Experience stories : no money but need to send daughter for Masters

Life is not easy .. we all want the nice things in life, but sometimes the decisions we make lead us on the wrong path from a financial front.

Be as it may no one has a financial stress free life.. take a look at Anil Ambani and his reliance group of stocks.. how badly they have fared. Some wrong decisions , some luck of the fates .. but in all difficult times.

The only way one comes out of it is through hard grit and determination. 

I just recently had a call from an ex collegue of mine who for some reason has changed multiple jobs over the last few years and has from last year started his own company but is not doing too well.

He needs to send his daughter to do her  Masters and unfortunately because of his lack of balance sheet the banks are not giving him loans.

Imagine the plight of the father.. he is devastated.

He is willing to take any job to ensure that money starts flowing again. I dont think his family knows the kind of stress he is in.. and i can tell you it is immense!

The point of the experience story is we will all go through this some time or the other.. no matter what you do... the way to be successful is to focus on the positives and beat this with grit and determination.

More income is not more wealth!

Imagine someone earning two crores a year fretting about money....

Yes.. 2 crores...

Yes .. 2 crore rupees

Yes... now in 2018... and its not 3018.

Ok.. stop laughing... it does happen and it is happening around us.

What is wealth.. the ability to live life without worrying about money. ...

Wealth doesnt mean that you are earning very high .income from a job... and it doesnt mean that people who have large income from jobs are wealthy!!

Today i find people little apprehensive about money even when they are earning very high incomes. They dont seem to have the peace of mind that should come with a few crores in the bank.

I remember an old boss of mine was always very  calm ( vijay sir). Never perturbed. Always smiling even in the face of adversity.
Someone one day asked him ( more senior than vijay sir) how he remains so calm... and all he said was " it helps to have a few crores in your bank account!". This was 2003. Those few crores most likely are now in 15 yrs at least 8 crores !

Money matters when handled properly get the mind free from all worries professional or personal... point is when handled properly.

When more money comes in , then there is always an tendency of spending more and spending more on stuff that is really not adding to your asset column.

This person earning 2crs seems to be spending a lot on jewellery and other fine dining activities thus causing perplexing emotional responses to lack of money in the bank.

What one does with the money one earns defines how much money one will have as time passes on...

Like monopoly whose secret is 5 green house and 1 red hotel.. we need to build assets vs losing money in expenses

Learn from other peoples mistakes and successes...

Thats simplefinancialsense

An amazing Rags to Riches story..

One of the biggest ways to learn is to learn from others successes and also their mistakes. Which is why the emergence of executive coaches has become a phenomena of its own.

Like in professional life an executive coach helps one , there needs to be coaches ( not financial advisors) that you can turn to for advice in the most unspoken matter...personal finance.


Recently i met someone who is  senior to me in the professional world who shared his life with me. It was unofficially his teachable point of view (TPOV) from a life and financial perspective.

His story is immensely courageous and inspiring. He came from a poor family and lost his father when he was 16 yrs old. They had little to no money and used to sleep on the ground on newspapers. Sometimes they had no money to eat.

When he was 22 years old he got his first job for a salary of 600 Rs. From there on he made life changing decisions and effort and today he is extremely comfortable and has money in crores. His effort shines through as a person who is frugal, humble and extremely business savvy ( him being from gujrat for the last three generations helped him wire his brains right).

From his first salary he tells me that he bought shares ..even though it would have been in the early 90s and with such small amounts he bought shares. He has consistently invested in shares ever since . He does his own analysis , doesn't invest in shares below a market cap of 10k crores and says he has a reasonable expectation of 15% CAGR.

Most of his stocks are in the financial sector with the likes of hdfc bank , SBI , BOB , Reliance  etc.

While i discussed my financial strategy with him he said that you must look at a min 15 yr horizon. He never checks his balance but only looks at it once in 6 months. His guidance is that the power of compounding really comes through post 15 yrs and one must be patient. I told him that i was in the 8 yr frame.. he said.. continue investing... wait for the magic jump at 15 yrs.

Some of his stocks he says over the last 25 yrs has gotten him more than 500 times returns!! With dividends and bonus shares.

On dividends he uses a strategy of reinvesting that in the same share.. hence driving he says the real benefit of compounding.. basically he made it a growth fund.

Now what has this gotten him... today over the last 10 yrs he has taken his family and travelled to over 44 countries as part of his vacation plan. He says this is one place where he likes to spend his money because life is about " Experiences ". Now he is of course quite a senior person and makes quite alot of money from his job...but he is not dependent on it for his financial future.

His needs are small.. stays ina decent home , is humble and always reminds his son from where he came from and how he conquered poverty. Ensures that his son remains humble and continues  to fight the battle against poverty.


I cannot tell you all how much simplicity he has brought  into his life... in all spheres. 

Life is a learning.. Learning from others experiences is tremendous opportunity..

Learn learn learn.. listen to people who have made it big... thats simplefinancialsense