My Personal Finance Top 10 🎯

Top 10 Things I Think About When Planning My Financials

Here’s my no-nonsense checklist for stress-free financial health.

1. Emergency Fund

• Set aside 6-12 months of expenses in a safe, liquid instrument (such as a savings account, a liquid mutual fund, an arbitrage fund, or a fixed deposit)

• Ramifications of an emergency fund go well beyond finances. It’s not a stretch to say you’re improving mental health by building an emergency fund.

2. High Interest Debt? Nope. 🙅🏼‍♂️

• Pay off credit cards and personal loans first.

• Some people call these “wealth destroyers”. Treat with urgency.

3. Get Insured — life and health, both.

• Start with a simple term life insurance (cover 20x annual expenses)

• Add a health insurance policy for each family member. Get a floater if you have 5+ members to cover.

• Say no to ULIPs, endowment, and any other “LIC uncle” combos.

4. Budget and Track Expenses

• Know where your money goes. Tracking and bucketing are the two most popular ways to do this.

• Plug the leaky buckets.

• Spend well. Living a quality life is the deal; your kids won’t need your money, and you will have enough for your retirement. If you don’t live a good life, it defeats the purpose.

5. Set Clear Financial Goals

• Retirement, children’s education, house, travel, etc.

• You will need timelines and amounts.

• Don’t overplan; you don’t have that much control over your life.

6. Asset Allocation is King 👑

• This is where most people will need financial planners

• 100 - age = % of your equity portfolio is a good starting point. Rest in capital preservation. Alt investments like Gold, Crypto, etc < 10%

• Don’t overcommit yourself with real estate.

7. Invest the Boring Way

• Use index mutual funds (Nifty 50, Nifty Next 50, Nifty 500, S&P 500)

• Automate via SIPs. You cannot outsmart the market.

• Unfortunately, if you’re in India, you don’t have access to the target-date funds offered by Vanguard, BlackRock, and Fidelity.

8. Review and Rebalance Annually ⚖️

• This is tricky, and one more place where people need a financial planner

• If you invest primarily in top-tier index funds (e.g Nifty 50, S&P 500), you don’t need to rebalance. They take care of it for you.

9. Tax Planning. No Evasion, Please.

• Use Section 80C (PPF, EPF, ELSS), NPS, and health insurance wisely.

• Run a simple simulation: tax saved vs portfolio value.

  • e.g. instead of investing in an 80c instrument, you invested in a mutual fund, now what? Look at the high, mid, and low outcomes and get a feel for various scenarios.

• Never buy products just to save tax.

• Consult tax experts. This can be tough to get right.

10. Keep increasing your ability to generate wealth 📈

• Getting that job with 3x salary will do wonders for your financial health

The goal is not to maximise money. The goal is to live an enriched and fulfilling life. I never want to lose sight of this.