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How to study stock market in India

By Hashim Manikfan
Last Updated on February 28, 2025
A young man is searching for how to study the stock market in India.

The demand for stock market learning has surged exponentially over the past few years, especially after COVID-19.

According to the reports, the number of stock market participants grew from 4 crores to 17 crores during the post-COVID era, a significant rise of more than 300% in this short time. This number is only increasing year by year.

At the same time, more than 93% of individual traders incurred losses of more than ₹1.8 lakh crores over three years between FY 22 and FY 24 in F&O trading, as per the SEBI reports. This indicates that the stock market can be a double-edged sword if you are not cautious about your trading decisions.

The stock market presents substantial risks for traders who do not exercise caution during trading. Lack of awareness can lead to repetitive mistakes and poor decision-making, highlighting the need to study the stock market in India.

Despite continuing losses over the years, 75% continued trading in F&O. This alarming number of individual losses raises concerns about a lack of adequate knowledge and understanding of the stock market and its mechanisms.

Even though several platforms and fintech influencers provide stock market courses, finding the right one can be difficult.

On top of that, multiple groups offer illegitimate stock market courses under the guise of credible brokers, with some even mimicking the names of legitimate financial organisations.

To prevent you from becoming a victim of scammers, we will help you navigate the complexity of identifying legitimate sources and relevant subjects to learn about the stock market in India. Keep reading to find out the appropriate method.

Top 10 ways to learn about the stock market in India

Stock market learning can be a struggle, especially for someone who is new to the stock market. Considering the wide range of share market trading and investing courses available on the Internet, it can be tiring to find the appropriate stock market courses.

Finding factual stock market courses has become more difficult with the rising number of fraudsters posing as genuine and certified investors or organisations providing illegitimate stock market learning courses.

Therefore, we have broken down the 10 best ways to learn stock market trading and investing in India. Find out where you can learn everything about the stock market in India.

1. Take stock market courses

Stock market crash courses are an easy way to learn everything about the stock market in one place. There are numerous brokers, financial institutions, and influencers offering stock market learning courses, including investment and trading that are tailored to customer needs.

So finding genuine and credible stock market learning courses is crucial for investors and traders. Make sure to enrol in courses offered by reputable platforms or brokers that are either authorised or have a good reputation among other learners.

On the other hand, there are online stock market courses. Platforms like FinQuo Versity and Udemy offer a wide range of online investment and online trading courses that are catered to beginners and professionals. Online courses that cover entire stock market concepts are an effective way to learn share market trading in India.

2. Learn from a mentor

If you are more into one-on-one learning, you should look for a personal trainer to learn about the stock market. One of the most important factors to consider when searching for a personal trainer is whether or not the individual is a certified professional with trading and investment experience.

Before assigning a mentor, you should categorise what you need to learn about the stock market. As multiple mentors are offering diverse courses for individuals—catered to individual needs, specifying what you want to learn whether online intraday trading or investing, will help you identify the appropriate mentor for you.

Stock market mentors in India are available on various platforms, including SEBI-registered academies like NSE and BSE. Select a mentor with a strong track record of stock market success. You can also go for trusted mentors on YouTube and other renowned financial institutions.

3. Use stock market-related books

Stock market learning is not limited to just online methods. Market experts and economists offer various books relating to stock market learning, focusing on a diverse variety of topics. Whether you are a beginner or a professional, there are different collections of books that are suited to your needs.

In addition, you can also choose based on your area of focus, such as technical analysis, price action trading, or investing. When you are purchasing books, remember to purchase authentic books from genuine stores or reputed e-commerce websites like Amazon, Flipkart, and others. Read book reviews and comments before buying.

The best way of learning through books is to use a mix of books that focus on different areas where you like your expertise. This will assist you in gaining a new perspective and may inspire a fresh approach to trading and investing on your own.

4. Learn from internet blogs

If you are not in a position to afford stock market courses or purchase books, then you can choose to study the Indian stock market through internet blogs. Unlike courses or books, you do not have to pay anything to learn about it.

Blogs from official NSE/BSE websites and other financial institutions cover a wide array of subjects, from the latest market trends to simplifying complex terms, fundamental and technical analysis learning, financial behaviour, and many others. All these can be obtained for free.

However, there is a risk of misinformation or a lack of depth when reading internet blogs because they frequently focus on trending topics, so you may miss out on in-depth learning. Unlike books and trading courses, blogs do not offer a structured curriculum for personalised learning. Moreover, it is also hard to verify if blogs are written by professionals, seasoned traders, or just content creators. Therefore, read blogs from trusted websites.

5. Stay updated on news

Following the latest news may help you to stay informed on the latest trends, company updates, and other major events. However, it may not be the best source to learn share market trading in India.

Many economists, fund managers, and market analysts conduct interviews or share their expertise on a specific subject. This might help you gain knowledge about the various aspects of the Indian stock market. Staying updated on news can help you capture major events and take advantage of the market volatility to gain potential profits.

However, it may not provide an in-depth learning curriculum like books and stock market courses offer. But if you already have basic knowledge about investing and intraday trading, leveraging market updates from the news may help you capture potential opportunities.

6. Attend webinars

Attending webinars is an excellent way to capitalise on stock market concepts. Webinars are frequently hosted by professional traders and market analysts. Therefore, you will have the opportunity to learn directly from the market professionals. You will get insights from experienced investors and traders who share real-world strategies.

In webinars, you can ask your questions directly with these professionals. Webinars often offer diverse learning, focusing on case studies and live online intraday trading sessions. Moreover, attending webinars also offers the chance to connect with seasonal traders and professionals across the blog.

Webinars may also offer the opportunity to join exclusive groups or mentorship programs. Networking with seasoned traders and professional investors may also help you get better insights that can up your game in online intraday trading.

7. Learn by practicing

Learning about theoretical concepts may not be enough to capitalise on market opportunities. Practice with paper trading before using real money to learn trading in share market in India. While investing, you may not need to have extensive practice as it heavily relies on fundamentals and market updates.

Start training with paper trading by opening a demat account on a renowned trading platform. While practising paper trading, learn various trading strategies, such as swing and intraday trading. Practising will help you understand how the market functions. You can gain real market experience without losing any money.

Put your learning concepts into your trading expertise. Use different technical analyses. Adopt a trading style and develop a disciplined trading plan. Stick to your trading plan to make consistent profits. Start trading with real money once you are confident that you can follow a disciplined trading plan to make consistent profits.

8. Follow successful investors

The stock market is a double-edged sword where you can amplify profit and loss. Simply learning the mechanism of trading in the stock market may not help you amplify consistent profits because stock market growth is not steady.

Following in the footsteps of professional investors and traders may help you get an insight into how to make a consistent profit in the stock market. Examine different investment portfolios, technical indicators, option trading strategies, and others to learn what to do in various market situations.

You can also follow multiple professionals in the stock market. Diverse approach toward the stock market from different investors will help you broaden your perspective and easily navigate the stock market complexities.

9. Copy trading

Copy trading, as the name indicates, is the process of copying the technical inputs of a professional trader. Copy trading can be an amazing tool for learning about the stock market. Although, you may need to be aware of basic concepts before starting to learn from copy trading.

The Copy Trading feature directly allows traders to copy the professional trader’s trading plan to make profits. Professional traders can use their trading plans to share with others. You can choose to select various trading plans from different trading mechanisms, such as option trading, intraday trading, or swing trading.

Furthermore, you can perform analysis to learn how trades are entered and exited. And also learn about the indicators used by professionals as well.

Copy trading is available on many platforms. It is up to you to decide which trader’s plan to incorporate into your trading portfolio. The ability of copy trading is not limited to just a profit-making feature; it can also be used as an excellent way to learn about trading activity.

10. Online videos

While the above-mentioned methods to learn about the stock market may cost you a little, watching free online videos offered by experts and seasoned professionals on YouTube and other platforms may also make you a good investor.

It is crucial to ensure that you learn about the stock market from a professional trader. Otherwise, you may not get in-depth learning. These are professional traders who provide stock market crash courses as well as basic learning through online videos.

You can learn from their online videos to have a basic understanding of the stock market from these experts through their in-depth learning videos.

Conclusion

Since the stock market gained popularity among Indians, there has been a great demand for knowledge and skills to succeed in it. As a result, a large number of influencers have surfaced with the goal of sharing stock market knowledge via classes and other means.

This caused traders and investors to become confused about how to study the Indian stock market.

As you have now read this, you will have a clear idea of how to study stock market in India.

Attending webinars, learning from mentors, taking online courses, and other approaches all aim to teach enthusiastic traders and investors about the stock market.

Finding the best stock market study strategy requires matching your learning style. If you prefer one-on-one sessions or prefer to learn in a live setting, attending webinars or learning from a mentor is the best option.

You can select any of these learning methods based on your learning style. However, be sure that you receive genuine stock market training from reliable experts. Choose the best option for you to begin learning the stock market. Get training from the top experts right now to profit from your stock market education.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Hashim Manikfan

Hashim Manikfan is a professional financial content writer with extensive experience in creating engaging and informative articles on a wide range of financial topics. With academic background in Communication and Journalism, Hashim has published numerous articles aimed at educating readers on essential financial principles. His work covers areas such as financial markets, investment strategies, economic trends, and more. His writing style ensures complex topics are accessible and interesting, making financial literacy attainable for a broad audience.

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10 easy ways to control your emotions when trading

By Hashim Manikfan
Last Updated on February 28, 2025
A trader is trying to control his emotions when trading

Imagine you are browsing trading charts and come across USD/CAD; you see a potential opportunity.

In the H1 chart of USD/CAD, all you see are bullish signals. To confirm, you start looking for any major events online.

It turns out President Trump is planning to impose tariffs a few hours later. Before that, you bought some, hoping to make some profits.

As Trump imposed tariffs, your position in USD/CAD skyrocketed to 100% in minutes. Your adrenaline rushed. This is it!

You watch the screen, moving the pointer towards the exit position. You check the ROI; it’s 130%. Now, you are having second thoughts.

Greed kicked into your system. You waited, hoping for the greenback to rise.

Unexpectedly, the pair dipped slightly. You thought it was just a retracement. But the drop accelerated. ROI plummeted from 124% to 80%, 50%, and 20%.

Your heart races, and your mind whispers, Why is it falling? Isn’t my analysis right? The panic sets in. You froze.

Neither do you realise it was your emotions, nor do you know about controlling your emotions in trading. The idea of how to control emotions when trading.

By the time you snap out of the denial, it is too late. The ROI is -32%. You exited with regret and ashamed of yourself.

Now, you are emotionally devastated, wanting to recoup a lost trade. However, your wallet is drained. You kept staring at your negative daily PNL.

