Baby steps to investing for those who don't know how and where to start. Investing is such a complex and wide topic, with everything ranging from get-quick-schemes to bitcoins to gold to the next housing market boom/crash. Due to that, one can be tempted to: spend forever trying to become an expert before dipping a toe into the investment waters, or leave it to someone else to handle so you don’t have to worry your pretty head of hair over it. Unfortunately, putting off inves

For those rainy, thunderstorm-y, hurricane-y days that lie ahead. Insurance is one of those things that nobody really wants to think about, because it conjures up negative vibes of doomsday and (at least for me) pushy insurance agents trying to sell you something you don’t even think you need. Except you do. Need insurance, that is. "Insurance? Wazzat?" Insurance is basically an Emergency Back-Up for when shitty things happen to you from out of nowhere - when your car get hit

The best way to deal with debt is to have none of it. In a world where loan opportunities and credit cards are offered every time you so much as sneeze, and where borrowing money is made incredibly easy and normal, it’s difficult to not be in debt. After all, who wouldn’t take up the offer of using someone else’s money to buy cool things and only having to pay just ~10-20 bucks a month for it? Free Money The sad truth is this: Free money is never free. And when something is t

Not all of us are accountants, but all of us, whether we like it or not, need to manage our money - here's how. Previously, we discussed how to allocate your paycheque into certain percentages to suit your priorities and lifestyle. If you haven't done this already, this article won't make much sense, so go do that first. My own allocation consists of 6 different categories (and even subcategories within those categories, just to make life more exciting), but for the purpose o

Putting that moolah on your pay slip to the best use. Source My first ever official paycheque was for USD 400 – a result of spending 12 hours a week cleaning old vinyl records at the back of the Music Library. Because I was 18 and beyond dumb, I blew all of it on a ticket to New York City, and came back to San Francisco broke as ever, forced to starve until the next scholarship installment or the next paycheque came, whichever was earlier. It took me close to two years to fig

A piggy-bank to save your day, or week, or month, or year. Before we get to anything else in this series, let’s first figure out your emergency fund situation. If I took away your job tomorrow and cut out any means of receiving future income or pity money from the doting parents or the concerned boy/girlfriend, because I’m mean like that, how long can you survive with the money you currently have? A week? A month? A year? If you answered a year, then you’re good to go. You ca

A continuation of the first personal finance series, but this time more focused on actions. Last year, I wrote a starter series on personal finance, which mainly revolved around attitudes and mindsets. The series also laid emphasis on shifting some of the underlying beliefs that influence your behavior and relationship with money. It was important (in my opinion) to get those touchy-feely stuff sorted out first – otherwise, you will not be able to know how you got to where yo

'Money is a good servant, but a terrible master'. Pick the right side. There are essentially three ways to go about becoming wealthy: 1) make more money (earn as much as you possibly can) 2) save more money (cut down on spending as much as you can possibly can) 3) grow the money (invest as well as you possibly can). Most of us are automatically working on item 1: we continue building up our career, adding on work experiences, improving our skill set, and commanding h

Having everything you need, and enjoying everything you have. That is where you want to be. Like everybody else, I grew up with the belief that more is better, especially when it comes to clothes. Why have two dresses when you can have ten? Or three pairs of shoes when you can have a dozen? It’s always better to have more, because more things meant more choices, and more choices is always a good thing. Right? Yes, up to a point. I didn’t realise it then, but I could only hand

Know where your money goes by tracking it. I was a scientist during my college days - I studied Biological Sciences and spent a few years working in a research lab. One of the crucial things I learned during that period is the importance of measuring. You see, if you don’t measure whatever it is you’re experimenting on, how will you know if it got bigger or smaller or better or worse? How will you prove or disprove your hypothesis? How will you know if the experiment is a suc

Your Life-Energy is worth something. Figure out your price. In college, I worked several part time jobs. About a quarter of my waking moments were spent on these jobs, and in all honesty, often times I wish I didn't have to. Being young and free, I had plenty of other options on how to spend my time - things that were actually fun too, like hanging out with friends or watching a movie or going to the beach or eating chocolate Nutella strawberry crepes at the local cafe. I cer

Why the amount you save matters more than the amount you earn. At one of the many jobs I’ve held, I had a head of department who liked to talk about the good old days. “When I was your age,” he would say, “I saw how much my boss was earning, and it seemed like a lot of money! I imagined all the things I would buy if I had that kind of paycheque! But now that I’m at the rank (of the boss) and earning what he earned, it’s somehow still not enough.” No surprises there. He was al

Things I believe you need to know if you want to get your financial act together. Ever since people found out about my mini-retirement, they were naturally curious as to how one can go about doing the same, especially since I very obviously did not sell off my non-existent start-up for millions, or win the lottery, or obtained a sudden inheritance from a random relative like they do in those classic English novels. No, it was much more boring than that, involving mostly commo