Western Traveller Guide's Financial Wisdom from India

There is an interesting perspective by a Western traveller to South India on Indian financial habits. He says,

The majority of Indian people have never been too rich but seem to manage living a healthy and happy life.
The lifestyle of people in India may or may not fully suit you but nevertheless you can learn from them to manage a simpler life with less stress, less consumption and, it seems that, more joy.

Read his full post.

I feel that we are generally strong on our savings habit while the westerners live on credit. But living frugally is only one part of doing it right. The other part is to maximise your wealth. We can learn from westerners on that count.

Personal Finance Space in India gathering momentum

Suddenly the personal finance space in India is getting some attention it deserves from Web companies in India. Check out my previous posts with the label of pf websites

Two days ago, Alootechie blogged about InvestmentYogi and then on StartupDunia, I saw some good words for iTrust

InvestmentYogi (The name looks inspired by Deepak Shenoy's Moneyoga) aims at building a community of learners who share their experieces while growing their money. And so their tag line is Learn. Share. Grow. They have some cool videos too! And a Portfolio Manager. (Why they have a feature (coming soon) of sharing your portfolio beats me! Who would share his real one in India!?!)

iTrust ....making finance as simple as 1 2 3.. claims to be a personal finance company for the modern Indian consumer who wants honest and independent service. They are basically selling Mutual Funds, Home Loans, Insurance, Real Estate, all under their umbrella.

I wish them all the best. After all, execution is the key here. (Which brings me to apologize to my readers of my personal finance website for not being able to update regularly :( )

Another guy working on this space is Raag Vamdatt. Visit his site for articles on personal finance. He also has a Business Directory, if you need one.

Questions to ask your financial planner

I wonder when we will have financial planners in large numbers in India. More often than not, we are accosted by Insurance agents, Mutual Funds advisors, Brokers, etc. Very few holistic planners, really How do you unearth the hidden identity behind your "Friendly Financial Advisor" ? We are not used to asking direct and uncomfortable questions. But if you are one who could ask, here are the questions. To other soft people, they can try to ask through some indirect questions. The direct questions could be:

What experience do you have?How long you have been doing this? What are your qualifications? What licenses do you hold? Are you registered as an investment adviser? What services do you offer? What is your approach to financial planning? Will you be the only person working with me? How will I pay for your services? Is it fee based or commission based? How much do you typically charge? Do you get additional compensation or financial incentives for selling particular products? Could anyone besides me benefit from your recommendations? Do you have an affiliation with a broker/dealer? Do you insist on managing client assets, or are you willing to give advice to clients who wish to maintain control over their own brokerage account(s)? Do you have a written client agreement? Can you ask? What other things you would ask? Let me know!

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My Manifesto for becoming a personal finance professional

This is my 450th post on this blog. I started this e-scratch pad as a hobby 1.5 year back. But now this blog is threatening to control me. Not that I mind!!

I also realize that I can and do better posts on this blog than what I have been doing. Obviously that needs much more research time, mulling over the thoughts to organize them and perhaps picking up the brains of some MSM journos.

In the meantime, here's my manifesto for this blog. I don't know when I'll actually implement them. (like political parties, maybe if and when they are voted to power, I would love some votes here :)

1. I will know more about Personal Finance than anyone else in India.
2. I will continuously search and research on the personal finance space.
3. I will build a e-learning module on personal finance
4. I will also build an offline module on personal finance.
5. I will build a database on financial products in India which can be searched, filtered and compared.

Isn't that enough!


India's first online weekly on personal finance

A few things that your family should know about your finances

A few things that comes to my mind are:

1. Your assets. Compile all your financial information, including:
   • The value of all your personal and financial property.
   • The type of assets you own, retirement accounts, real estate, and life insurance policies.
   • How those assets are owned: jointly with your spouse or another individual, in your name only, or in your trust's name.
   
   
2. Account numbers and locations. Note all of your account numbers, their balances, the telephone numbers of the institutions where the assets are held, and any designated beneficiaries.
3. Important records. Your loved ones should know where to find other important records, such as the bills you typically pay each month (e.g., telephone, electricity, insurance, subscriptions, and Internet access).

Small things! But nevertheless important.


India's first online weekly on personal finance