point is, if they are aware about this fact that they know or they don’t!

People in this category get mis-sold by agents and often take wrong decisions because of tricks applied by marketers and often they feel that the other person is smarter and knows better than them. That’s the reason they fall prey. Most of the readers here I think would be falling in this category and they are constantly trying to shift to the 3rd category which we will discuss !

2. I don’t know that I don’t know

This is an interesting category. Just like first category, even people in this category don’t have much idea or have wrong concepts in area of money, But the main difference in this category is that they are not ready to accept the fact that they do not know things, but they feel that they know enough, and live in their own world with their own understanding which  in reality is incorrect.

They have their own way of looking at things and suffer a lot in their financial life because they have no idea what they are doing. They are actually not very smart in personal finance, but they “feel” that they are.

Finance is just some math’s and number’s game

Ironically, some of these people are very smart and intelligent in other areas of life. So much, that intelligence now comes on the way to their financial life. They assume that they know everything very well and are not open to listen to other views and learn from that.

They consider personal finance as something which they can excel easily, just because they have been successful in other things in life. After all its just some maths and numbers game, as they feel so ! . Interestingly not just investors but lot of agents and advisors also fall in this category. A lot of misselling which happens is accidental at times and not intentional. These agents/advisors do not have any idea that they are actually misselling.

They do it thinking that they are doing a great job. They themselves are not aware that they have missold accidentally, believing in what they were told in their sales-meetings.

Let me give you a personal example:

I used to talk a lot about Insurance commission and how insurance agents make huge commissions compared to Mutual funds. At that time I was not aware of the fact that mutual funds commissions are paid on AUM basis.

I used to make my own theories based on calculations for some hypothetical examples. Even I use to argue with many Insurance agents on the commissions structure, some of them told me that even mutual f‌unds have high commissions, but I used to think that they are referring to the high ticket transactions only, and trying to cover themselves.

I was in this category because at that time I was not accepting that even mutual funds have AUM linked commissions and I used to just argue with them based on my ignorance. So I didn’t knew some important information and I didn’t knew that I don’t know.

In the same way, people in this category do not have proper understanding of basics, but instead of accepting it, they have some other kind of knowledge or wrong knowledge and notions and based on that they mess up their financial life.

3. I know that I know

Last section but a very small one is of people who understand truly what they say and suggest in personal finance. If you ask them some question, they would be very confident in what they tell you. This comes from the confidence, which is result of experience and deep self-learning in personal finance.

These people use their mathematical and analytical ability to understand what is right and wrong. You can find many of these people on this blog and our helpline Forum :). A lot of people from “I know that I don’t know” category get promoted to “I know that I know” in some months or years.

An experiment:

Try this!. If you ask a question like “Does term insurance make sense compared to Endowment Policies ?” to these people, they would eventually come out with the right answer even if they do not know.

They would not need any guidance or very little guidance and they would take this kind of problem as a pure logic based comparison questions and will try to compare both term plan and endowment plan from different points and would come up with a conclusion that Term insurance is the best way of Insuring one’s life and it makes sense to invest the rest money in some other product.

Also, if you don’t tell them how much return one can expect in long run, they would still find out somehow how to look at historical returns and equity is less-risky in long run ! . They are like a new-born baby who was not told anything, but they just start doing what needs to be done somehow.

What category are you in and What should you do ?

Which ever category you belong to, your final goal should be to get into 3rd category where you are aware of everything yourself and you can guide even others.

To eventually reach 3rd category, you have to do just one thing, whenever you are in conversation or debate with anyone, have an open mind of discussion and be open to accept that you can be wrong and might not have some information. Be ready to learn things from other person. With time you will slowly reach 3rd category .

These 3 categories are not just for personal finance, you can categories people in these categories for any area of life and solution to reach 3rd category is still same what I suggested above. Do you think there can be other categories than these 3 discussed above ?

Which category are you in currently ?

Did you shift from one category to other by reading this blog ? Share ! . Also have a look at these unansweed questions on forum Incase you can help in answering them. And if you are wondering why there is less activity on comments section, I am on vacation for your info !