This trading scenario is very common among traders who do not have emotional discipline. It is an example of how unchecked emotions can beat your trading plan.

Here you can learn what you should do to manage your emotions before they start to control your trading decisions.

Keep reading to find out.

Take control of your emotions with these strategies now!

When trading, you cannot depend on emotions because they are not reliable and influence you to make impulsive decisions. While trading, you aim to make long-term profits. Emotions can interrupt your long-term trading plans.

Since emotions can influence your trading decisions, it is critical to take control of them before they induce impulsive decisions.

There are numerous ways you can control your emotions. The right strategy is understanding your emotions and building trading psychology to prevent your emotions from contradicting your trading journey.

The following are some of the easiest ways to control your emotions. Read to find out which are the emotions you have and what measures you need to take to control them.

  1. Journal your emotions
  2. Build emotional toughness
  3. Create a trading plan
  4. Set realistic goals
  5. Practice relaxation measures
  6. Use risk management decisions
  7. Take breaks
  8. Build a support system
  9. Stick to the trading plan
  10. Automate your trades

1. Journal your emotions

Emotions occur naturally in our lives. You cannot avoid them, but you can control them. So first of all, you need to understand what your emotions are, such as fear, greed, anger, disappointment, excitement, despair, and many others.

Write down your emotions and the reason they get triggered in your journal. This practice will help you to realise what your emotions are and why they occur. It will help you to take responsibility for your actions instead of blaming them.

Recognise how these emotions arise and your reactions to them. Monitor these feelings to identify patterns and take proactive measures to manage your emotions to prevent them from influencing your trading decisions.

Once you have a clear idea of what your emotions are and how they affect your trading decisions, then you can use the right measures to prevent them.

2. Build emotional toughness

Emotions can drive your mental peace as well as market volume. When traders react emotionally to market fluctuations, the market can be heavily influenced by emotional trading.

Most of the time, people respond emotionally to the market conditions consumed by fear, greed, hopelessness, and despair. This eventually results in significant financial losses most of the time.

To manage these emotions, you need to be emotionally tough. Although, you cannot become emotionally strong without experiencing these emotions. Even a professional trader may have gone through emotional turbulence during the early days of his/her career.

Becoming emotionally tough involves having flexibility, responsiveness, strength, and resilience to face the emotions. So you should inherit these abilities to manage emotions efficiently. The key is to take responsibility for your losses and never repeat the same mistakes.

During a market crisis, having these abilities will help you overcome your emotions and move past the potential crisis by implementing informed trading decisions.

3. Create a trading plan

Develop a trading plan by assessing your financial condition, risk tolerance, and other factors. Also, consider emotional factors when building your trading plan.

For example, if you tend to make more trades a day and eventually lose your capital at the end of the day, then you should create a rule to limit your trading activity, such as two or three trades a day. Whether you make a profit or loss, you should stop your trading upon the limit of the day to protect your capital.

Similarly, there are other emotional instances, such as fear of losing a profit or becoming greedy when you are already in profit. In these cases, you should create a solid stop loss and take profit in every trade to prevent missing out on making profits.

Set your own trading rules to control your emotions. Create a trading plan by combining all these trading rules. Staying consistent with your trading plan during emotionally weak times.

4. Set realistic goals

The objective of trading is to make profits. To accomplish this, you must establish goals. A trading plan without goals has no direction. While creating goals, it is important to make realistic goals that you can achieve.

Aiming for goals that are beyond your reach can be harder to achieve and eventually lead to frustration and hopelessness, which could trigger you to make careless trading decisions. Clear and well-defined goals will help to structure your trading plan.

Goals help to build discipline and consistency that can mitigate emotional biases during market uncertainty. Setting goals like “one or two trades a day” or “stop trading after a 2% loss or profit” can limit exposure to emotionally draining situations.

Avoid having the mindset of becoming rich quickly by trying to capitalise on the trend because wealth building is a long-term activity, and you can guarantee yourself a successful trading journey by setting clear goals and a disciplined trading strategy.

5. Practice relaxing measures

When you are trading as a beginner, it is very common to be influenced by emotions like fear and greed. Having no control over your emotions can result in significant losses. So, you must work on dealing with these emotions to limit their exposure to market fluctuations.

One of the common practices that you should do when you are emotionally vulnerable is to practice breathing exercises. Inhaling and exhaling deep breaths can help you calm your nerves and realise what you are going through.

This will help you to bring you back to your senses and implement informed market decisions to limit the exposure of your capital to an ongoing loss. In addition, you can also do daily meditation to help your emotional toughness grow bigger than vulnerability.

6. Use risk management decisions

Trading with emotions is a psychological game. While you may make profits by chasing trends out of fear of missing out, you cannot rely on luck every time for timely entry. Sometimes, it could backfire and cause you to suffer significant losses.

If you have difficulty managing your emotions and trade carelessly, you should focus on risk management strategies.

Setting a risk-reward ratio and planning to exit when the price reaches your targeted risk or profit level using stop loss and take profit can help you execute trades without emotional conflicts.

Always try to plan your trades and execute them at predetermined positions when you believe there is an opportunity. This will help you capture profits, whether they are small or large.

Do not panic if you miss out on an opportunity or your position is at risk. Losing is part of the trading journey. However, you can determine how much you can afford to lose by analysing your risk tolerance and exiting the trade before it heavily impacts your capital.

7. Take breaks

Excessive trading can be mentally exhausting. It demands a clear strategy and critical thinking for success, along with a calm mindset to build a successful trading portfolio.

Additionally, prolonged screen time can strain both your mind and eyes, so it’s essential to take breaks between trades. Use these breaks to relax your mind and enhance your efficiency.

8. Build a support system

Surround yourself with people who have experience and knowledge in trading to build a solid support system. Share your trading ideas and trading plans with them. They will help you identify emotionally triggering areas and review your trading plans.

Staying connected with a group of traders will also help you realise that you are not alone, as everyone struggles with fear, greed, despair, hopelessness, and others.

Following their advice and footsteps may help you gain control of your emotions while trading. However, follow your trading plan under any circumstances.

9. Stick to the trading plan

The key to becoming consistent in trading is to follow the trading plan despite the situation. Whether you suffer a huge loss or you were able to capture a small profit from a huge opportunity, you need to face it and take responsibility for it.

Trading opportunities come and go. You may miss out on a huge trading opportunity because of your planned risk-reward ratio. But this does not mean that opportunities will not arise. Without a doubt, profit-making opportunities are going to come.

Sticking to the trading plan will help you capitalise on every opportunity in the long journey, whether it is big or small.

10. Automate your trades

In the trading world, if you do not have a consistent plan, then you are bound to lose motivation to trade as you face losses. If you are inconsistent in following a trading plan or struggle to control fear and greed in trading despite taking proactive measures, then you should try algorithmic trading.

With the evolution of technology, now you can input algorithmic expressions to function your trading plan without any human assistance. However, you may have to create an algorithmic trading formula. Other than that, everything is automated.

Algorithmic trading is one of the best measures to eliminate emotions in trading. All you need to do is incorporate it into your trading strategy and let it manage your trading journey based on market conditions.

Algorithmic trading eliminates emotional vulnerability, allowing traders to capitalise on any opportunity that arises without any emotional conflicts.

Types of emotions in trading

There are several forms of emotions that a trader can have, which can also impact their trading journey. Some of the most common types of emotions that influence trading decisions are given below:

  • Fear: Fear is a very common emotion among traders. Fear is mainly triggered due to unexpected market volatility, leading to an experience of fear of missing out on an opportunity or selling off early to protect profits as panic arises. Fear can often push traders into denial, causing slow responses in fast-moving markets.
  • Greed: Greed influences every trader, often emerging when profits are realised. It can lead to holding positions too long for larger gains or adjusting take profit levels. This mindset may also encourage excessive margins for anticipated profits. Ultimately, it prevents securing gains when they are in profits.
  • Euphoria: Euphoria is a state of excitement that is often triggered by multiple winning trades. This often encourages traders to be overconfident about their strategy, resulting in making trades with huge margins that could amplify huge losses if the market is not favourable.

In addition to these, there are numerous emotions such as hope, regret, impatience, and others. Some of these emotions can mix with each other and may have a domino effect on traders.

Trading psychology: the key to emotionless trading

Trading psychology is as important to the trading plan as technical and fundamental analysis are. Trading psychology refers to the mental and emotional state of a trader that determines the trader’s journey.

A trader with good trading psychology will have a better understanding of how to manage their emotions in uncertain situations. Meanwhile, a trader with poor trading psychology is more likely to make impulsive trading decisions during unusual circumstances.

Having a good trading psychology is like having the key to emotionless trading. Professional experts are so good at managing their emotions that it may look like they have no emotions in them. But in reality, they are simply sticking to their trading plan despite their emotions.

FAQ

How to stop emotions in trading?

Emotion is a natural reaction that you cannot prevent from experiencing. You can control your emotions in a certain way so you can manage them to make informed decisions. You can practice breathing exercises and meditation to optimise your emotions efficiently. If you cannot control them, the best way is to automate your decisions by using stop loss and take profits to limit your loss and capture guaranteed profits.

How to become an emotionless trader?

The first step in avoiding emotional conflicts is to execute trade decisions using stop loss and take profit orders, which can help to calm your emotions by presetting your exit points. Becoming an emotionless trader is a long journey of dedication, patience, and continuous trading according to the plan. Regular trading with risk management strategies can gradually increase emotional toughness and help you manage your emotions more effectively.

How can I control my trading psychology?

Trading psychology is the emotional state of a person when trading. Poor trading psychology can lead to impulsive decisions that may result in losses. Controlling trading psychology means not letting emotional decisions impact trading decisions.

Sticking to a trading plan is the right way to control your emotions from making your decisions. Take profit and stop loss orders can execute trading decisions without being influenced by emotions.

Conclusion

Emotions are part of our human body. As a result, we cannot avoid it as much as we want. But learning to control your emotions when trading is what makes a successful trader different from others.

Emotions like fear, greed, regret, excitement, and impatience can all influence your decision-making ability and result in impulsive and irrational trades. The losses from these trades could further impact your emotional vulnerability.

However, any trader can navigate emotional vulnerability by understanding the emotional situation, defining a trading plan, developing emotional discipline, implementing risk management decisions, taking breaks, and automating trades, which can reduce or eliminate emotional vulnerability when trading.

Having a strong support system to address and acknowledge your concerns can further boost your confidence and make you feel that you are not alone in this journey.

