Fixing mistakes

In the maths you did in school, it was easy to solve an investing problem with only one variable. If there are two or three variables, then the story is different, and for many of us, the story ended right there. Investing is just like that. Ask a simple question like I would like to accumulate Rs 50 lakh in 10 years, so for what amount should I start a monthly SIP? It has a straightforward answer, or at least an approximation. Add another variable in the form of inflation, or an increasing income and it's still easy to calculate and only a bit more difficult to get right. However, real-life problems are not like that. An old acquaintance got in touch recently. He's been following my advice in mutual fund investing over the last two decades but somewhat intermittently. From time to time, over the years, he and his family manage to get sweet-talked by some salesperson and invest in some hot fund that proves to be a problem. He also has a generally suspicious disposition towards businesses that he has to deal with, which, to be honest, is somewhat justifiable in our country. Now he has about two years left before he retires and would like to reconfigure his investments for the final phase of his investing l

This article was originally published on October 16, 2021, and last updated on September 10, 2022.