Most people have such a fear of (lack of) money that they almost equate money to oxygen.  Cover someone’s mouth and nose and watch how they fight you to get their air back.

I came across T. Harv Eker’s book “The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” it says “Rich people manage their money well. Poor people mismanage their money well”, I read this & my first reaction was, “As a Financial Planner I know that!” Trouble was I didn’t really know the effective system to manage money. I just thought I did.

If you want to get rich, focus on making, keeping, investing & managing your money. I had been managing my money for years but not in a systematic way, I paid price for the same (by not following any system). This Money Management System is very simple to understand & implement.

If you want Financial Freedom you got to follow a system for achieving it. As a financial planner people, I meet believe managing money will take away their freedom. They hate the idea of Budgeting. They believe managing money will not allow them to be free and enjoy life to the fullest.

I have been implementing this “Money Management System” for over a year now & it has given me tremendous freedom in the area of money.

Most of the people I meet say, “I will start managing my money when I have enough money”. As a planner, I tell them “if you aren’t managing your money now then you may not have any money to manage in the future”.

The Single biggest difference between financial success and failure is how well you manage or mismanage your money. People mismanage money in different ways (By not having a financial coach in life, by not having a financial plan in place, by not organizing their finances, by buying ULIPS, by not taking financial Literacy, etc)

To master money, you must manage money through this effective Money Management System:

• 50-% Necessities Expense account (Your Day to Day Expenses Account)
• 20% Financial Freedom Account (FFA Account only for investments. Never spend only invested)
• 10 % Education Account (Invest in skill development, Personal Development)
• 10 % Long Term Saving for Spending Account.
• 5 % Fun & Joy account (balance out the investing for fun % joy(nurture yourself – fine dining, etc)
• 5 % Give Account (To a lot of people wealth is how much you have. But if you truly want to create wealth, you might want to change that viewpoint. Try thinking of true wealth as how much you give.

– Read about GFactor and Try out JagoInvestor Calculators

A Brief Definition of Financial Freedom

You are financially free when your Passive Income (Income from your investments, rental income, etc) is more than your desired lifestyle).To win the money game, the goal is to earn enough passive income to pay for your desired lifestyle.

One should design its Financial Plan with a context to achieve financial freedom. Having a Money Management System is equally important as having a financial. Always remember The real secret of successful wealth management is that your financial future is truly in your hands.

This one is dedicated to all the readers of JagoInvestor.com, their families & to Financial Freedom.

This article is written by Nandish Desai , who is a financial planner based in Ahmedabad

Let us first understand what is 80/20 Rule? It means that 80 percent of your outcomes come from 20 percent of your inputs! It’s also called “law of the vital few” or Pareto principle. This rule applies to almost all the areas of life, even though it’s called 80:20 rule the main idea of this principle is that a large part of outcomes are result of a few number of actions and 80:20 was the best fit for most of the things. A very simple example of this rule is that 80% of the world Wealth is owned by 20% of population. Let us see some example to understand this rule:

• Look back at your exams, 80% of your marks came from the studies you did on 20% of the days 🙂
• If you are coder, you will accept that 80% of the execution time is taken by roughly 20% of the code.
• Even on this blog, 80% of the comments are written by roughly 20% of the readers 🙂
• Also 80% of the total comments are from 20% of the total articles.
• 80% of the recognition you get is for a small amount of work (20%) that you do.
• 80% of sexual satisfaction comes out of 20% of total time spent.
• Most of our worries (80%) are a result of small number of problems (20%).
• 80% of the Assets under management is with 20% Mutual funds.

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Some Examples from Financial Life

The same 80:20 rule applies to our Financial Life as well…

• 80% of the good returns we get is from 20% of good investments we make or 20% good decisions that we took.
• 80% of the money lost or opportunities lost are result of the 20% small things we didn’t took care of.
• 80% of the money we could have made in Stock markets are due to those 20% of the times we didn’t take risk.
• 80% of the Financial Planning clients are handled by 20% Financial planners (individual or companies) in India.