When trading, mastering emotional toughness is as important as succeeding in technical and fundamental analysis. You can follow these strict measures to develop a solid trading psychology that could help you take control and manage your emotions effectively.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Hashim Manikfan

Hashim Manikfan is a professional financial content writer with extensive experience in creating engaging and informative articles on a wide range of financial topics. With academic background in Communication and Journalism, Hashim has published numerous articles aimed at educating readers on essential financial principles. His work covers areas such as financial markets, investment strategies, economic trends, and more. His writing style ensures complex topics are accessible and interesting, making financial literacy attainable for a broad audience.

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How to plan for retirement at 40?

By Hashim Manikfan
Last Updated on February 25, 2025
A young woman is searching for how to plan her retirement at 40

Retirement is a long-distant dream for young individuals. Many often believe taking retirement is the gateway to becoming free from all the responsibilities. Retirement comes with a glimpse of freedom and time.

The goal of the retirement stage is to avoid any stressors, such as financial responsibilities, working under pressure, or the need to do more.

Furthermore, you would not have the same drive and charm as when you were younger to work hard. This raises the idea of being financially independent after retirement and not being obligated to work and make money.

The question that is now out of the box is how to make enough wealth to pursue retirement.

Well, that is what we are going to discuss here.

Before that, let us tell you an interesting fact.

The average retirement age of individuals is 60 years, which makes it clear that working or even pursuing your interests after the age of 60 can be quite exhausting.

Therefore, the idea of taking early retirement by the age of 40 years is becoming popular. When you retire early at age 40, you will have more time to pursue your interests than when you are 60, right?

After you retire, you should have adequate financial support starting at age 40 so that you can follow your own interests.

So today, we will be discussing how to plan for retirement at 40 in this blog. Read this entire article to find out what you should do to prepare for your retirement.

Why retire early?

Taking retirement at the age of 60 and 40 are worlds apart. Early retirement at the age of 40 will give you the advantage of 20 more years with more charisma and energy to do things you have always dreamt of doing.

Early retirement also leverages health benefits such as reducing the stress associated with long working hours, dedicating hours to mental and physical well-being.

Moreover, retiring early also provides more time to spend with your loved ones and friends. You will also have more time to pursue your hobbies, such as travel, or explore creative options that you left behind.

Early retirement is not just about leaving work; it’s about gaining control over your life and prioritising what truly matters.

It’s an opportunity to live with intention, explore the world, and make the most of your healthiest life before you start to struggle with age-related health complications.

How to prepare for retirement in your 40s?

Preparing for retirement is a disciplined approach to wealth building through saving, investing, and strategic planning. Making a strategic plan and sticking to the plan is the key to building wealth.

In the meantime, investing and saving serve as means of accelerating the process of achieving financial independence. Therefore, three of these elements are crucial for planning for early retirement.

Strategic planning for early retirement involves the combination of disciplined financial management, goal setting, and lifestyle adjustments. It requires a clear vision of your post-retirement life and actionable steps to achieve financial independence well ahead of the traditional retirement age.
Here is a detailed overview of strategic planning to prepare for retirement in your 40s:

1. Assess your financial situation

Evaluate your financial situation and retirement expenses to get an idea of how much wealth you have and how much you should generate to build a quality and fulfilling retirement lifestyle.

2. Set retirement goals

Set retirement goals. Categorise your retirement goals into short-term, mid-term, and long-term. Prioritise these goals based on the urgency and time horizon.

3. Create a retirement budget

Develop a retirement budget after evaluating your retirement goals. Input a specific amount you want to spend, save, and invest every month to achieve your retirement goals.

4. Save aggressively

Since retirement earlier than the traditional retirement age requires you to build wealth faster, it is important to practice aggressive saving measures by reducing expenses to meet retirement goals.

5. Invest wisely

When you are investing for retirement, you should consider financial instruments that guarantee returns. Invest practically in diverse financial instruments such as debt funds, bonds, retirement savings plans, etc. to ensure guaranteed returns.

6. Build passive income streams

Build passive income streams if your current income cannot afford your desired retirement lifestyle. Use skills and expertise to leverage a new stream of income for a better post-retirement lifestyle.

7. Monitor and review

Regularly monitor your retirement plan. Make any necessary adjustments required. Review your retirement plan weekly or monthly to ensure that everything is going as planned.

Investing: building wealth for early retirement

Investing is a powerful tool to build wealth over time. There are various financial instruments you can choose to invest in based on various investment and retirement goals.

Following are the investment methods that are ideal for retirement and financial planning in your 40s.

1. Mutual fund

A mutual fund is a diversified investment plan that focuses on long-term wealth building. Mutual funds are pools of securities, assets, bonds, etc. managed by mutual fund professionals to reap profits from the investment.

The different types of investment funds in a mutual fund are given below:

  • Equity funds: Equity funds are stocks of companies. They are classified as small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap.
  • Debt funds: Debt funds are securities, such as government and corporate bonds, that offer a stable return in the long run.
  • Hybrid funds: Hybrid funds are those funds that are a balanced mix of equity and debt funds. Hybrid funds offer stable returns through debt and appreciate market returns through equity funds.
  • Index funds: An index fund is an investment fund that tracks the performance of market indexes such as Nifty 50, Nasdaq 100, and others.
  • Sector funds: Mutual funds specialising in particular industry sectors are known as sector funds.

2. National pension scheme

The National Pension Scheme is a government-sponsored retirement plan regulated by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority. It provides investors with the option to allocate their money among government securities, corporate debt, and equity.

3. Unit-linked insurance plan

A unit-linked insurance plan is a dual-benefit plan that covers an insurance plan and offers market investments. The types of market-linked investments are given below:

  • Equity-Oriented ULIPs: Focus on stock market investments for high returns.
  • Debt-oriented ULIPs: Invest in bonds or fixed-income securities for lower risk.
  • Balanced ULIPs: A mix of equity and debt for moderate growth.

4. Stock market investment

Stock market investment is the practice of direct investment in purchasing shares of a company. The shares of the company are distinguished into three categories based on the market capitalisation. 

  • Large-cap: Ideal for conservative investors seeking stability and consistent returns.
  • Mid-Cap: Suited for moderate investors balancing risk and growth.
  • Small-Cap: Best for aggressive investors with a high-risk appetite and long investment horizons.

5. Public provident fund

A public provident fund is a government-backed, risk-free investment that offers a guaranteed return based on interest earned. The average fixed interest rate of a mutual fund varies from 7% to 8%.

This investment plan is tax-free under Section 80c. It also has a minimum lock-in period of 15 years, making it an ideal instrument for long-term investors.

6. Real estate

Real estate is a promising investment vehicle considering the historic price growth of land value and the increasing number of properties. There are numerous opportunities in real estate investments. Following are the common real estate investment practices

  • Residential: Purchases of homes and apartments for income are considered residential investments.
  • Commercial: Investing in commercial real estate involves buying office buildings and retail establishments for business use.
  • Industrial: Industrial property investments involve investing in warehouses, manufacturing spaces, storage units, and others.
  • REITs: A real estate investment trust is an investment plan that allows you to invest in real estate without owning properties.

With these investment methods, you now have an idea of where and how to invest for retirement at the age of 40.

Saving

Saving is the basic practice of building wealth. While you are planning for early retirement, you must save enough for emergencies or any other unprecedented expenses.

Whether it is a retirement plan for women or men, it is crucial to build an emergency fund that allows you to overcome any incident without compromising your wealth-building journey.

You must build savings of 6-7 equivalent months of expenses in your emergency fund. You can determine how much percentage you should save to build the emergency fund after evaluating your financial situation.

The FIRE Model: Gateway to Early Retirement

FIRE, also known as financial independence, retire early is a movement designed to achieve financial freedom and retire early before the traditional retirement age of 65-70.

The FIRE method suggests spending wisely while minimising expenses to achieve retirement early.

This method involves individuals saving a certain amount of money, approximately 25 times your annual income, to leave their work behind. In doing so, you will not only reach financial independence early but also achieve comfortable post-retirement.

The second concept in this method is the 4% rule.

This rule is behind the idea that once you save the money you require to pursue post-retirement life, then only withdraw 4% of your savings every year during retirement to keep up with the quality of life while ensuring long-term sustainability.

While the FIRE model ensures early financial freedom, it also demands retirees to make significant financial obligations, such as aggressive savings of 50–70% of their income, while also minimising expenses.

So if you are planning to adopt this early retirement model, you should be prepared to undergo financial cutbacks and various sacrifices. Then only you can use this model to retire before the conventional retirement age.

Conclusion

By reading this guide, you now have a clear understanding of what you should be doing to achieve retirement by the age of 40.

Achieving financial freedom at an early age to plan for retirement at 40 years of age begins with early investment and aggressive saving. These two fundamentals are the foundation for growing wealth.

Early investing allows you to benefit from the power of compounding and less impact from market fluctuations in the long run. By starting to invest early, you may have the chance to outgrow your planned investment portfolio. This may also help you to save moderately while focusing on an early retirement plan.

Moreover, you can choose to create a diverse investment portfolio by investing in various financial instruments that offer stable and high potential returns.

If you are someone who is looking to retire early, then you can adopt the FIRE method by practising investing and saving to achieve financial independence early.

Early financial independence indicates that you have more chances to achieve retirement early and live the life you have always dreamt of.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Hashim Manikfan

Hashim Manikfan is a professional financial content writer with extensive experience in creating engaging and informative articles on a wide range of financial topics. With academic background in Communication and Journalism, Hashim has published numerous articles aimed at educating readers on essential financial principles. His work covers areas such as financial markets, investment strategies, economic trends, and more. His writing style ensures complex topics are accessible and interesting, making financial literacy attainable for a broad audience.

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How to retire early? The ultimate guide to early retirement planning

By Hashim Manikfan
Last Updated on February 25, 2025
A young man is saving for an early retirement.

Aren’t we all tired of working five days a week, year after year, just waiting for weekends or vacations to catch our breath? 

Do you ever think back to your childhood, when life was all about play, curiosity, and living on your own terms—free from the weight of responsibilities?

What if I told you that you can live your life in the same way and it doesn’t have to be an endless cycle of work and stress? 

Imagine reclaiming that sense of freedom and joy, waking up each day to a life without any pressure of a job or a stressful schedule.

Well, you still can sense those by retiring early. 

Early retirement isn’t just a dream; it’s a plan. With the right strategies and discipline, you can step away from the stressful life and live a life that feels as carefree as those childhood days. 

Here, we will discuss the steps you should take to start planning for early retirement. 

So, if you’re ready to take charge of your future and design a life on your own terms, let’s dive into the essential steps for early retirement planning. 

First, let us give you a brief explanation about what early retirement is.

What is early retirement?

Early retirement is a way of leaving work permanently at an early age to pursue other interests like travel, spending time with loved ones, or pursuing a passion.

The concept behind early retirement is to achieve financial independence to live life on your own terms ahead of the standard retirement age.

Financial independence is the core element of early retirement. This means that you should have enough financial assets to cover your expenses without relying on a traditional job.

