Jumping into this a bit late, but will try to avoid repititions
1) Open a PPF account in every member in the houses name. This is an absolute must and try to put as much as possible there. The high tax free return with compounding at zero risk is something that is difficult to match 2) The first house/real estate is not an investment. The subsequent ones are. While the ROI in terms of rent maybe low, the caital appreciation is what counts. As some earlier pointed out, the tax breaks on loans makes effective interest low. 3) An approximate cash flow statement needs to be prepared to plan for big ticket expenses. The savings/retirement strategy and allocation depends a lot on this. 4) Assume that good fund managers know more than you and have much better data. If you treat mutual funds as investing then this holds true over investing directly in stocks. Many peeople do make money on stocks but lots more do loose. In case you have the time, expertize and drive, then it make sense to research stocks and buy directly. 5) Allocate an ideal percent of cash to debt, small cap, balanced and large cap depending on risk profile and adjust investment accordingly. Even if the amount per month is miniscule, it all adds up 6) Regular SIP is a must. That is the key !!!! 7) For equity keep long term in view. If Mukesh Ambani sneezes, the stock market crashes, but that does not mean that all business are going to sink. ONce he starts smiling the market may boom. Over a 10+ year horizon this hardly matters. Equity in INdia is too weighed by sentiment over fundamentals and along term perpsective hedges you against that. ON a slightly unrelated note, I had asked about this site called perfios a couple of years back. I upgraded from free to premium and am very happy with the site. YOu might want to check our the free version and see if it helps. Deepak On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 9:11 AM, skn <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > All this talk about retirement and how closely coupled it is with > financial freedom got me thinking (more) about financial planning. > > I was wondering how my fellow Silkers (is that how we are collectively > called?) have been (or have already) preparing for financial > independence in the later years? What are the good financial principles > to live by? Some of the things I have been trying to get my head around > are about property as an investment, (long term) investing in company > shares vs. index funds vs. mutual funds, % income to save vs. how much > to invest vs. how much that can be spent (given I have very young kids) > etc. etc. > > Any insights, life lessons? > > -skn- >
