Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, has a 9 point financial plan for you:
Do these steps in the order shown…
1. Make a will2. Pay off your credit cards
3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support
4. Fund your 401k to the maximum
5. Fund your IRA to the maximum
6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it
7. Put six months worth of expenses in a money-market account
8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement.
9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio
I would modify to put in the Indian context as follows (more words, sadly):
Do these steps in the order shown…
1. Make a will, but also, buy things in joint names.2. Pay off your credit cards, and your personal loans. But keep a credit card.
3. Get term life insurance if you have a family to support. And don’t expect “money back”.
4. Fund your retirement EPF or NPS account to the maximum
5. Fund your IRA to the maximum (India has no IRAs) An investment that sounds too good to be true, is. Say no.
6. Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it. (“can afford it”=loan EMI less than 30% of post-tax income)
7. Put six months worth of expenses in a liquid mutual fund.
8. Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through the DIRECT mode and never touch it until retirement.
9. If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio, or one that gets commission from your investments.
Five excellent comic strips related to finance:
On Ponzification:
On Cooking the Books:
On Financial Advice – you’ll find this familiar:
And then, not true, but rings home:
To steer away from Dilbert, ending with the financial crisis as accidentally described by Calvin:
Just some healthy Monday reading 🙂