Achieving early retirement involves setting clear objectives, understanding your financial needs, and making wise decisions about spending and saving.

With appropriate planning and the right strategies, early retirement can be more than just a dream.

How do you plan for early retirement?

Planning retirement requires setting clear objectives, calculating your retirement expenses, aggressively saving, investing wisely, and creating alternative sources of income.

A disciplined approach to implementing these practices can help you achieve financial independence at an early stage. If you are starting to plan your retirement before 40, then you should start preparing early.

This following step-to-step approach will help you start your early retirement planning.

1. Assess your financial situation

Understanding your financial condition is essential for planning your retirement. When you get a clear understanding of your financial status, you will have a detailed idea of how much you should make to afford your desired retirement lifestyle.

Understanding your financial status will help you create a baseline for an early retirement plan. You can understand how much you need to save and invest for retirement by analysing your financial situation.

Moreover, it will also help determine whether you need to increase your income or stay the same. This way you can set realistic investment and retirement goals as per your financial health to achieve early retirement.

Estimate your financial net worth by subtracting your total assets from your liabilities. This will provide your net worth.

Review your multiple income sources to calculate your revenue. In doing so, you will get clarity on how much income you have generated and how much you can afford to invest and save without compromising your current lifestyle.

2. Evaluate your retirement expense

Retirement expense is the amount of money you wish to spend during the post-retirement life. This amount is crucial to derive during retirement planning because declaring an estimated amount will help you to identify how much money you should be making now or what you should make to invest for achieving early retirement.

Calculate how much your retirement expense would be by evaluating your post-retirement lifestyle. Start listing the things you want to do in your post-retirement lifestyle, such as travelling through the countries or setting up a small cafe in a tropical country.

Estimate all the living costs. Also, include your health costs and consider building an emergency fund for post-retirement.

This will help you to challenge unexpected events without comprising the post-retirement budget.

3. Set retirement goals

Retirement goals form the foundation of early retirement planning. Setting clear retirement goals aligning with your financial situation and lifestyle defines your retirement plan.

Write down various retirement goals you want to achieve. Then evaluate your goals with your financial situation. This will help you determine how to achieve these goals with current financial conditions.

Break down your retirement goals into short-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals can be reducing debt, increasing income, or saving more.

Meanwhile, long-term goals can include pursuing a business of your interest, estate planning, or healthcare needs. Divide goals based on the time horizon and priority.

A clear set of short-term and long-term goals will help you identify which goals you should focus on first to achieve financial independence as early as possible.

4. Save and Invest

Financial independence is achieved by saving and investing consistently. Saving is a practice where you have no risk of losing money. A savings or fixed deposit account offers low risk and guaranteed returns.

Saving money is the best way to build an emergency fund or achieve short-term goals.

You can also save money to achieve long-term goals. However, it may take longer and require more income sources to save more to achieve financial freedom quicker.

Meanwhile, investing your money in various assets, securities, real estate, and others can help you achieve your long-term financial goals earlier by generating profits through compounding power and return interests.

Both saving and investing are powerful tools for achieving financial independence.

Therefore, determine a specific amount you plan to invest and save. After considering your retirement goals and financial situation, make regular contributions to savings and investments.

Make sure that you stick to saving and investing consistently to achieve your retirement goals.

5. Explore retirement-investment plans

When planning for retirement, retirement investment plans are the investment vehicle that helps you approach retirement goals. Retirement plans are solely designed to support achieving long-term goals.

Retirement plans are of many types and cater to diverse financial needs and goals. Some of the retirement investment plans offer guaranteed returns with tax benefits. Some of the popular investment plans are given below

National pension scheme

This is a retirement investment plan backed by the government. The investment is carried out by allocating to the capital market instruments of choice such as equities, bonds, government securities, and others. You can grow your wealth over time by consistently investing in this plan. In addition, it also offers tax benefits under Section 80C.

Unit-linked insurance plans

A unit-linked insurance plan is a dual-benefit plan that offers equity-based investments and insurance coverage. It also provides life insurance for you and your loved ones.

This investment option is also covered under Section 80C and completely tax-free upon maturity. This helps investors get maximum profits from the investment plan.

Public provident fund

A public provident fund is a secure, government-backed, risk-free investment plan that provides fixed and guaranteed returns.

This investment plan generates profits through compound interest rates without involvement with market risks.

Investment can be started with as little as ₹500. It is also completely tax-free up to maturity, including the earned interest rate.

Mutual fund

A mutual fund is an investment vehicle that consists of a pool of assets, securities, bonds, and other instruments.

In mutual funds, funds from multiple investors are invested in a diverse portfolio of money market instruments. Each mutual fund is managed by a professional fund manager who handles and makes investment decisions on behalf of the investors.

Different mutual fund options are catered to individual needs based on various risk tolerances. Mutual funds provide potential growth opportunities due to market volatility and interest rates.

6. Monitor and review

Monitoring and regularly reviewing your retirement plan is essential to ensuring you stay on track toward achieving your retirement goals.

Your retirement plan is subjected to lifestyle changes, economic fluctuations, and personal circumstances. Therefore, adjust your retirement plan strategy accordingly.

Track your retirement plan by evaluating income, expenses, growth rates, etc. Adjust your income and expenses based on life changes.

Make changes to the goals as well if required. Adjust your investment strategy and savings rate to meet the changing needs of your post-retirement lifestyle.

What is the 4% rule advice for early retirement?

The 4% rule is the idea of withdrawing 4% of the retirement savings in the first year of retirement and then adjusting to inflation every year. This rule can be continued every year by withdrawing no more than 4% each year.

The rule establishes a steady income flow that satisfies current and future needs. This 4% rule is more likely to last your retirement funds because of the return on interest and dividends. This rule is considered a safe strategy.

However, it may not be the safest withdrawal strategy for all scenarios. There are other rules, such as the 5% rule, which is more realistic in some scenarios.

Advantages of early retirement

Early investment promotes numerous benefits. Achieving financial freedom at an early stage allows individuals to retire early and live on their own terms. Some of the benefits are given below:

  • Financial support: Taking early retirement is a sign of achieving financial stability. With the ability to take out a portion of the money each year to pursue post-retirement life, early retirement encourages pursuing other financial investments to secure the future.
  • Flexibility: Early retirement provides flexibility to enjoy leisure time by pursuing hobbies, travelling, or increasing focus on family and relationships.
  • Personal growth: Early retirement means leaving work permanently. This offers more time to pursue learning and pursue professional development opportunities. This leads to personal growth as well as developing new skills.
  • Improved mental and physical well-being: Without the constant pressure of a demanding job, you can relieve all the stress during retirement. A stress-free lifestyle will help you improve your overall well-being.

Conclusion

Early retirement does not work the same for everyone. It is designed for individual priorities, whether planning retirement for women or senior citizens.

As you have now read this blog, we believe that you have a clear understanding of how to achieve financial independence in early life.

While early retirement promises financial freedom, it is critical to build a disciplined approach to saving, investing, and managing your spending habits.

Early retirement is a long-term goal focused on achieving financial stability in post-retirement life. You can leverage the benefits of saving to achieve short-term goals and investing to reach long-term goals.

Early retirement plans are a suitable investment instrument that offers guaranteed returns in the long term.

Focus on your early retirement goals for a financially secure and fulfilling lifestyle that also improves your overall well-being. By integrating a disciplined approach, you can create an early retirement plan by aligning your financial goals and risk tolerance to achieve a financially secure life.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Hashim Manikfan

Hashim Manikfan is a professional financial content writer with extensive experience in creating engaging and informative articles on a wide range of financial topics. With academic background in Communication and Journalism, Hashim has published numerous articles aimed at educating readers on essential financial principles. His work covers areas such as financial markets, investment strategies, economic trends, and more. His writing style ensures complex topics are accessible and interesting, making financial literacy attainable for a broad audience.

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How to build a mutual fund portfolio

By Hashim Manikfan
Last Updated on February 17, 2025
Two individuals are managing mutual fund portfolios.

Building a mutual fund portfolio is not an easy task. Investors who choose strong mutual fund portfolios can sleep peacefully, hoping for the mutual funds to grow.

All thanks to mutual fund managers who supervise everything from research, evaluating financial situations, asset allocation, and rebalancing.

While mutual funds offer professional expertise in managing the portfolio, the process of building a good mutual fund portfolio can be stressful.

There are more than thousands of mutual fund portfolios aligned with diverse financial goals, risk tolerances, investment horizons, performance, and many others.

Moreover, the need to understand fund categories and balance asset allocation in favour of the market makes it more complex to build a good mutual fund portfolio.

Without proper knowledge, your mutual fund portfolio will be subjected to market risk, leading to missed opportunities and poor performance.

Investors may find it hard to navigate the complexity of aligning investments with financial goals as the market shifts.

Yet, you are wondering how mutual fund managers excel at creating a robust mutual fund portfolio, right?

That’s why this guide was created to help you understand how a mutual fund portfolio is built. In this guide, you will find everything you need to know about building a good mutual fund portfolio.

As you read down, you will find a step-by-step guide that explains how to build a mutual fund portfolio in simple words, even that beginners can understand effectively. Before you rush to that, let me tell you what a mutual fund is.

What is a mutual fund?

A mutual fund is a pool of assets, securities, bonds, and other investment options that you can choose to invest all together. Mutual fund plans are typically provided by fund houses and managed by mutual fund professionals.

It works by investors purchasing a mutual fund through a mutual fund provider like asset management companies, banks, or by opening a brokerage account. Once you invest in a mutual fund, all your investment is looked after by a professional for maximum returns.

Mutual funds reap maximum benefits when the portfolio is managed and rebalanced efficiently. In order to do so, you need to learn how to create a solid mutual fund. But before that, let us explain why you need a mutual fund plan.

Why build a mutual fund portfolio?

Mutual funds are diverse investment plans catered to various financial goals and risk tolerance. Whether you are a doctor, engineer, or trader, you are bound to have dreams and goals. A mutual fund plan is like a car to ease your investment journey.

If you have short-term, long-term, or retirement plans, you can achieve them by choosing the right mutual funds. Moreover, you can also invest in various assets in mutual funds to achieve these goals simultaneously. But it requires strategic planning.

Building the right mutual fund is the key to achieving your goals. Crafting a solid mutual fund requires you to assess your financial health, set realistic goals, evaluate your time horizon, select mutual fund plans that align with your financial principles, and many others.

Meeting all the criteria is important to building a strong mutual fund. We will explain what you should do in each step to build a strong mutual portfolio.

Steps to build a mutual fund portfolio

Building a diversified mutual fund portfolio requires strategic planning by evaluating your financial goals, risk tolerance, financial health, and investment timeline. These fundamental principles are essential to consider before selecting a mutual fund plan.

