Ranjan Varma's Blog

Excellence is not a skill, It’s an attitude

Ranjan — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 17:20:50 +0000

Yesterday, I observed an example of how confidence and attitude can make a great difference. While traveling yesterday, there were two boys and two girls sitting right across me.

While all the four were of the same age, two of them were sparkling and attractive while the other two were dull.

I realized that all four of them had average features and looks and in fact the dull guys would have scored more in a beauty contest (if all of them had their mouth shut!)

The difference, I realized was in their confidence and positive attitude.

That’s why,

Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.
- Ralph Marston

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others.
- Hasidic

Your attitude and confidence in matters around money can make a big difference. Not just knowledge about money.

KSA (Knowledge, Skills, and Attitude) are the three areas or the goals of learning. That is, after learning something, the learner should have acquired new skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes.

Time to check out your own confidence level about money! How do you measure that could be another post. Stay tuned.

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Insurance is a Risk product and Return is just an Add-on

Ranjan — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:27:38 +0000

We need to understand that insurance is a risk product and investment or whatever return comes is just an add-on.

D K Mehrotra, Chairman, LIC says this in an interview with LiveMint

This really is a lucid explanation of insurance. But there are various reactions to this statement.

The returns are piddly, very less and does not justify putting your money into insurance products.
This piddly return is better than making losses in the stock markets.
I put in my money in an insurance product because of my friend/relative/neighbour who is an insurance agent. Please don’t bother me with jargons.
I get good service from my insurance agent and I care about that rather than returns.
I really don’t know or care

What is your reaction? Do share.

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Personal Finance Is More Personal Than Finance

Ranjan — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 07:17:08 +0000

One of the reasons I am scared of blogging about personal finance is that I often end up making generalizations. Like ULIPs are bad. Or Equity is the best option to invest. Or better go for index funds.

It’s important to recognize that these are all generalizations. And they may not really work for you.

For example, if investing in equity is giving you sleepless nights and you have no idea behind your stock pickings, then equity/stocks are not right for you. Even though you are convinced that equity is the best investment class, don’t just invest in stocks for the fun/glamour.

We all have different beliefs about money. So the way we manage our money is different too.

So don’t fall for generalizations and think for yourself. And all you need is a bit of common sense and the ability to be aware of your personal belief system. (I trust that you did not find the above statement a generalization! )

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Bankers or Bhayankars?

Ranjan — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 05:49:21 +0000

MoneyLife has a story about how HSBC Bank took singer Suchitra Krishnamoorthy for a ride over a five year period by promising an extravagant assured return of 24%. Here’s the link

Suchitra is quoted as saying that

it is a warning to other vulnerable targets—small investors like me should not get conned by aggressive MBA’s in suits who are preying on their customers like sharks in the big bad ocean. All the while getting richer and richer while making us small gold fish go bust.”

While such stories of Relationship Managers/ Bankers of being Bhayankar Bankers is true, one can’t just play on the blame game.

What about looking within? It’s your money and why can’t you spend some time understanding a few concepts about money. And it’s not really difficult. Don’t let the jargons and complex language scare you. And now you have the internet and finding the right information is no longer difficult.

So how do you protect yourself from such bhayankar Bankers and Financial Advisors? Choose from the following:

Be Alert & Vigilant
Do due diligence about the advisor
Do due diligence about the product
Attend a RupeeCamp

I hope you notice that the last option, even though is a self promotion, is the most actionable and effective.

In any case, it’s good to be back. How have you been? And do share how you protect yourself from unscrupulous advisors. Thanks

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2012 and New Years

Ranjan — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:50:29 +0000

The thing with a New Year is that it happens all the year round. Just two months back, in November, we had a New Year after Deewali. Another fortnight and we have Makar Sankranti. And then we have Basant Panchmi and then something! All harbingers of new things and starting things afresh.

But 2012 brings special emotions, right! We all look forward to the “predicted” end of an era. It also means that we might witness a dawn of a new era.

But as you note, that new things happen all the time. Here’s an interesting story about the continuous change that we need to be aware of!

A man was taking a dip in the Ganga river. He took 3 dips.

On returning back to his hometown, he was describing his 3 dips in the river when he was confronted by a local fakeer. The fakeer said, “How can you say you took 3 dips in the same river? When you first took the dip, the river flowed away and the second dip you took was in another stream of that river!”

In fact, if you observe carefully, the 3 dips happened in three different streams of the same river.

And if you go deeper, and believe that millions of your body cells die and regenerate every second, you would realize that the same man did not take the 3 dips.

But 3 different men (in terms of cells dying and regenerating) took the 3 dips in 3 different Ganga river!!

Change is the only constant.

Good wishes for a Happy You. Make any moment your new year. (I need this specially because when 2011 turned into 2012, I was sleeping)

And for those who ask, I am focusing on my website which crossed 1 million hits recently. I am also working on RupeeManager and will announce more details about it shortly.

Meanwhile, you can check out my 12 checklist (The RupeeManager Checklist).

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Spending Money

Ranjan — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 16:38:01 +0000

Here’s a lovely and powerful quote on money that resonates with me. What about you?

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Irrational Buying and Smart Selling

Ranjan — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 13:51:33 +0000

Personal Finance is combination of maths and psychology. Just 1-10 % maths, 90-99% psychology, to my mind.

