In this edition of the reader story, we meet a reader who has built a 1 Million USD portfolio through disciplined savings and investments.
Opinions published in reader stories need not represent the views of freefincal or its editors. We must appreciate multiple solutions to the money management puzzle and empathise with diverse views. Articles are typically not checked for grammar unless necessary to convey the right meaning and preserve the tone and emotions of the writers.
If you would like to contribute to the DIY community in this manner, send your audits to freefincal AT Gmail dot com. They can be published anonymously if you so desire.
Please note: We welcome such articles from young earners who have just started investing. See, for example, this piece by a 29-year-old: How I track financial goals without worrying about returns. We have also started a new “mutual fund success stories” series. This is the first edition: How mutual funds helped me reach financial independence.
This year, so many have become first-time crorepatis or well-established crorepatis and have come forward to share their journey on freefincal. See for example:
It is so wonderful to read these stories. All credit to their focus and discipline.
Yes, the bull market played a part, but let us not take anything away from their determined effort to enhance and secure their financial lives. If you wish to share your story of disciplined investing, you can send it to freefincal AT gmail dot com. You don’t need to be a crorepati or a lakhpati to send your journey. Process >>> Result. Now, over to the reader.
Sep 2024: We are a family of 4: parents and two children. We both work in IT and are in our mid to late 40s. As life happened, I was late covering BASICS, goal-based planning, asset allocation & disciplined investments.
Life ahead looks more sorted than a few years ago, with good progress against our goals: retirement, children’s college education and a house to reside in.
I started working in IT since I was 21. Besides my savings, I took an education loan to pay for my higher education/MBA & cleared the loan and was at 0 (net worth)when I was 28. For a reasonable period, till our mid to late 30s- we lived in the United States and saved more than we could if we were only in India.
We moved back to India about a decade ago to better manage life and work. Every year, we have been saving between 15% to 65% of our net salary (including EPF/NPS contributions of self and employer); the savings rate was lower when we were in the US or when we had only one income or we when we purchased car/spend on children college education.
Along the way- I invested in a LIC endowment policy, some mutual funds, and some stocks – in some random fashion- I sold those within a few months to years of investing as I moved back and forth between India, the US and India. I surrendered my LIC policy after paying 12 premiums.
| Year | Savings rate |
| 2015 | 19% |
| 2016 | 45% |
| 2017 | 42% |
| 2018 | 15% |
| 2019 | 39% |
| 2020 | 52% |
| 2021 | 59% |
| 2022 | 65% |
| 2023 | 45% |
| 2024 | 1% |
By 37, our net worth was INR 1 Cr+, largely in FDs. I wasn’t clear on the way forward then; I was not sure if using FDs alone was right. In 2015-16, in a matter of few months, I invested in ~40+ schemes from SBI, ICICI, HDFC, Mirae, Canara Robeco, Franklin Templeton, and Edelweiss: picked up blue chip, large cap, mid cap, small, value, discovery, emerging (all flavours of ice cream) 5* funds from different AMCs, about 90% of net worth was in equity MFs.
I had difficulty putting up with notional losses of 15+ lakhs by Feb 2016 as markets tanked between Aug 2015 and Feb 2016, and I realized I needed some serious and good help. I paid a few financial advisors for ~2-hour sessions but was not convinced as one suggested I buy a house and another to invest through his platform (regular funds).
Around that time, I joined Asan Ideas for Wealth in 2015 through one of my colleagues; I started following some threads and discussions- distinctly recall a few notions on ‘debt /constant maturity’ getting busted, read many, many freefincal articles: learnt about the sequence of returns & impact, importance of managing risk(than chasing returns not in our control) & the need to have money available in liquid and safe instruments as we near goal. Then I approached Ashal sir and, based on his input, partnered with a fee-only planner, I have been on this journey for the last 7+ years.
Current portfolio:
| Equity | 56% |
| Debt | 38% |
| Gold and silver | 5% |
- Equity 56%= Direct equity India: 15%, Mutual funds: Nifty 50, Nifty Bees, Nifty next, NPS-E: 22%, Direct equity US: 19%
- Gold is SGB, Slive is ETF
- Debt comprises of EPF(14%), Gratuity: 2%, FDs/constant maturity gilt/RBI bonds/tax-free bonds: 10%, arbitrage and liquid funds: 12%
- Life cover: 3 Cr for myself, 2 Cr for my wife; health cover: 15L base policy & 1Cr top up life and health covers are besides what our employers offer.
- I bought two plots of land and invested in a house with my parents, who live in that house. I don’t count real estate in my net worth.
- Financial assets are largely equally split between my and my wife’s name
- Will is in place
- No loans; cars are cash down, both cars are ~10+ years; plan to purchase house cash down when we need one to own ( we prioritized children’s education goals over house and cars)
- It’s a unified portfolio of ~$1M against our four goals: retirement, house, two children’s college education – by some measure, we achieved our goals
I can attest to many wise sayings- start early, savings rate is key, keep it simple (savings, index fund, FD/EPF/PPF), you need wealth to create wealth, wealth is created from income not from returns, health is wealth.
However, I realized it’s difficult to apply others’ wisdom for various reasons. Not everyone may be able to apply all sound principles, but the more one puts these sayings into action, the higher are the chances of achieving results- and vice versa of health and wealth is true too.
Then we get new ideas and redefine goals, say retirement in the US- “plans are nothing but planning is everything (Dwight D. Eisenhower)”, and the rat race continues…
Reader stories published earlier:
As regular readers may know, we publish a personal financial audit each December – this is the 2022 edition: Portfolio Audit 2022: The Annual Review of My Goal-based Investments. We asked regular readers to share how they review their investments and track financial goals.
These published audits have had a compounding effect on readers. If you would like to contribute to the DIY community in this manner, send your audits to freefincal AT Gmail. They could be published anonymously if you so desire.
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Dr M. Pattabiraman(PhD) is the founder, managing editor and primary author of freefincal. He is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He has over ten years of experience publishing news analysis, research and financial product development. Connect with him via Twitter(X), Linkedin, or YouTube. Pattabiraman has co-authored three print books: (1) You can be rich too with goal-based investing (CNBC TV18) for DIY investors. (2) Gamechanger for young earners. (3) Chinchu Gets a Superpower! for kids. He has also written seven other free e-books on various money management topics. He is a patron and co-founder of “Fee-only India,” an organisation promoting unbiased, commission-free investment advice.
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