Expense Account, Mint We left off last week at the point where surplus cash from the Income Box begins to fill the Wealth Box. A quick recap: Dhan Chakra, or the circle of wealth, is a system that gives one a mind map of a life cycle of money flows and the place of various financial...
Expense Account, Mint One of the reasons that people find buying financial products tough is that there is no connect between the product and what it will do. A car gets you around the city. A washing machine, well, washes clothes. And a laptop allows me to write this piece. But what will that mutual...
Expense Account, Mint I finally have to beg for food. Straight from the airport to the meeting, the late flight does away with lunch. With a tummy that threatens to growl out of control, I stop Nachiket Mor mid-word—not an easy task, I assure you—to ask if there is some food in the guest house....
Expense Account, Mint A lottery. A rich ancestor. A winning stock. No, I don’t get any of these, so how do I get rich? If you’ve never had this thought then either you need the truth serum or you already work in the non-profit sector (wicked grin!). The quest for gold is as old as...
Expense Account, Mint There is a little bit of a child in all of us. We build expectations about an event and become so attached to these that they become the reality ahead of the event. The final event then has no option but to disappoint. After discounting the huge build-up to the Budget that...
Expense Account, Mint Who’s to blame if the toaster you bought last week explodes, even as you try to crisp that square of baked flour? Did you, as the customer, make a wrong choice buying a top branded product, or is the producer of the toaster to blame? Elizabeth Warren, Harvard professor and chair of...
Expense Account, Mint It’s interesting how stories move forward. On 11 May the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission in New Delhi threw out a suit filed by Midas Touch Investors Association, an investor assocation registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), claiming damages on behalf of 300,000 consumers—shareholders of Satyam Computer Services...
Expense Account, Mint At the height of the economic and market boom, a friend on a defined benefit pensionable job in the government was being wooed by several firms in the financial sector. This was before the Pay Commission and he took home all of a quarter of a lakh each month. The move to...
Expense Account, Mint No, this is not about what this column expects the new government to do for financial sector reform. It is assuming that these are going to be fast-tracked, and along with new products and services, consumers of financial products will bear the burden of too much choice. In his book The Paradox Of Choice,...
Expense Account, Mint I’ve learnt to treat questions that include soliciting stock tips and my prediction for the stock market as feeble male attempts to include me in their conversations at social dos. I’d actually much rather talk about dogs, kids and trade hummus recipes. Anyhow, the one question I do take seriously is one...