Aaditya Chhajed, CA, CFA

I want to talk about the five things that virtually everyone I speak with is trying to achieve with his/ her money. Some people have only one of these goals. Some have two or three. And, not infrequently, I meet people who, with a little prompting, turn out to have a bit of all five. And since these five issues are the main emotional and financial concerns in my own and my family's life, I can effortlessly (and quite genuinely) spark a tremendous amount of empathy on this topic and so can you.  The Five Great Goals of Life are: The endowment of a long, comfortable, and totally worry-free retirement, with no compromise in lifestyle, and no real concern about ever running out of money. The need/ desire to intervene meaningfully in the financial lives of one's children , during one's lifetime, and/ or in the form of legacies. The ability to fund, in whole or large part, the education of one's grandchildren. The capability to provide quality care to parents in their later ...

Avenues for investments include: Public Equity (Listed Companies) Private Equity (Startups, Own business) Equity and Debt Mutual Funds Bonds Fixed Deposits Government Schemes, etc. While dealing with my own clients', I see a lot of people who have had very bad experiences in the past. Such experiences include the erosion of capital due to greed or less prudent decisions in public equity markets. These people never return to equities for a lifetime and stick to fixed-income investments. Retirees primarily invest in fixed income securities, as risk appetite comes down as age increases.  One of the avenues for Indians to save and park money has been fixed deposits. Debt funds are a good alternative to fixed deposits. Where do Debt Mutual Funds Invest? Features of Debt Funds and Fixed Deposits? The best part of debt funds: In case of fixed deposits, one has to pay tax on the interest every year. This is not the case with debt funds. Unless and until you sell the debt funds investments,...