Why do you work?

I read this post today by Simple Dollar’s Trent.

This is an age old thingy! Why should you work? What would you do if you had a million dollars? Or if you had unlimited resources?

I know its old, its cliched.. yet, let me try to answer that one for myself.

• Start an online library chain (I love books!). Start an online book store like flipkart.com
• Travel all around the world and indulge in photography
• Run a mountain side farm with a stream running through it
• Develop a cutting-edge data integration / data quality tool and release it under open source
• Find and fund at least 10 diversified startups in areas within my circle-of-competence
• Manage my investment portfolio myself based on Ben Graham’s / Warren Buffett’s principles
• Develop a personal finance tool that is easy to use, flexible, reconciles with investment and bank accounts, calculates tax on the fly, has online and offline data entry…. and has flexibility to create meaningful / useful reports and dashboards. (I use GNUcash today. I love it. But its reporting features are not that great.. and its a lot of work to keep data updated)
• Write a book on Nilgiris (www.Neilgherries.com is a domain that I own)
• ……………… the list goes on

Updates

A few updates this week

1. Had a bird photography contest in office. I volunteered for activities like collecting snaps, getting it printed on A3, etc. I submitted one of my own. The result of the contest in my view was a cropper – Dr M B Krishna, the judge selected a caged bird pic as one of the winners, which to me was shocking! IMHO, only 1 pic of the top 3 deserved the award. Caged bird pics deserve no place before the bottom. Learnt a lot from this event…like the need to calibrate the monitor. The A3 print of my snap looked slightly different in color from my monitor.
2. Maybe, I should think of an advanced course in post processing.
3. Stock market has moved up nicely. Nifty PE has moved up close to 21. Maybe people should lock in their profits at least a bit by selling atleast a portion of their folios.
4. Had the worst time driving in the last 2 years. A drain got damaged on Bannerghatta road near Oracle / Accenture causing massive disruption of traffic. I took 2 hours to cover 6 Km on June 4th. The worst thing was the way how the cops handled the whole thing. Pathetic.
5. Shocked to know that most of the bullet-proof jackets that our Mumbai cops used were actually nowhere near bullet proof. Another scam cooking?
6. Everywhere I go, people ask me about the impact of recession on software techies. I am getting bored of this question!
7. I dont know why, but this question has appeared so many times in the last few days in my mind. If I weren’t a software guy, what would I have been (or like to be)?

Financial journey since May 2007

Well, I seem to be blogging very little about finance these days. My time is mostly consumed by my new interests.. photography, bird watching and wildlife.

It is a surprise even to me as to how a strongly left-brain oriented person like me has taken to right-brain activities like photography and birding (ok.. they are not entirely right-brain).

But finance has been a favorite topic since a long time. As a kid I used to love monopoly. As a student, I loved math and numbers. Now as a BI (business intelligence) expert, I love charts. I like to ponder over monthly savings ratios, net worth growth rate, expense pie charts, etc. Though I am struggling to balance a few unrelated interests, it is but natural for me to keep returning to my financial interests.

I decided to break the jinx and blog a bit on finance, on my journey since May 2007. (Please read my disclaimer too).

Why May 2007? Because I made a major change in my investment style at that time. I consciously made a decision to go passive, go large cap. Index funds (actually exchange traded funds) were in. Most of my individual stocks were sold. Active stock picking was mostly out except for a few niche holdings. Mutual funds too were reduced to a few concentrated large cap holdings. I chose steady performers (like Franklin India taxshield, HDFC Equity) over star performers. I chose to focus more on my career and kept my finances on auto-run. I opted for SIP’s, made regular purchases of Nifty Bees and slept peacefully most of the time.

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Maximize your PPF interest income!

Did you know?

For your PPF investments, interest is calculated on the lowest balance between the 5th and last day of the month. To maximize the returns, the deposits should be made between 1st and 5th of the month.

Books an investor should read

“Which are the best books that any investor should read?”

Many people have this question.

I have attempted to answer that question in this post. I have read almost all the books listed here. But have included a few which I haven’t read too, because the reviews of those were very good and from very reliable sources. I have indicated the ones I haven’t read yet. Okay, here we go!

Basics
Any investor who has a strong hold on the basics is leaps and bounds ahead of the one who doesn’t. I would say every single book in this basic section is a must!

1. One up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch. An amazingly well written book, one of the best for both the novice and the expert.
2. The Intelligent investor by Benjamin Graham. The bible! Miss this and you can’t be an intelligent investor.
3. Common stocks and uncommon profits by Philip A Fisher. Great book on long term growth and focus oriented investing
4. The essays of Warren Buffett. The master at his very best!
5. The interpretation of financial statements by Benjamin Graham. A simple book on balance sheet basics.
6. Richest man in Babylon by George Clason. A timeless classic on personal finance.

Further reading
Once you have completed the basic books and are thirsty for more, please choose from this list. Read the rest of this entry »

If cash is king… GnuCash is the emperor

Thanks to Gnucash. My financial tracking is so much easier and simpler these days.

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, I urge you to do it today!!!

Now!!! Here.

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