The next step is to choose a mutual fund plan, allocate your investments, and diversify across different funds. This is a critical aspect of portfolio building, as it must align with the criteria mentioned above. Only by carefully considering these factors can you create a well-structured mutual fund portfolio. Because mutual funds carry market risk, it is critical to consider all factors before investing. 

In this section, you’ll find a simplified, step-by-step guide to building a mutual fund portfolio by evaluating various goals and identifying different types of investment options in a mutual fund plan that align together, helping you navigate the process with clarity.

  1. Assess your financial condition
  2. Identify your goals.
  3. Evaluate your risk tolerance
  4. Determine your time horizon
  5. Select your investment option
  6. Determine your asset allocations
  7. Diversify your investment options
  8. Choose an investment mode
  9. Monitor and review

1. Assess your financial condition

Understanding your financial condition is important to learn about how much resource you have for investing. Create a record of your income, debt, expenses, and savings.

A detailed clarity on your financial health will help you determine how much you can afford to invest in mutual funds without comprising day-to-day financial needs. Evaluating your financial condition will also help you to identify the right mutual fund that aligns with your entire financial plan.

Choosing a mutual fund that aligns with your financial condition will also help you to stay on track and achieve financial goals by investing in the mutual fund plan consistently.

2. Identify your goals

Whether you have poor or good financial health, you are bound to have dreams and goals. It can be purchasing a car, buying a home, funding for education, or any other. Each of these goals has different priorities and requirements.

Therefore, prioritise the goals that you want to achieve first. Categorise into short-term, mid-term, and long-term based on the tenure it would take to achieve the goal. Ensure that these goals are realistic with your income.

Your goals should be clear and precise because mutual fund investments are carried out based on your goals. Each type of investment in a mutual fund works differently to grow your wealth. Therefore, it is important to set clear and achievable goals.

3. Determine your time horizon

Consider your investment timeline based on the time horizon of your goals. For example, you want to purchase a car worth 5 lakhs in two years and buy a home worth 50 lakhs in 10 years.

These two goals have two different time horizons and investment values. More importantly, your investment vehicle must be selected by evaluating these goals. So determining the time horizons of each goal you want to achieve will help you select the desired mutual fund plan.

4. Evaluate your risk tolerance

As we all know, a mutual fund is subjected to market risk. So there will always be risk when the market doesn’t go in favour. Therefore, investors should be willing to take risks when investing in mutual funds.

However, how much risk you are willing to take should be determined by yourself by evaluating your income, age, experience, and investment goals. Based on the evaluation, you can decide how much risk you are willing to take.

In doing so, you will be able to choose investment options that balance your risk and return.

5. Select your investment option

There are various investment options that you can invest in a mutual fund. Each investment vehicle is catered to a specific risk tolerance and time horizon.

Check out the specific fund options in a mutual fund diversified portfolio:

  • Equity funds: Contains equity stocks from the small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap. Suitable for the long term and contains high risk due to market volatility.
  • Debt funds: These are fixed-income securities such as government bonds, corporate bonds, and money market instruments. These are considered safe and lower in risk.
  • Hybrid funds: Hybrid funds are mixed funds of equity and debt. It is a balanced approach to growth and stability. This is suitable for investors who are moderate risk-takers.
  • Tax-saving funds: Tax-saving funds are types of funds that provide the dual benefit of long-term growth and tax benefits. The most common tax-saving fund is ELSS.

6. Determine your fund allocations

Once you get a clear idea of your investment goals, risk tolerance, and investment horizon, you can choose how much you are investing in each asset category to achieve financial goals in the given time frame.

Allocate based on your short-term, midterm, and long-term objectives. This will help you identify which asset, security, or bond you should allocate based on your risk tolerance.

7. Diversify your investment options

Diversify your investment across various classes based on your investment capital, risk tolerance, and financial goals. Distribute your investment across various equity funds, debt funds, hybrid funds, and tax-saving funds.

Here is a diversified mutual fund portfolio example:

1. Equity funds: 60%

  • Large-cap 30%: Established and guaranteed return companies with low risk
  • Mid-cap 20%: Balanced and growth potential companies for stability.
  • Small-cap 10%: Small companies with significant growth potentials with higher risks.

2. Debt funds: 25%

  • Short-Term Debt Funds (10%): Provides stable, low-risk returns through government and corporate bonds.
  • Medium-Term Debt Funds (10%): Balance moderate risk with steady interest income.
  • Corporate Bond Funds (5%): higher risk but with potentially higher returns through investments in corporate debt securities.

3. Hybrid Funds 15%

These are a mix of equity and debt funds. Hybrid funds are used to strike a balance between equity and debt fund

8. Choose an investment mode

You can choose to invest in a mutual fund in two ways: Systematic Investment Plan and Lumpsum.

  • Systematic Investment Plan (SIP): A systematic investment plan is a monthly investment approach where you deposit a fixed amount every month into your investment plan online or offline. This helps to make a disciplined approach to your investment plan.
  • Lumpsum: A lumpsum investment is investing a large amount of money at a single time. This mode of investment doesn’t require maintaining a consistent investment.

9. Monitor and review

Regularly monitor your mutual fund portfolio. Since the mutual fund is subjected to the market, its performance may not remain consistent. Therefore, managing the investments by implementing strategies like hedging is crucial.

Creating a mutual fund portfolio can be difficult if you have no prior knowledge. It requires a basic understanding of the investment landscape. A rigid mutual fund portfolio can be built by aligning your financial goals and financial health.

It is critical to choose a mutual fund that is consistent with your investment objectives. Furthermore, diversifying your assets into different categories based on your risk tolerance is critical for building a strong mutual fund portfolio.

Can I create my own mutual fund portfolio?

Yes, even if you are a fresher to mutual funds, you can build your own portfolio. You need to assess your financial goals and ensure that they align with your financial health as well as the mutual fund plan. You can build your mutual fund portfolio by diversifying your funds across various categories according to your goals, risk management, and strategies.

Things to take care of before building a mutual fund portfolio

A mutual fund is an investment vehicle to achieve financial freedom. During this journey, you may face various challenges that require financial assistance. Hence, before starting a mutual fund, you should raise funds to cover risks and emergencies.

  • Risk Cover: Risk cover is long-term insurance that offers financial protection against the major unfortunate events of life such as disability, critical illness, or death.
  • Emergency Cover: Meanwhile, emergency cover is a stipulated amount that ensures your basic lifestyle does not get affected while facing financial burdens and you can stay afloat without having to resort to debt.

Can I build 2 portfolios?

Yes, there is no restriction on you creating two mutual fund portfolios. You can build two or more portfolios based on your asset allocation or financial goals. This way of mutual fund portfolio may help to get better clarity.

How much money do you need to start a mutual fund portfolio?

You do not need a substantial amount to start your mutual fund. You can start by investing as little as 500 rupees into your mutual fund account.

Conclusion

As you have now completed this article, you have a clear idea of how to build a strong mutual portfolio. Before you start in mutual funds, it is important for you to be protected from any unexpected events or emergencies. Therefore, you must create savings for risk and emergencies.

Once you have built a cover for risk and emergencies, you can think about creating a mutual fund portfolio. You should start by evaluating your financial health, such as by listing your net income.

Then, identify your financial goal. Prioritise your goals based on time and urgency. Select a mutual fund plan that aligns with your financial goals.

Then, allocate your investments in different categories in such a way that your investment is balanced under any condition. Regularly monitor and review your mutual fund account. Make necessary adjustments if required.

With this, you can create a strong portfolio according to your financial risks and goals. Create a tailored mutual fund portfolio as per your financial situation. Choose a mutual fund that has a strong performance ratio. This ensures that you can generate more profits in the long run.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Hashim Manikfan

Hashim Manikfan is a professional financial content writer with extensive experience in creating engaging and informative articles on a wide range of financial topics. With academic background in Communication and Journalism, Hashim has published numerous articles aimed at educating readers on essential financial principles. His work covers areas such as financial markets, investment strategies, economic trends, and more. His writing style ensures complex topics are accessible and interesting, making financial literacy attainable for a broad audience.

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How to manage your salary wisely

By Ibnu Jala
Last Updated on February 17, 2025
A young woman is thinking about how to manage her salary wisely, with surrounding images of a car, house, education, and vacation.

Managing salary wisely is easier said than done. The key to effectively managing salary is a combination of planning, discipline, and consistency.

Despite a good salary, many people struggle to manage their income wisely. Does your salary also get exhausted midway before the month ends?

If you do, then you do not have a clear idea of how to manage your salary wisely.

In this inflated economy, expenses can pile up unexpectedly. Without a proper strategy, you can overspend and accumulate debt.

Therefore, simply creating a budget to manage salary without a plan may not be effective. Without a proper plan, you do not have any direction for where your income flows.

If you create a budget every month and fail to follow it midway, you clearly have a problem sticking to the budget plan.

Creating a budget plan will only help you understand where your money goes, not manage it effectively.

Setting a rule about where and how exactly the money should be spent is the key to managing your budget. A budgeting rule is crucial for managing your salary.

So today, we will be exploring various budgeting rules that will help you understand how to manage your income effectively. But before that, let us give you a framework of what you should do to manage your salary wisely.

Framework for Effective Salary Management

As humans, are we not all goal-oriented? Similarly, you should have a goal where you want your money to be spent. Otherwise, you will not have track of where your spending goes.

So, when planning for saving, retirement, or anything else, it is crucial to build a framework to track where your expenses go. A detailed structure will help you understand your financial situation, financial priorities, and how to manage your income effectively to improve your financial situation.

By building a solid framework, you may not only be creating a clear system to understand where your money goes but also budget your salary to make informed decisions about where to allocate your funds.

So here is a foundational plan for a basic framework for tracking the expenses.

  1. Assess your financial situation
  2. Set financial goals
  3. Create a budget
  4. Review and adjust

1. Assess Your Financial Situation

Before allocating funds to any expenses, it’s essential to understand how much your income is. Only then can you effectively distribute your income across various expenses.

Start by calculating your net income to gain a clear understanding of your financial situation. This involves determining the post-tax value of different income streams to arrive at your true net income.

With this solid foundation, you can make more informed decisions about how to manage your money.

2. Set Financial Goals

Once you understand your financial situation, you’ll have a better idea of how much income you earn. Since money is meant to be spent, it’s important to take control of where it is spent.

Setting specific goals, whether short-term or long-term, is crucial to achieving this successfully. Without well-defined goals, your money can easily be spent aimlessly, without any sense of direction or control.

By having specific goals, you can develop a disciplined spending habit and ensure your financial decisions align with your priorities.

