Your Money And Your Life!

This blog isn’t financial advice. I’m not a financial advisor, wealth manager, stock market guru, agent, or broker. 

This isn’t a career guide, a life lesson, self-help, spiritual upliftment, or the like. 

So, what is it?

Over the last few decades, I’ve seen the same common thoughts regularly come up. 

• Why did I do that? Why not the other?
• I wish I’d known, back then. 
• Why’s this so confusing?
• They should’ve taught this better. 

This is – the result of those moments. When you realize, you’ve made a huge mistake. 

A huge mistake with money, and you try to figure out… why? 

I’ve seen how those mistakes impacted me, and others around me. I see so many people around, struggling with the same issues. 

I’ve made a lot of money mistakes. I’ve been an idiot, making random choices and then struggling to handle the outcomes. (I may not necessarily have gotten too much smarter since, but at least I see it for what it is.)

And, I’d always assumed – this is life. For most of us. 

The rest of my life would just be more of the same. 

And I’d think – I’m bad with money.

It’s a hard thing to think about, your own bad financial decisions, your mistakes. All the more so with money – there’s so much value we attach to it, emotional, social. 

Uncomfortable, painful, and embarrassing. It makes one defensive, angry, frustrated… and the only thing you want at that moment, is to push that thought away, drown it out. Anything – Netflix, beer, infinite-scrolling Insta, religion, the news – to replace it. 

Sometimes, you attack the person who brought it up, made you think.

Sometimes, you blame the economy, your job, your boss, regulations, family, immigration, visa status, reservation, nepotism, your gender, politics, education, personality, language, skin color, height, weight, clothing, whatever, anything but yourself. 

Sometimes, you fixate on a guru, a finfluencer, your CA, some random uncle in your society, a TV or YT channel – someone to tell you what to do, so you can blindly follow their instructions. 

Sometimes, you (daydream) on the next great thing that will solve all problems… if it happens. The next raise, promotion, job shift. The next big deal, order, contract. Winning the lottery. Finding some long-lost rich chacha. Saving a billionaire’s only child from a speeding truck.

Sometimes, you shut everything out and work harder, and harder, and harder… till you drop dead, heart attack.

Sometimes, you swear to fix it. Starting… tomorrow. Next month, when salary comes. Next New Year’s Day resolutions. Next… 

And life would go on, as usual.

But somewhere along the way, something changed. It all added up… and I had a realization. 

I believe was the one of the great self-improvement ideas I’ve had. A life-changing epiphany. 

The reason the thought of your own mistakes is a hard thing to digest… is because you only have half the idea. 

It’s the second half that makes all the difference. 

1. I was bad with money. 
2. How do I not be bad with money? 

Yes, maybe you made poor choices, for a thousand reasons… but they don’t matter anymore, today.

Starting today, stop being stupid. It doesn’t feel good. It’s time for something different. 

That’s what this book is. 

I’ve made a bunch of mistakes, and I’ve looked at them and said, “I wish I knew that before.”

Well, here are all the things I wish I had known. It’s taken me a while to collect this, from books, blogs, podcasts, but mostly from bitter experience – but all of it, it’s what I wish I had known before I started handling personal finance. 

You may have different money problems of your own. 

But I think we’ve both made (or are about to make) at least some of the same mistakes – and hopefully, I’ve helped you avoid, or at least mitigate, them. 

More coming soon.