France

While I keep talking about compounding and investing it does not mean that you should not have fun and live a life.

I am actually wanting you to invest so that you can enjoy your life. While some of my advice may make you wealthy in the long run, most of my advice is to help you live a life today.

A well lived life is about getting experiences. In my view the best experiences are gained when we travel to different parts of the world and see different cultures and eat different foods.

I got this trait from my father, who showed us so many countries when we were kids. The education and learning I got by travelling helped me become a more tolerant and considerate person. It also taught me on seeing different points of view, appreciate different food habits and enjoy in whatever surrounding I am.

When I became an adult, I decided that India itself is a very big country and I made it a point to see and show my family various parts of India first.

There is a treasure trove of history, food and culture all across India – whether you go to Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra in the west, to Bengal & Assam in the east, to the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in the south to Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh – there are snow clad mountains, to forts to human evolution – everything and no two states are alike. That’s the beauty of India. We have been to most of India, sometimes travelling the countryside by road and enjoying local fruits and foods and sights.

Then over the last 2 years I have been making it a point to first show my family all the countries I had seen as a kid and then cover my bucket lists.

So I have taken them to Canada, Switzerland and France. Some more countries remaining on the agenda include UK, Singapore, UAE and USA

I have shared earlier also that I have a huge bucket list – from seeing the northern lights and southern lights to seeing the giraffes in their natural habitat, to exploring the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and to see the Gold Coast.

This kind of extensive travel, often, is not easy on the pocket, specifically for an individual who is earning a salary in India. Especially when whatever you save becomes 70 times less when converted into the US Dollar or about 85 times less when compared to the Euro.

That’s where the concept of buckets comes in. Again this is not something I have invented. I use this concept to build my asset allocation. Some of the money is kept in cash equivalents for emergency purposes. This is usually not with me because I would end up spending it. Then I have a set of regular SIPs (Systematic Investment Plans) for mutual funds and stocks. These are my forced saving methods where the money goes out of my bank account on a pre-determined date and I cannot do anything about it. And then I have a bucket for my “bucket lists”.

Whenever I get some backlog of salary or allowances I put this amount into putting together my corpus to fund the initiation of my trips. If I can find a way to pay for the tickets and the visa costs then I plan my journeys. Usually planning a journey takes about 2-3 months. During this time and till I complete my journeys I save whatever I can to pay off the travel bills without taking credit card debt.

Inspite of all this I am short of some amount always, because we always end up spending more than our budget. That’s when I take some profits off the table from my investments. This is not a good strategy because I only tell you that the longer you keep the investment the better is the chance for compounding to do magic. But the value of the experiences which I can give my family have a much higher value so I do encash some of my investments to pay-off the expenses.

My advice to you also would be to always create a budget for gaining life’s experiences. Using those experiences you can tell stories to your friends relatives and grand children. That’s what will make your day and give you a richer life. Wealth can follow.

Carpe Diem!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

A headline which caught my eye today and a cause for celebration for India and people of Indian origin was this report from the World Economic Forum site.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/the-80-trillion-world-economy-in-one-chart

The chart on this link gives such a concise view of how the break-up of the $80Trillion world economy looks like.

While US is still the largest economy at $19 trillion, China at $12 trillion, is closing in quite fast and is one of the reasons for the spat between US and China.

What needs to be understood that China has a huge population and even a small change in per capita can change the numbers for China dramatically.

Which brings me to India. In one of my posts almost 6-7 months back I had written how the Indian economy can grow dramatically because of the things the government of India is doing in terms of Direct Benefits Transfer and for doubling of farm wages. With India’s large and growing young population even a $100 increase in per person income, from $1700/ person, can cause us to cross Germany, Japan etc. in a matter of years.

One of the BigFive consultants had put out a report of countries in terms of their share of the economy in 2050. And the top 3 economies had India in it. While we have only $2.6 trillion portion of the global economy we are still the fastest growing large economy.

Which brings me to the crux of this post….

While Warren Buffet is betting on the USA and I am not negating him…. I also do have some indirect exposure to the US market…..

I would think if you really want to grow fast, you need to invest in an economy which has the world’s largest democracy. Irrespective of which government comes to power, the economy moves on……there might be some slow downs but India has both the brain power and the manpower to surge ahead. Being a stable democracy there is a rule of law. So companies do get stuck in legal hassles but things do get resolved

By 2030 we would have the youngest population in the world. That will mean the amount of consumption that can take place in this country will be unsurpassed. With both men and women entering the workplace either directly or indirectly, the need for workplaces will grow and it will put pressure on our existing infrastructure. Which means that the government will have to be investing in setting up new cities. The Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor – being built with Japanese collaboration – is going to sprout more than 10 completely new living and industrial areas.

To transport the population you will need to have airports, roads, airlines. To treat such a large population you will need hospitals, medicines etc. There is no field where growth will not take place at amazing rates.

If you can take ownership of businesses via mutual funds or direct equity investments invest in India. The growth is just about to begin and if you buy into companies at this time you can ride this growth. If you want your wealth to grow faster than anywhere else in the world put your money in India.

To your financial independence.

Carpe Diem

ANIMESHJMATHUR

Adventures – have a life – get experiences

India crosses France in GDP