3. Create a budget

Just as important as taking control of where the money goes, it is crucial to be in control of how much you spend. Once you have a clear understanding of your net income and financial goals, you can easily create a budget. A budget refers to allocating income to various categories of expenses.

Randomly allocating funds to various expenses may not be effective in balancing your income with expenses together. So using a budget rule like 50/30/20, zero-based budgeting, and other budgeting techniques will help you determine how much you need to distribute your income into various expenses. This way, you can spend your salary wisely.

4. Regularly Review and Adjust

Maintaining the budget plan is the toughest part of achieving financial stability. Several individuals fail to stay on track. It is driven by various factors such as lack of discipline, emotional tendencies, and others.

Your expenses may not align with your budget plan every time, so that does not mean you leave the budget plan in the middle. Regularly monitoring and analysing will help you understand where and how your income is flowing. You can make necessary adjustments by allocating funds to where they are lacking.

Set a weekly schedule to monitor your budget plan to track your monthly financial goals. This ensures that you effectively manage your expenses and adjust your plan as needed throughout the month. As a result, you can manage your salary effectively.

Budgeting rule: The key to successful financial stability

A budgeting rule is a strategy designed to balance spending, saving, and enjoying life while being financially stable. Financial goals and income differ from person to person, as each individual has unique financial goals, saving plans, and, more importantly, financial health. This is where the budget rule comes in—catered to various individual financial goals to achieve financial stability efficiently. Defining a monthly budget not only keeps you on track with your expenses but also helps you learn how to manage your monthly salary effectively.

Exploring popular budgeting rules

In here, you will find a detailed overview of simple budgeting rules practised by top professionals as well as beginners to manage their income. Each of these budget rules is designed to serve various financial conditions. In reading this, you will get clarity on how much you should spend on your income and what expenses you should incur to have a financially responsible lifestyle.

The following are some of the most popular budgeting strategies:

  1. The 50/30/20 rule
  2. Pay yourself budget
  3. Envelope budget
  4. Zero-based budgeting
  5. The 70/20/10 rule
  6. The 80/20 rule
  7. The “no budget” budget
  8. Line-item budgeting
  9. Anti-budget
  10. Proportional budgeting

1. The 50/30/20 rule

This budgeting rule is the most practised strategy because it simplifies budgeting while balancing income. This budget rule is divided into three expense categories: needs, wants, and savings/debt.

This budget rule works by distributing the income in the following ways:

  • 50% for needs
  • 30% for wants
  • 20% for savings/debt

This budget rule offers flexibility to adapt to various income levels and lifestyles. It encourages a balanced approach to spending and savings. You can afford to live a standard lifestyle while maintaining consistent savings with this budget strategy.

2. Pay yourself budget

Pay yourself budget refers to prioritising paying for savings and investments before you spend your income on other expenses. This term is defined to encourage people to save themselves for the future.

The idea of this budgeting strategy is to save money from your salary every month, whether you have a financial goal or not. This way, you can afford to live carefreely during any unexpected events in the future.

You can automate your savings to ensure that you save/invest a portion of your income consistently. You can use the rest of the income as per your needs and wants. This budget is suitable for you if you are looking to grow your wealth consistently.

3. Envelope budget

Envelope budgeting is a strategic budgeting method that focuses on individual spending habits. This budgeting method works by physically dividing your income in cash by putting in envelopes marked for various needs.

This budgeting strategy is one of the most effective ways to maintain and develop financial discipline. Following this budget will help you control your emotions by limiting your spending to the amount set aside for each expense. If you are careless in spending, implement this budgeting rule to encourage mindful spending.

4. Zero-based budgeting

Zero-based budgeting is the practice of allocating every single penny from the income to expenses. The idea behind this budgeting is to make income minus expenses equal to zero. In this budgeting, you will have detailed control over your finances.

Since all your income is allocated to expenses, you will need to create a new budget from scratch based on your current income. This allows for a fresh, customised approach to managing your finances, ensuring that every penny is accounted for and aligned with your financial goals.

Practising this budget strategy will help you reduce unwanted expenses, as you will have already allocated every expense to essentials.

5. The 70/20/10 rule

The 70/20/10 budgeting rule is a similar budgeting rule to the 50/30/20 rule and primarily focuses on balancing spending, saving, and debt repayment. This budget rule focuses on debt repaying and saving differently. It is suitable for those who have a habit of taking credits.

This budget rule is applied by allocating your income as follows:

  • 70% for needs/wants
  • 20% for saving
  • 10% debt repayment

The 70/20/10 budget rule promotes simplicity by dividing your income into three categories. This method eliminates the need for micromanaging every purchase while still offering the flexibility to allocate funds according to your preferences. It offers the opportunity to save for the future while focusing on repaying the debts at the same time.

6. The 80/20 rule

The 80/20 budgeting rule is a more simplified budgeting rule than the 50/30/20 and the 70/20/10 rule. This budget rule focuses on sustaining balanced spending while prioritising savings. This budgeting rule is ideal for those who have a steady income and only focus on saving without overcomplicating the expenses.

This budget is broken down as follows:

  • 80% of income for wants and needs
  • 20% of income for savings and investing

This budget provides the flexibility to allocate funds according to your needs, wants, investments, and savings. You can easily adapt your allocations based on their financial goals and requirements.

7. The “no budget” budget

A no-budget budget plan is similar to paying yourself first budgeting strategy. There is no percentage of allocation in this budget plan. If you are someone who is not very familiar with budgeting but wants to save some money for the future, then this plan is ideal for you.

In this plan, all you need to do is divide your income into two categories: expenses and savings. You can decide how much you want to allocate for spending as well as saving. This budget offers flexibility to adjust spending and savings as life changes.

8. Line-item budgeting

Line-item budgeting is a comprehensive approach to managing expenses by categorising and tracking each and every individual expense. This budgeting is specially designed for those who want to take control of small finances.

This budget would be suitable for those who are worried about even the smallest unnecessary expenses. Adopting this budget will help you to allocate precise amounts to specific needs and wants to minimise unwanted expenses.

9. Anti-budget

Anti-budget is a balanced approach to managing expenses wisely. It focuses on overall financial health rather than specific expenses. In this budget, there is no need to allocate income to fixed expenses. Instead, you can choose to allocate your income to what matters most.

This budgeting method minimises the need for detailed tracking of the expenses. It offers the flexibility to change how you manage your expenses as your life events change.

In this approach, the focus is on ensuring that financial goals are met, while the remaining funds are allocated to flexible spending, which can adjust depending on life circumstances.

10. Proportional budgeting

Proportional budgeting is a more conventional form of budgeting, offering the flexibility to allocate funds into areas that reflect personal priorities and financial goals.

This budgeting method is customised to the individual’s needs, using percentages of income to distribute funds across various categories. It follows the translational method of disbursing a portion of income.

Unlike rigid budgets, proportional budgeting adjusts the percentage of income in each area to maintain a balanced financial approach. Individuals can achieve short-term or long-term goals by balancing the portion of income as per their financial needs.

Managing your salary effectively requires careful planning, discipline, and flexibility. By setting clear financial goals and using budgeting methods like the 50/30/20 rule, pay yourself budget, or proportional budgeting, you can manage your expenses wisely.

Regularly reviewing and adjusting your budget helps maintain financial stability and supports both short-term and long-term goals. Using an effective budgeting rule that aligns with your financial goals will help you spend your salary wisely.

Investing for future

The primary aim of managing salary effectively is to become financially responsible. While we embark on the journey to become financially responsible, we should remind ourselves to invest for the future.

As we grow, our body becomes weaker, preventing us from actively working. Therefore, if you invest now, then you can make profits in the future without needing to work. Here, we will tell you about some investment options that you can choose to invest in.

  • Mutual funds: Mutual funds are a pool of assets handled by a mutual fund manager. It is designed for the long term and guarantees robust profits.
  • Direct equity: This is a direct stock market investment, which is highly rewarding if you make an informed decision. You can invest in any stock that has the potential to rise in the future to make a profit.
  • Gold: Gold is known as a safe-haven asset. Gold has shown promising growth in the past decades. It is a popular choice due to its stability and ability to hedge against inflation.
  • Retirement plans: Retirement plans are specially designed plans that focus on providing a financially stable life post-retirement. This plan focuses on investing for the future by offering unique benefits and opportunities.
  • Fixed deposits: This is a low-risk investment plan where you deposit a fixed amount at a predetermined return interest rate. It provides guaranteed returns and is suitable for people who are looking for a safe option.

Conclusion

After reading this article, you should now know how to manage your salary wisely. To do this, you must realise that your financial objectives should be reasonable and that your expenses should be in line with your income.

Managing your salary is more about controlling your finances and ensuring financial stability. As said before, effective money management requires a clear budgeting strategy and consistent effort.

Whether you choose the 50/30/20 budget rule or the zero-based budget rule, it is important to ensure that your financial condition, financial goals, and income align with your selected budget rule. The key is to make sure that you stay consistent with your budget rule. Effectively managing your budget can lead to substantial wealth accumulation.

In addition, simply saving and keeping money in the account for no purpose is a dumb thing to do. Always opt for investment if you have free cash. Choose investment options that you are familiar with. Research the investment plan before you start investing. This way, you can navigate the complexities behind the investment plan.

If you are planning to save and invest for the future. Then start using a budgeting rule to begin investing. Once you accumulate a certain portion of income, you can invest in your choice of investment vehicle.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Ibnu Jala

Ibnu Jala is an experienced professional in the financial markets of India and the Middle East, renowned for his trading expertise and mentorship. His passion for neuroscience drives his research, blending finance and science seamlessly. With a Bachelor’s in Law from India and an MBA from the UK, Ibnu Jala has a diverse academic background. In addition to being a seasoned investor and serial entrepreneur, he currently leads FinQuo Versity as its CEO.

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Exposing Common Types of Financial Frauds

By Ibnu Jala
Last Updated on February 12, 2025

When you have a country filled with more than 1 billion people and it turns out more than half of them are financially illiterate, it creates a fertile ground for scammers to execute various types of financial fraud.

Financial literacy is the key to securing your financial wealth. Without financial knowledge, you are less likely to identify and prevent potential scams.

We are humans and are emotionally vulnerable to things that value us the most. Scamsters often use a mix of psychological manipulation to trigger your emotions, leading to fear, greed, and compassion.

Scamsters can impersonate anyone to approach you. They can pose as trusted authorities, institutions, or loved ones to gain access to sensitive information. Their goal is to build trust and deceive you, leaving you empty-handed.

You may not even realise that you are being scammed. It is not your fault if you fail to recognise them. There are numerous factors that contribute to scams, including physiological manipulation, information overload, exploiting trust, and many more.

Once you are being scammed, you may be able to retrieve your money by filing a complaint. But you will never get back the peace of mind.

