My 15-year investment journey, during which I've observed five major bear markets and corrections, has yielded significant insights:
1. Profitability is determined at the point of acquisition; therefore, it is crucial to ensure purchases are made at reasonable valuations.
Smart people foolishly ignore their health, too.
Munger's framework applied:
0. incentive bias: payoff now versus in 30 years
1. slow boiling frog: increments too small to notice
2. public consistency: "I don't need sleep"
3. denial - "I'll deal with it later"
4. persian messenger syndrome - skip the tests
The asset that makes all other assets grow? Health.
The last 5 years before retirement can decide the next 25 years of your financial life.
In India, many people spend 30–35 years building wealth…
But the most critical mistakes often happen just before retirement.
Here are 7 mistakes to avoid in the final runway:
1. Assuming your current corpus is enough
- A ₹3 crore or ₹5 crore corpus may look large today.
- But after inflation, healthcare costs, lifestyle expenses and taxes, the real picture may be very different.
2. Ignoring sequence-of-return risk
- A market fall just after retirement can hurt more than a fall during your working years.
- Why?
Because you may be withdrawing money at the same time your portfolio is falling.
3. Becoming too conservative too early
- Retirement does not mean your money has to stop growing.
- If retirement lasts 25–30 years, inflation becomes a bigger risk than volatility.
4. Not creating enough liquidity
- Your EPF, NPS, pension plans or annuities may provide structure.
- But sudden expenses need liquid money.
- Medical needs, house repairs, children support, travel or emergencies cannot wait.
5. Treating tax planning as an afterthought
- Capital gains, pension income, interest income, annuity income and withdrawals all have tax impact.
- The 5 years before retirement are the best time to restructure smartly.
6. Not planning healthcare separately
- In India, medical inflation can quietly destroy retirement confidence.
- Health insurance, emergency corpus and medical buffers are non-negotiable.
7. Ignoring estate and nomination planning
- A will, updated nominations, joint holdings and clear succession planning are not optional.
- They protect your family from confusion later.
Retirement planning is not about one big decision on the day you retire.
It is about making many small, smart decisions before you retire.
The final 5 years are not the end of the journey.
They are the runway.
Use them wisely.
Sharing this as it contains beneficial information for the public.
Disclosure: I am a shareholder in Beacon Trusteeship.
Sharing the article below does not constitute a recommendation to buy shares of the company.
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Top 5 Habits of Millionaires:
1. Read a lot
2. Get up early
3. Pay yourself first
4. Utilise the power of compounding
5. Track spending, income, and investments
What a trader sees is Head & Shoulders or Cup & Handle or Trendline Breakouts!
If chart patterns worked all the time, every trader would be a crorepati.
Markets have this funny habit of doing what most people least expect ! Do you agree?
The reality of various asset classes/markets-
1- Crude peaked out in June 2008 at around $ 140. I think still it may take many years to breach that level.
2- China market peaked out in 2007 at 6100, yet to cross that level.
3- Bitcoin peaked out in August 2025 at around INR 1,22,000. It is now trading at 61,000.
4- Gold peaked out at $ 5595 in Jan’26 and now trading at $ 4400. I think it would take many years to cross that level.
5- Indian equity market is reasonably priced considering the high-growth economy and likely to head higher in coming months.
6- US, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan markets are trading at a euphoric level. Either these markets have peaked out or likely to peak out in a few weeks and then would take many-many years or 1-2 decades to cross that peak level.
Every asset class or market goes to a euphoria and then peak-out. Thereafter, a prolonged painful period of 1-2 decades. Avoid euphoria and buy value.
History may not repeat but it definitely rhymes.
Gentle reminder
Prefer buying a used petrol car from your Circle (Honda, Toyota, Maruti & Hyundai)
✅ Yes for a new EV for 8+ yrs of ownership, 70:30 needs, 150 radius and home parking available.
✅ Yes for Diesel upto 20L if you see your car as a use & throw product and gonna drive 50% or more on highways and running above 1200 km monthly.
✅ Yes for Petrol cars for only for NA Engine upto 15L with extended warranty. Prefer Japanese.
I am now starting to increase my gold allocation from current 12% to 15% of my total portfolio.
The technical setup + long term fundamentals are looking very strong to me.
This time, I am accumulating GOLD through EGRs (Electronic Gold Receipts) which is essentially physical gold held in regulated vaults thru a demat account.
( Disclaimer : I have been long on #GOLD for a a few yrs and my views might be biased)
My investment philosophy is based on strong four pillars-
1- Management’s Integrity and mindset to take care of interest of all stakeholders (though it is difficult to gauge).
2- Company’s leadership of some kind in the sector like highest top line/ bottom line, market share, margins & so on (easy to find)
3- Robust balance sheet (easy to identify).
4- Skill set and mindset to grow aggressively (a bit difficult to gauge).
The powerful foundation of these four pillars in any company can lead the rise of a company to not only one story or two stories but to 10, 20, 50, or 100 stories over a longer period of time say 10-15 years.
Accumulate these SIP Stocks to gift your Children:
1) Sanofi Consumer
2) 3M India
3) Honewell Auto
4) Abbott India
5) Pidilite
6) Tata Consumer
7) Solar Ind
8) Reliance
9) SBIN
10) Nestle
11) Aegis Logistics
12) Kotak Bank
13) Pfizer
14) Titan
15) Procter & Gamble Health
In general, even among high income earners, let me tell you when someone reach a wealth of say Rs.3 crores.
Age in late forties to early fifties. Designated as Vertical Head or Senior Director or similar titles. CTC anywhere between Rs.60 lakhs to Rs.1 crore per annum.
Own a 3 BHK flat. Would have repaid home loan. Say 2 children in high school or college. A decent car mostly under company (employer) lease.
Mutual funds, shares, money in bank and Provident Fund - roughly around Rs.3 crores. In exceptional cases, close to Rs.5 crores.
This is general standard among high income earners in our country.
So don't fall for finfluencers trap of creating wealth of Rs.50 or Rs.100 crores is easy.
Except for extremely lucky or corrupt, making every single crore is difficult.
How to start with Claude ?
How to learn prompting ?
These are exactly messages in my DMs
Best 27-minute practical workshop on how to actually do prompts for Claude. This is from the Claude / Anthropic itself
Bookmark, Learn and don’t forget to share - good karma 👍