How to change our way of thinking

There are many small things in our financial life which looks very small but we don’t concentrate on them neither do we appreciate the impact it can have on our financial life. Some of the 20% things which we don’t take care of are:

• Budgeting: A nice article on Budgeting from PV Subramanyam
  
• Planning for goals by writing it on a piece of paper
• Reviewing our asset allocation and performance of investments every year
• Keeping track of Documents
• Keeping our expectations low or realistic
  
• Not spending time on increasing knowledge

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These are 20% part which if taken care properly can greatly improve the performance or your returns (at least mental satisfaction) by great deal . We concentrate mostly on things like strategies , “finding best funds” , “finding cheapest plans” , “finding the easiest way to maximize the returns” , but these are 80% part of process which accounts for less than 20% of the success .. Just ask yourself

1. How many times have you made money from the best stock tip or best Mutual funds for the year
2. If finding the best plan (term plan , ULIP , or any other product) was so easy and clear , why is there so much competition and confusion.

You have to understand the real goal of financial planning first and then identify the areas you really need to concentrate on .

Here is a 1 hour talk on “Behavioral Finance : Role Of Psychology” from Yale University . Have a look

Comments , please share your views about 80:20 rule . Can you give some other real life example ?

Upcoming Next article : “How to Choose a Financial Planner”

Some months back I wanted to find out how much time a person would spend on his Personal Finance? So I did a poll which asked them this question and gave them some answer options to choose from. Around 180 people participated in the poll. Let us find out what most of the people think about spending time on their Financials.

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Results of the Survey

So the survey asked them a simple question “How much time you would like to spend managing your Personal Finance” and gave them following 5 options

• 1 Hour/Week
• 1 Day/Month
• I would rather like to hire a trusted Financial Planner
• 4-5 Days/Year
• I have other important things in life

Any Debt funds and Stock Market experts here? Please step in our Forums and help in answering questions like “Best Investment theme for future in Indian Stock Market” and “Debt funds?”

Here is the pie chart which shows all the results

Important Learning’s and Insights

• Around 60% people say that they would like to spend around 1 hr/Week. Another 18% said 1 day/month, which is again some how same as 1hr/week in some sense. So I can say that people are interested in spending around 4-5 hrs per month. Personally I feel that 3-4 hrs a month is more than enough. Choose last weekend of month and sit one Sunday or Saturday evening for 3-4 hrs after lunch and look at overall your portfolio. Find out  how everything in portfolio is performing, how your mutual funds are performing, track if your investments are growing as per your expectations and plan.
• Very small percentage of people said that they have other important things in life than managing their personal finances. This shows that everyone somewhere in their heart recognizes that Personal Finance is an important part of their life. But may be because of ignorance or because its too boring. We don’t get into managing or understanding it and try to ignore it to a level when its too late 🙂
• Only a small percentage of people think that they should hire a Financial planner. There are two reasons for this: First, that they don’t feel a need to hire a financial planner and they think that its an easy task which they can do themselves, they think like “why to pay Financial planner?”. Second, that people don’t yet understand what is the goal of Financial planning and don’t appreciate it’s importance in life.

Please put your comments and involve in discussion, What do you think is the best way and time to manage your money?

Note: I feel that I will not be interested in writing a review for any product now onwards. One of the reader feels that I have received Money from Aegon Religare and reviewed iTerm Insurance, see the comment . I don’t say that it looks very unbiased and yes my word seems to be very promotional may be because of my trust in the company and their philosophy.

I am not an emotional person at all but it has hurt me as a writer.  I would love to hear your comments on that. If most of you feel the same way feel free to put your comments there without hesitation. If most of the people feel the same way. In that case I will have to refrain from writing such articles, so that it does not put wrong impression. Miss-trust is the last thing I want from readers. If people are not happy, I should also think about removing the ads I put on this blog if it makes people uncomfortable and feel like I am biased. Please accept my public Apology if I have hurt your Trust 🙁

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