Financial fraud is a growing threat to the economy. We may not be at fault for being scammed. But we are at fault if we do not educate ourselves about it.

Therefore, everyone must gain knowledge to prevent getting trapped in potential scams. Since most of us lack knowledge about various financial scams, fraudsters can take advantage of it.

So enough is enough. Today you will be exploring the most common types of financial scams that individuals face. You will also learn about the nature of these financial frauds and the necessary steps to protect yourself from these scams.

What is financial fraud?

Before we dwell on the different types of financial fraud, let us understand what financial fraud is and how it affects individuals and the entire economy.

Financial fraud occurs when someone exploits or misuses your actions to their advantage to gain financial benefits at your expense.

Scammers may approach individuals and pose as institutional or government officers who manipulate your trust and take advantage of your lack of financial knowledge to misuse your personal information and financial accounts to steal your money.

Financial scammers possess the skills and resources to carry out various fraudulent activities such as identity theft, credit card fraud, insurance fraud, etc.

Each fraudster is trained to exploit your emotional vulnerability to their advantage.

If you are not careful, scammers can leave you with substantial financial losses, emotional distress, and self-doubt. Huge losses can often affect your entire livelihood.

Therefore, it is crucial to be aware of the financial scams and take necessary steps to prevent them from happening.

11 Common Types of Financial Fraud

Financial frauds are so numerous that victims may be unaware of the type of fraud taking place if they lack sufficient knowledge. Common types of financial fraud include identity theft, credit card fraud, investment fraud, and many others.

The number of financial frauds is increasing year by year. As per the reports, a total of 1.13 million financial cases were reported in 2023, including various fraudulent activities.

At the same time, several victims have chosen not to report scams due to a variety of circumstances. The combined number of reported and unreported scams could be higher. Most of these financial crimes occur online, leading to an increasing number of online financial crimes.

In order to prevent this number from rising every year, we are here to educate you about the different types of financial fraud and prevention measures.

Here is a list of financial crimes that are both online and offline scams.

  1. Identity theft
  2. Credit card fraud
  3. Pyramid schemes
  4. Insurance fraud
  5. Banking scams
  6.  Mortgage fraud
  7. Payment fraud
  8. Investment fraud
  9. Advance fee fraud
  10. Tax fraud

1. Identity theft

Identity theft occurs when someone steals your personal information, such as financial statements, bank account numbers, and credit card information, or anything to gain financial benefits or commit fraudulent activities at your expense.

Scammers can use your personal information to carry out other internet fraud activities under your name, which can lead to serious criminal offences in the future.

Thieves can get your personal information in various ways. Moreover, our data is connected all over the internet, allowing scammers to breach and obtain your information at their convenience.

Identity theft is difficult to detect, especially if you do not regularly review your financial statements. A clear sign of identity theft appears when you discover bills for items that you did not purchase, financial transactions you didn’t make, bounced checks, difficulties in accessing accounts, and many others.

Although, you can prevent it by using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and being cautious online. If an identity theft occurs despite script measures, immediately report it to the authorities and temporarily block your bank accounts. Reporting to authorities may help to prevent the rising internet fraud.

2. Credit card fraud

Credit fraud happens when an unauthorised user gains access to your credit card information and makes purchases on his/her behalf at your expense. Scammers can acquire your credit card information through physical theft, hacking, and skimming other devices.

Scammers can use your credit card information to open a new account under your name or pay for products and services without your knowledge.

As a result, a victim may experience various financial losses and might be required to dispute fraudulent charges, which can take time to resolve.

To prevent financial losses and charges, it is critical to report to the police about a credit card being stolen or misused by a person.

Also immediately contact your card issuer to block the card and dispute unauthorised transactions.

As a precaution, it is always wise to set a limit on transactions to prevent any attempt to make a sizable transaction.

3. Pyramid schemes

Pyramid scheme is a fraudulent investment model that encourages individuals to participate in the scheme by promising high returns in exchange for bringing in new recruiters.

This creates a hierarchy where profits are made mainly from recruiting members rather than selling a product or service.

Pyramid schemes are encouraged by the participants for incentives by recruiting new members. The entire structure relies on receiving a commission from the new recruitment.

Pyramid scheme operators may sound very genuine about the workings of the pyramid structure. These scammers are highly manipulative, as they will provide social proof of false client testimonials and endorsements to build credibility.

They will appear with their schemes as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity promising huge wealth and community.

In a pyramid scheme scam, the participants sitting at the top of the pyramid structure will most probably have received the profits as recruitment.

But when the pyramid collapses due to a lack of recruiters or for any other reason, the participants at the bottom of the pyramid will be left with significant losses, leading to losing trust in future investments.

Protect yourselves from pyramid schemes by questioning the legitimacy of the promising high returns and understanding how the business works.

Check online about the company organising the pyramid schemes. Research the business model and other information to determine the legitimacy of the pyramid scheme.

4. Insurance fraud

Insurance fraud is an illegal activity related to insurance. Insurance fraud can be carried by both policyholders and insurance providers.

A policyholder may commit insurance fraud through inflated claims, staged accidents, or exaggerating damages for financial gain.

Meanwhile, insurance providers may also commit insurance fraud by jeopardising premiums, selling policies from fake companies, and exploiting policies for extra commissions.

If caught, both policyholders and insurers who are in the wrong will face severe punishment ranging from substantial fines to jail time. Therefore, maintaining honesty and claiming what is insured would be beneficial.

So, it is critical for the insurers to double-check the policyholder’s information during the claiming process to avoid any complications. Also, educate the customers about common insurance frauds and advise them to refrain from any potential scams.

Insurance policy takers must verify the policy with the right authority before giving any information. For any related queries, only approach your insurance manager for any information.

Insurance companies do not share your insurance details with third parties. Therefore, be cautious and respond wisely when third parties approach you regarding any queries about the insurance.

5. Banking Scams

A banking scam is a fraudulent activity that involves deceiving individuals or banking organisations by gathering sensitive information or money for personal gain.

Banking scams occur in two types: offline and online banking fraud. Offline banking fraud involves when a person or organisation illegally obtains money without any means of online activity. Offline banking fraud is riskier as it requires direct physical involvement.

Online activities are more trending as they happen online in various forms, such as phishing, where fraudsters pose as bank institutions through fake emails and messages and trick individuals into sharing important details without revealing any information about the fraudster.

Scammers can use skimming devices, fake banking apps, forged checks, or pose as advisors to lure victims. Exposure or breaching of your personal details to scammers can result in significant financial losses and emotional disturbance.

Banking scams can also go in another direction, where fraudsters find loopholes in the banking system and take advantage of them for their personal gain.

As an individual, if you fall victim to a banking scam, immediately contact your branch and report the potential scam. As a result, banking professionals will freeze your account until your account is recovered.

6. Mortgage fraud

Mortgage scams involve deliberately misinterpreting the information of the mortgage application for personal gain. Mortgage scams are typically done for two things: for profits and housing.

Industry insiders such as real estate agents, brokers, or appraisers are more likely to inflate the mortgage terms to secure a high commission.

Fraudulent activities for housing gains are primarily carried out by tenants to secure home loans that they may not qualify for or to maintain or obtain homeownership.

Financial losses are not only limited to the borrower or organisation in a mortgage fraud. Illegal practices can cause housing market bubbles and subsequent crashes. Also may face legal penalties, loss of licences, and damages to the reputation.

Implementing strict security measures like thorough verification, fraud detection systems, and regular monitoring can prevent borrowers from practising illegal activities.

Meanwhile, borrowers must choose trusted professionals and avoid quick-fix schemes that are too good to be true.

This way, both industry players and homeowners can prevent falling victim to real estate scams.

7. Payment fraud

Payment fraud involves carrying out any unauthorised transaction or illegal means to steal money or payment credentials from individuals, businesses, or organisations. Payment fraud primarily occurs online and is highly classified as an online cybercrime.

Due to the growing reliance on digital payment, scammers are utilising advanced digital technologies to carry out illegal payment activities.

Payment fraud can lead to substantial financial losses for businesses as well as individuals. Businesses can lose the trust of customers during the event of an illegal payment.

Moreover, investigation in correspondence to the scam can further disrupt the operations of businesses.

Both individuals and businesses can prevent becoming victims of illegal payment activities by practising secure payment methods, monitoring accounts regularly, enabling two-factor authentication, and being aware of phishing activities.

8. Phishing

Phishing is the practice of using internet tools to send pop-up emails and messages that alert you to a problem in your bank account or something like you have a bonus or reward waiting.

These pop-up messages are designed so that the scammer can obtain all of your personal information by clicking on the link provided in the message.

A successful phishing attempt by a scammer can result in a breach of your data, including financial information. The victim may face significant losses and emotional distress.

This illegal practice commonly takes place through the internet. Educate yourself about possible phishing methods to prevent online fraud. If you encounter phishing schemes, advise against taking part in them.

9. Investment fraud

Investment fraud occurs when someone deceives another person with the aim of personal financial gain by promising high-return investments with little to no risk. Many scammers take advantage of individuals due to their lack of knowledge about the principles of investments.

Vulnerable individuals with financial struggles who are looking for quick money may easily fall prey to investment scams. Let me tell you one thing: wealth building has no shortcut.

Investment fraud can be of many types. Scammers may pose as agents, brokers, or advisers. These individuals will persuade common people to act quickly, claiming opportunities will disappear, and will help you get good returns in the initial stage to build trust.

Once you gain trust, you will be willing to make huge investments. When you do that, the scammer will immediately cut you off and flee with your money.

If you feel that you are being scammed, immediately report to the authorities and cease any further payments. Scammers are likely to be in the guise of any well-known company. Also, notify your financial bank and seek a lawyer to understand the options for recovery.

10. Tax fraud

Tax fraud is an attempt made by an individual or an institution to intensely falsify information about income to reduce or evade taxes. These illegal practices appear as if these fraudsters are looting from other taxpayers as well as the government.

Tax fraud can result in many ways, such as overstating deductions, hiding assets, failing to file tax returns, making fraudulent refund claims, and many others.

Each of these tax fraud activities directly or indirectly impacts the economic costs, increased tax burdens, and legal complications.

Those who are found guilty of tax fraud are charged with financial fines and imprisonment. In addition, it will also impact their reputation.

Therefore, practice honest tax filing with accurate information to prevent being charged with tax fraud.

Protect your information to prevent it from being taken by another person and used for illegal purposes.

11. Account Takeover

Account takeover is a form of identity theft where fraudsters take over accounts and pose as real users. They mainly access the user’s accounts using stolen credentials, phishing activities, or other security valuable details.

You may face significant financial losses, reputation damage, and loss of sensitive information due to an account takeover.

