Income to survive

I would be inviting a lot of flack from the fellow boarders and seniors for opening such a topic for discussion. I know this topic would not be equal to the high level of discussions we usually have of value Pickr. But still I wanted to start this topic as it is close to my hear, apologies in advance.

Ultimate objective of investing for most of us is to achieve financial freedom. Freedom from Boss, freedom from daily headaches (for most of us). How to achieve that?

I do not have an answer to this question, I am not having a crore of portfolio and I dont expect to build that in the immediate future. What should be the way forward, how should I work towards achieving this goal going ahead. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

It totally depends on your objective and goals you are going to set for your future like

  1. After 5 years/10years down the line what should you need as your bank balance, home, car
  2. Are you going to live on Active income or Passive income for rest of your life

So first start with your goals and then think how you are going to achieve it. To reach to a specific goal should I buy Mutual funds in SIP way or buy stocks directly. You have to find your risk appetite as well.Slowly while searching the answers you will get to know which instruments you can use to reach your goals.

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I would like to be frank, blunt & at the same time being honest in putting my perspective.
There is no shortcut to achieve anything in life but hard work coupled & backed by sound knowledge of the Subject Matter.

To put things in to perspective in Investment arena, I would summarize, my point of view & 2 cents on it in a Pointer format as below:

  1. Be pragmatic & always hungry for more knowledge & understanding of Basics of Markets. You need to dig your head, to make yourself familiar with in & out of the Mr M i.e Markets.
  2. Once you are equipped with basic Understanding & Concepts of Mr M, the next thing should be Practical Application of theoretical attained knowledge by reading Financial / Behavioral Investment Books, authored by variety of Legends.
  3. Then you should be able to analyze, your current financial position & in accordance your Risk Appetite.
  4. Risk Appetite, internally will depend on your Age, Primary Income & Responsibilities.
  5. Initially try to play with small amount of Capital, based on your Risk Appetite & build self-conviction & see the results. Most of the times, you may be proven wrong in your rational for going ahead with a sinking business & losing money, but as your Capital Deployment will be minimal, you can pay this as tuition fee for your learning experience, which nobody else can teach you.
  6. Now once you are acquainted with the rules of the game & feel comfortable in analyzing the businesses, try to take or build your positions gradually & not at a single shot. More you research about the Management, Products/ Services of the company, Cash Flows, Balance Sheets & PL Statements, these may act as a Catalyst to your thought process.
  7. Now I come to the key pointer: Once you are through till point 6, start deploying incremental Cash to your Conviction bets, being run by Superior & Credible Managements, which have faced the heat of the downturns of the economy & still survived & sustained.
  8. Be patient now & start increasing your stake in these Quality Businesses, already identified. Every dip should be uses as a opportunity to increase the stake in volatile times.
  9. As rightly said by WB, you cannot make 9 ladies pregnant in 1 month to get a baby. Delivery of baby will take its due course of time. Also an analogy to make my point clear, again from veteran Mr WB himself, you cannot kiss every Girl & same holds good for your choice of Scrips as well. You cannot purchase every stock, others are making money in.
  10. Last but not the least, attain New Skills, keep increasing your Primary Source of Income & in turn keep deploying more & more Surplus in Markets in your Conviction bets. Deployment of Cash in Markets should be your 1st thing from your Income & not the left out in the Last after incurring all the Expenses.

Follow these 10 rules like Bible, which all have been experienced & practiced by me, in my personal journey in Markets.
My views are totally personal & intention is clearly to help others from my own experience.

Hope this helps.

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First of all let me tell you that I am not an expert but as far as experience is concerned I am in the market since 7 years and initally I suffered losses but since one year I am able to overcome my losses by adopting short term and long term strategy. I have noticed long term is not working out these days so it is no harm if one enters fundamentally strong companies where downside is limited and exit between 15% to 20% upside. If goes down, then wait for long term. Multibaggers are a rare phenomena. This is just my opiniion.

I’d say, in general, Prof @pattu blogs some really sensible things at www.freefincal.com so that’s a great place to start if you’re looking for common sense level headed unbiased advice.

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Not an expert(nowhere close) but i do share the same thought. My approach has been on these lines:
a) build stable debt portfolio (FD,NCD, VPF,EPF, etc…) to cover some basic needs around food, clothing and health costs
b) get a house to stay (or buy one at the location of ur interest at most affordable cost), rent is ok, if debt portfolio is equal to housing cost
c) have minimum debt or best, no debt.
d) have MF’s (preferably through low cost SIP on ETF / large market cap fund).
e) Have equity portfolio with mid and small cap as focus
f) try minimal trading once in a while especially when u think momentum is comfortable in ideally large cap stable growth companies.

Can’t say have succeeded (as i think , this looks like a path not goal) , however , goals are set by individual needs and capacity to walk on this path.

As someone mentioned earlier subramoney.com and freefincal sites have pointers on going about doing the same.