Two months after my daughter was born in 2023, my wife’s uncle who sells LIC policies part-time came over with a laptop and a “family protection plan” that combined life cover with a maturity payout. The premium he quoted was ₹86,000 a year for a sum assured of ₹25 lakh. I told him I’d think … Read more
At 9:15 am on 4 June 2024, my portfolio was sitting on gains of nearly ₹1.1 lakh. By late morning, more than half of that had disappeared, and I was staring at my Groww app trying to decide whether to sell everything before it got worse. I sold. Not all of it, but enough I … Read more
I almost closed the INDmoney app without looking properly. It was just a random Tuesday check-in on my SIPs the kind you do out of habit, not because you’re expecting anything interesting. But something on the growth chart made me stop and pinch-zoom in. For the first five years, the line looked almost flat. Boring, … Read more
What Happened When I Scaled My Side Business After One Good Month? Diwali 2022 was the best month my little side business had ever seen. This was a few years before HMA Wealth existed I was running personalised gifting hampers and diaries out of Instagram DMs and WhatsApp orders, alongside a regular job. That October, … Read more
My friend once asked me to help her figure out a ₹40,000 dental procedure her insurance wouldn’t cover. She had a credit card with enough limit sitting unused, and she also qualified for a quick personal loan through her salary account. Same amount, same urgency, two completely different tools and she genuinely didn’t know which … Read more
Back in April 2021, riding the tail end of a monster small-cap rally, I put ₹1,00,000 into a small-cap mutual fund. Year one was incredible: up 45%. I genuinely felt like I’d cracked investing. Then 2022 happened. The fund fell 12% during a broad market correction, and that feeling took a hit right along with … Read more
In 2022, I bought a 1BHK in Wakad, on the outskirts of Pune, purely as a rental property roughly ₹45 lakh, with about ₹30 lakh of that on a home loan. Before signing anything, I ran the numbers: ₹15,000 a month in expected rent worked out to a neat 4% return on paper. I remember … Read more
What is Stock Market? A Beginner’s Guide That Actually Explains It My brother sent me a screenshot at 11 PM once his friend had turned ₹15,000 into ₹40,000 in what he swore was “three weeks, bro, just trust me.” He wanted to put in his entire Diwali bonus the next morning. When I asked what … Read more
A couple of years ago, I had four credit card statements spread out on my bed, trying to figure out why I was earning almost nothing back despite spending decent money every month. I had cards, sure. But I had no real system I was tapping whichever card was closest to my hand, not the … Read more
Do You Remember the First Time Your Salary Just… Disappeared? Mine was March 2021. I’d just started earning again after a rough stretch during the lockdown, and I still remember opening my bank app on the 26th of the month and staring at a balance that made no sense. I hadn’t bought anything big. No … Read more