Some of the most common account takeover scenarios can be detected by odd login behaviour, failed login attempts, changes in account details, or any other suspicious activity.

It can be prevented by implementing strict security measures such as two-factor authentication, multi-factor authentication, and data protection measures.

You can also use modern detection tools using artificial intelligence to identify legitimate users and fraudsters.

These are some common types of financial fraud practised by scammers. These deceptive activities, like identity theft, phishing, investment scams, pyramid schemes, and others, are aimed at stealing money and sensitive information. Understanding different types of scams and adopting preventive measures is crucial to staying protected.

Conclusion

Financial fraud is a growing threat, impacting individuals, businesses, and the economy at large. From identity theft to tax fraud, understanding the various types of financial fraud is essential to safeguarding your finances.

Each of these scams exploits vulnerabilities, but with awareness and protective measures, you can significantly reduce the risk of becoming a victim.

Scammers can approach you in many ways, such as by posing as an agent or an advisor. Take protective measures while dealing with individuals who promise quick money.

Always verify information, question suspicious activities, and educate yourself to stay ahead of scammers. Protecting your wealth begins with knowing the dangers and taking the necessary steps to prevent them.

Remember that scammers are not hackers; they won’t be able to access your account unless you share the relevant information. So, refrain from sharing any sensitive information.

If you come across anyone attempting to scam you, immediately notify the police. This will allow authorities to identify and apprehend the scammer.

In doing so, you will be not only saving yourself from the scammer but also protecting others from falling into the scam.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Ibnu Jala

Ibnu Jala is an experienced professional in the financial markets of India and the Middle East, renowned for his trading expertise and mentorship. His passion for neuroscience drives his research, blending finance and science seamlessly. With a Bachelor’s in Law from India and an MBA from the UK, Ibnu Jala has a diverse academic background. In addition to being a seasoned investor and serial entrepreneur, he currently leads FinQuo Versity as its CEO.

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How to start a small business in India? Pathway to financial success

By Ibnu Jala
Last Updated on February 6, 2025
A man started a small business in India

Starting a business is the gateway to becoming financially independent in the modern economy. Whether it is a large or small business, the key to success lies in identifying opportunities, facing challenges, and valuing your customers.

In this fast-paced world, when there are numerous opportunities to start a business by leveraging technology, food and beverages, clothing, and many others catered to niche markets, there is no shortage of developing new business ideas.

Still many wonder how to start a small business in India. Many individuals often start businesses to earn an income and end up creating something meaningful and building a legacy.

Starting a business comes with a long process of careful planning, determination, and a vision for the future.

So today we will explore how to build your small business into a large enterprise.

We will explain everything in detail to help you understand how to start a business as well as in which industries you can start a small business.

Let’s take you on a rollercoaster journey of understanding how exactly you can start a small business.

Your business journey starts here

Starting a business comes with pure determination, a clear vision, and dedication to embrace the challenges.

If you are new to the business industry, there are lots of things you need to look for, such as identifying your passion, researching, creating a business plan, legal formalities, and many others.

The entire process may sound complicated to some. Therefore, you can find a step-by-step guide to help you understand how to open a small business in India.

1. Identify your passion and skills

The core principle of the business is the idea behind it. The concept of the business should lie with your passion, market demand, and skill. It should be something that makes you enjoyable. 

Find a solution to a problem or meet a demand in your community or industry to find a business concept. 

Choose a concept that you love doing or have expertise in. This will help you to fuel your motivation and courage to enhance your business plan to new heights.

2. Conduct market research

Conducting market research is essential in any business. If you have a product or service, narrowing down the market and identifying who will purchase the product or service is crucial.

You can find your audience by researching and analysing the market. Once you find your audience, you can easily deliver your products and services to the targeted audience.

In a business, there will be a lot of competitors with the same or similar business projects.

So analysing the competitors by learning what they are doing and identifying the gaps your business can fill will help your business to stand out from others.

3. Create a business plan

The foundation of any business is creating a foolproof plan. Without a plan, your business has no direction. A business plan consists of crucial elements that make it exceptional.

Creating a business plan involves creating a detailed document of your business principles, direction, budgeting, market analysis, type of product or service you are offering, branding and marketing strategies, location, operations, audiences, and many others.

Making a solid business plan with clear and realistic information is crucial. Because it is the business plan you will be relying on as it further grows.

More importantly, you should also revise your business plan and make any changes if necessary. With a well-researched business plan, you can even start a small manufacturing business with minimum investment.

4. Choose a Business Structure

Business ownership is crucial when you are starting a business. You can choose sole proprietorship if you are a single owner.

If you are sharing business responsibilities with a partner, you can form a partnership. Businesses can also be started as a private limited company or limited liability partnership (LLP).

Each of these structures is catered to various needs and risk aversion.

You can choose the desired business structure by evaluating your risk appetite, financial health, the nature of the business type, and scalability.

Ensure that your business structure resonates with your business plan and other fundamentals.

5. Secure Funding

Funding is like fuel to run the business. At the initial stages of the business, you can rely on your personal savings and contributions from your family and friends.

You may also explore government schemes and approach banks or financial institutions for loans. This will help you cover the cost of operation during the initial stages.

As your business grows, consider seeking angel investors and venture capitalists. Investors can help you scale and expand your business.

Consult a financial advisor if you do not have expertise in finance for better insights.

6. Set up operations

Once your business plan is ready, you should start focusing on building the required things to start the operation. Start by focusing on setting up a workshop.

Choose a location for your workspace and ensure that your workspace aligns with your business concept.

Make sure that your workspace has enough space for inventory and find a genuine and trusted supplier to source raw materials.

Choose the location for the workspace in such a place that you can afford sustainable transportation with easy access to your source and supplier.

Plan your delivery and pick options for the raw materials to the workspace and the goods to your store. This will help you to execute the business operation efficiently.

7. Register your business

To register your business, you must follow a clear and structured process to ensure compliance with legal requirements. The first step is to choose the type of business structure that best suits your goals, such as a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLP, or private limited company. Each structure has its own registration process and documentation requirements.

After deciding on the structure, register your business with the appropriate authorities. Ensure the name is unique and does not infringe on existing trademarks. Trademark registration is also advisable to secure your brand identity.

In addition to registration, obtain the necessary licenses and certifications relevant to your industry.

Registering for Goods and Services Tax (GST) is another critical step for businesses with taxable turnover above the threshold limit. Non-compliance with GST or other tax laws can lead to penalties and legal issues.

8. Comply with regulations and taxes

You should comply with policies, regulations, and tax laws to run the business smoothly. For example, if it is a food and beverage business industry, you should obtain necessary permits like health and safety permits, FSSAI certifications, and others.

Similarly, each business is required to adhere to the policies of their industry authorities. Simply registering your business and paying the required fee for permits and certifications will be enough to start your business.

Complications in legal documents can disrupt the operations of the business and force you to face uncertainties. Also, adhere to tax laws to avoid any complications.

Therefore, ensure that your business is registered and all the permits are obtained to run it smoothly. Seek a law and order expert to understand and execute legal formalities effectively.

9. Branding and marketing

Create a website to build your business brand online. Making an online presence can make your business visible to diverse audiences.

Create a unique and engaging brand name and motto to grab the attention of the customers.

Utilise social media, email marketing, and local advertising to enhance your reach. Practice SEO and other marketing strategies to reach your business to diverse audiences.

Collaborate with the respective industry retailers to promote your product or service. In doing so, your business will receive exposure, leading to gaining more customers.

Stay consistent in providing quality products or services to further boost the marketing reach. While implementing marketing strategies, it is necessary to bring value to customers.

10. Launch and Scale Gradually

Start your business with a soft launch in your neighbourhood or city. Set up a single store in a place where customers can access it easily. 

Gather customer feedback to identify the room for improvements. 

Value the customers by adhering to customer demands. It will help build a stronger connection with customers. 

Maintain consistency in delivering customer satisfaction. Always meet the customer demands to build a loyal customer base. 

Continuously improve your offerings and introduce new offerings.

11. Learn and adapt

Always learn new business concepts and explore various strategies that can improve your business.

Track your business performance. Monitor your sales and web traffic. Always stay focused on the market demands.

Follow the current market trends and adapt to the market needs. Stay informed of market trends as well as customer demands.

Improve business operations by adopting new market strategies and making necessary changes to the business model.

These are the steps for starting a small industry. Following these steps will help you lay a strong foundation for your business, ensuring that you not only meet customer expectations but also build a sustainable and scalable enterprise.

How much money is needed to start a small business in India?

The cost of starting a small business in India varies depending on the type of business, its scale, and the industry it operates in. For starting a small business like a home bakery or handicraft business, the initial investment can range from ₹10,000 to ₹50,000. This includes costs for basic equipment, raw materials, and registration fees.

For a small manufacturing business like glass bottle manufacturing or textile production, the total investments can go up to 10 lakhs, depending on the infrastructure, machinery, and operational needs.

Government schemes like Mudra Loans or grants under Startup India can help ease the financial burden by providing accessible funding options. Additionally, exploring partnerships or crowdfunding can be effective for raising capital.

What is the most successful small business in India?

There are several other small-scale business ideas you can start with a minimum investment, like paper making, soap manufacturing, candle making, and many others.

Each of the businesses offers the opportunity to start small, scale over time, and cater to an increasing demand for personalised, high-quality services or products.

Choose a business plan that resonates with financial goals, passion, and market demand.

Conclusion

Starting a small business involves identifying your passion, researching the market, and developing a solid business plan. It is completed by sticking to the business plan and making any necessary changes.

From digital services to handmade products, small businesses offer endless opportunities for growth and financial independence.

By creating a strong business plan, conducting thorough market research, and applying strategies, you can turn a simple business into a thriving enterprise.

You can choose a business idea that aligns with your business goals, passion, and skills. With commitment and delivering quality service, you can build a brand that resonates with customers’ interests.

Leverage online market tools and networking strategies to grow and adapt to market trends.

A small-scale business offers you the flexibility to use limited resources, explore different ideas, and scale your business as the demand grows.

You can start a small-scale business for an income. With consistent effort and dedication, you can turn it into a thriving business.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial or investment advice. Stock market investments are subject to market risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Readers are encouraged to do their own research and consult with a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decisions. The author and publisher are not liable for any financial losses or damages incurred from following the information provided in this blog.

Author Info

Ibnu Jala

Ibnu Jala is an experienced professional in the financial markets of India and the Middle East, renowned for his trading expertise and mentorship. His passion for neuroscience drives his research, blending finance and science seamlessly. With a Bachelor’s in Law from India and an MBA from the UK, Ibnu Jala has a diverse academic background. In addition to being a seasoned investor and serial entrepreneur, he currently leads FinQuo Versity as its CEO.

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