Economist has an insightful article on how irrational buying offers an opportunity for smart selling and advertising by brands/ companies.

Excerpts:

“You would be amazed to find how often we mislead ourselves, regardless of how smart we think we are, when we attempt to explain why we are behaving the way we do,” Dichter observed in 1960, in his book “The Strategy of Desire”.
He held that marketplace decisions are driven by emotions and subconscious whims and fears, and often have little to do with the product itself.
Trained as a psychoanalyst, Dichter saw human motivation as an “iceberg”, with two-thirds hidden from view, even to the decision-maker. “What people actually spend their money on in most instances are psychological differences, illusory brand images,” he explained.
Sigmund Freud argued that people are governed by irrational, unconscious urges over a century ago.

You may also read my Iceberg theory of money management.

What do you think? Are you aware of your own financial behavior?

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Daily tasks tracking through the Internet

Ranjan — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:07:56 +0000

Let me introduce a new guest writer. Anastasia Chumakova will tell us today about efficient time and task management.

What is the way you organize your day? I usually write all I have in my mind on a paper in a form of a list or a mind map. Then I decide what I will do today and what will be left aside due to lack of necessary resources. It’s easy when I do this work deciding what I will do. And what if I have others at work who need to know what I’m doing now and when I will finish the part of the work they are interested in? Let’s make this task more difficult and ask this: how will they track my activity and plan theirs if we’re not in the same office?

Mission is not impossible, or else I wouldn’t be writing this article, as you have already guessed. Indeed who needs a text like an old rock song ‘What can I do?’. Today the problem of cooperation between co-workers is solved efficiently, as most communicative problems, through the Internet and with the help of cloud solutions. You don’t know what cloud is? Better study this modern name. Professionals will call me simplistic, but you have used cloud for ages: any Internet service that keeps your information saved is almost cloud. I say almost because they actually keep in on a server: if the server drops, your info goes to ancestors with it. Of course, this is unacceptable for business information. Thus, a system of servers was created: your info is stored on multiple of them and if one drops, another one will keep on working. Your data is saved and your work is not disturbed.

Most of modern daily task tracking systems are based on cloud solutions because they are, first of all, made for business and business needs secure and reliable tools. You can sign in into the solution the way you do it on facebook, youtube, email, Google+ and any other of your accounts. You get instant access to your data. Means you’re free to be in any part of the world, yet you will open your browser window and you will see your to-do list.

I bet you are not that amazed at it. You can be in any part of the world and keep your to-do list on a paper: and you will still know what to do. Yes, you will. Others won’t. A to-do list on a daily task tracking system enables you to set status to each task: done, in progress, delayed, dismissed and so on. Same thing with the task-lists of your working colleagues. You can stay on top of your project by simply taking a look into the system.

If you search for a really good daily tasks tracking system, it may have a built-in tracker. Trackers make it possible to automate your tasks. We are often to do the same activities every day, repeatedly, and we cannot leave them aside. But keeping them all in mind or planning every day would be a waste of time. Automate this activity through a tracker and get email notifications about what you need to do. Also, if others depend on this activity, you may include them into tracker so that they will not only get a notification when you’re done, but also will automatically get next tasks.

One more significant advantage of daily tasks tracking systems is that you can make a report on what you have been up to in one click because the system was watching and guiding you all the time. Different dashboards reveal how you’ve spent your time and if it was successful.

Daily tasks tracking systems are numerous, you can choose one that best suits your budget and your needs. Log in along with your co-workers and make things more transparent. Most of such systems come with collaborative tools that help you to communicate upon tasks.

Author’s bio:

Anastasia Chumakova works in online workflow automation and project management and she got so passionate about the online collaboration systems that she started to write about it. First, she wanted to get rid of her friends, who couldn’t understand what her company was doing. Then, she started to write for blogs about new applications for entrepreneurs and companies.

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One Million Content Hits, Thank You

Ranjan — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:27:07 +0000

Just noticed that my website crossed 1000000 content view hits. Thanks for reading. The site has content on 347 topics and growing.

1 Million!

The statistics are on the right sidebar, near the bottom of the website, if you are interested.

More importantly, thanks for your emails and calls that encourage me to share more and more information.

Thanks.

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LinkFest for the Week

Ranjan — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:31:59 +0000

Here are some links on money management that you may find useful:

Timeless Investment Principles for Smart Investors (Part 3): For smart and intelligent investors and by Benjamin Graham
How to get your Banking Problems Solved by Ombudsman: There’s a solution to every problem. A primer for your banking problems
HDFC Bank Charges You Rs 500 for Closing Accounts: Shocker or a non issue?
Report on Equity Investment Strategies in Emerging Markets like India: Mckinsey’s report
How to calculate Bond Yields and the Formula: Simplified bond formula. Really?
Basic Maths Tools to Understand Personal Finance: Check it out for yourself.
Comparison between ULIPs and Mutual Funds: Investment v/s Insurance: Share your views.
Why People Avoid Financial Literacy?: Please share your views too.

Thanks.

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Ranjan Varma's Blog

Excellence is not a skill, It’s an attitude

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Insurance is a Risk product and Return is just an Add-on

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Personal Finance Is More Personal Than Finance

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Bankers or Bhayankars?

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2012 and New Years

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Spending Money

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Irrational Buying and Smart Selling

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One Million Content Hits, Thank You

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