About Us
My journey into personal finance got triggered after an unfortunate event that pushed me into the water when I was learning how to swim. I was about to complete my Masters in Business Administration (Finance major) when tragedy struck from several fronts:
On the external front, there was a financial crisis brewing for a long term which fully manifested itself right around the time we had corporates coming to our campus with their “dream job” offering to budding Management Students. The year saw an extremely poor offtake and I was one of the aspirants that was left without a job after my graduation.
On the personal front, I lost my father, who was the single earning member of our family. His death left a big vacuum that took years to overcome. Being the elder son with a mother who was a home maker, we were left with some money that we received from insurance and final settlement from my Father’s organization.
As days and months passed, our reserves were dwindling, and I had to struggle to keep family expenses down and at the same time search for a job that would ease the financial erosion. I was finally able to get a consolation price after a 6 month wait – a job at the office my father used to work. The job did not pay enough but helped reduce some burden.
During the 6 months that I was at home, only one thought had occupied my mind – how to get better at savings and investments so my mother would be self-reliant and there would be enough money to sustain her through rest of her life. I did thorough reading of newspapers, personal finance blogs and watched television to understand opinions expressed by experts and spoke with several advisors & trusted friends and family members to determine the best path forward.
More than 2 decades later, I am happy to share that I am well settled in my life. I am even thinking of an early retirement. My mother has money that grows despite her withdrawing about 1% of the invested amount each month.
As I reflect, the time between my graduation and first job that seemed like hell has turned out to be a blessing for me. This time has given me the right thoughts, tools to navigate any financial crisis. This is the period where I was able to apply all my knowledge of finance and build a solid financial foundation. I am here to share “My Finance Journal” that is an aggregation of my personal experiences over the years.
I hope these would help you better navigate stormy days in your life.
All of us are unique and have our own situations to deal with. A few suggestions may be irrelevant for you. I would suggest you skip that section and move over to the next one. If you have a better idea, feel free to pen down your thoughts and I would be happy to hear from you and further improve my personal experience.
Perfection is an illusion and can never be achieved. I have come across several financial advisories that claim to provide “free” and “unbiased” advice on how and where to invest your money. When we peel the onion a bit, we come to know that they have a vested interest – earn a commission if you implement their suggestions. I am sure you had similar experiences in the past and a few of you would have made the dreams of your financial advisor come true. When you approach a stock broker, he would suggest all other investments are worthless and when you would approach an insurance agent, he would say the same. How do you decide on what’s right for you?
My sincere effort is to help you ask the right questions to yourself based on your own objectives and needs and decide for the best path for you. I have made the language simple to understand and have refrain from financial jargon that you would not know or would not want to know.
I also will be using a personal finance management spreadsheet, which I aptly call “My Finance Journal” to get you started along this journey. If you decide to implement any practices to get a better view of your finances, I expect you have knowledge of MS Excel and about 15-30 minutes a week to put few of the recommendations into practice.
– Manish V Sanjanwala