The fire drill

June 29, 2017June 28, 2017 by Vipin Khandelwal

fire drill - preparing for financial emergencies

Just a couple of weeks ago, an apartment in London was engulfed in an unsparing fire incident which claimed over 30 lives and left many more injured.

In India too, one of the worst fire incidents to have happened in recent history is that of Uphaar cinema in Delhi.
It claimed 59 lives and left over 100 injured.

If you have started to wonder why I am talking about fire on a investing blog, there is a reason to it. Just be with me.

A fire can be devastating. The effects – people are killed or injured, valuable property and other stuff are destroyed. Small businesses not able to bear the consequences can vanish in no time. It triggers a state of emergency – mental as well as physical.

If you are caught unprepared, it can be a terrible setback.

Can one prepare to face a situation like this? Yes, of course.

Banking – money vs money

March 20, 2017 by Vipin Khandelwal

I noticed the Change.org petition initiated by a group of citizens to stop banks from fleecing the customers in the name of increased charges. The petition is addressed to the RBI Governor and the Minister of Finance.

RBI Governor: Please Stop Banks Fleecing us Depositors!

Of course, you and I are not happy in the way banks go about secretly levying charges on us by signing us up for services that we don’t want or have not asked for.

They expect us to maintain minimum account balances even in savings account and by chance, when we fail at times, they promptly slap the penalty. There is no communication, not even an email or SMS, warning us in advance about the same.

But when an EMI becomes overdue, you find collection agents issuing threats and the very next, standing at your door.

There is no escape, the barbarians are at the gates.

Can women divorce the money?

March 7, 2017 by Vipin Khandelwal

Women and equality is a hotly debated topic. I am not sure how much equality is actually put into practice. Based on my interactions, very little. There is progress though.

One aspect of a woman’s life that has glaring inequality is in the management of money and investments.

I know you are not hearing it for the first time or even for the last time. Women continue to avoid matters of money and investments like the plague.

Let me share some stories and suggestions. The stories first.

10 questions for your investment portfolio

March 3, 2017 by Vipin Khandelwal

10 questions to reflect on your investment portfolio

You are on this forum to learn more about money, investments and behaviour.

I am sure you have done a great job so far. You have made investment decisions based on your reading and understanding. And most of them have been ‘so far, so good’.

However, you would not mind an opportunity to learn more, right? Great!

It will be important to note here that the process of learning is powered by practice and reflection.

While practice is the art of perfecting, it is reflection which provides for insights through serious evaluation of the practice and principles.

Today, I intend to take you down the path of ‘reflection‘.

Get rich quick schemes – the making of a scam

February 6, 2017 by Vipin Khandelwal

Online fraud dupes 7 lakh people of Rs 3,700 crores

This was a top news headline last week. 3 people spread a net to dupe 6.5 lakh people of Rs. 3,700 crores.

I am wondering how ‘easy’ or how ‘difficult’ it was to accomplish this. I think it was easy.

All they has to do was package it as the “get rich quick scheme” with a twist.

Buy a predefined package from the company.
Receive a steady stream of pages that you press like and links to click on.
Every action earns you money.

It wasn’t difficult to make it believable too.

The likely pitch must have been – thousands of companies want to enhance their social presence by increasing the number of users that like their page. [You see those sponsored pages advt. on Facebook.] These companies spend a lot of money to see their social worth going up.

This is an opportunity for each individual to make money in the process, including you. All you have to do is click on a link or like the page.

Easy!

The mathematics of the get rich quick scheme

How to start using UPI for digital payments?

November 20, 2016November 10, 2016 by Vipin Khandelwal

I am thrilled. I received my first fee payment via UPI.

Why am I telling you this?

Let me share the backdrop.

You now know that the Government of India is making a big push towards a Digital Economy. The old Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes have been declared illegal effective Nov 9, 2016. The new notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 will be issued over time, in limited quantities.

The biggest contributor of this Digital movement will be the money moving up there. Once money starts moving digitally, will the dream of a Digital India (@_DigitalIndia) be truly realised.

UPI is an important initiative in this direction to make money go digital. It is the way we will make payments and receive money in the future.

It’s time that we get ourselves familiar and start latching to the medium.