Our own worst enemy?

When it comes to personal finance, why are we our own worst enemy?

There has been a lot written about the financial skills, or the lack thereof, of joe investor. I have to agree that the average investor lacks the basic financial planning skills but that's because the system is rigged against us! Here are the main reasons of financial illiteracy that is so prevalent today:

1. Our schools and colleges do not teach basic personal finance skills. Since I did my schooling in India, I thought I was at a disadvantage when it came to investing and retirement planning. To my surprise, the average investor is no better. At least, I was starting with a level playing field!
2. We don’t like discussing it with friends & family. According to a recent Fidelity survey, 30% of couples have different opinions about retirement dates and lifestyle choices.
3. We just don't have the time or desire to plan our finances. Lets face it - life happens! We all have lives and something or the other gets between us and financial planning.
4. Experts wants us to think it is "rocket science". In fact, I think the main premise for the financial industry existence is that we would ne lost without these "helpers"!
5. Lastly but most importantly, it's us! In spite of our best intentions, we sabotage our plans because of our biases. This is a separate post (perhaps several posts!) in itself but suffice it to say that overconfidence, anchoring, loss-aversion, stubbornness and other factors result in mediocre or poor investor performance. More on this later...

Introduction to Financial Fitness

Welcome to my blog!

My is Rishi and I am student of value investing. Here, I'll talk about all things financial with a focus on investing. Which raises the question - who am I and why am I writing this? :)

My journey into the world of personal finance started several years ago when I entered the workforce. On my first day at the job, I was handed a binder of mutual fund prospectuses to select my 401(k) contributions. I realized that even though I had been to graduate school, I was ill-equipped to make financial decisions. I soon learned that my colleagues – some of them 10 to 20 years my senior – were in the same boat. So I took it upon myself to learn the basics. During my research, I came across The Warren Buffett Way by Robert Hagstrom and started learning about Buffett, businesses and investing.

What started as a curiosity became a passion - during the last seven years, I have read several books and countless articles and attended a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. I have been managing my family’s portfolio with good results and feel that I am now in a position to share the knowledge with others. The idea is to present information about topics such as retirement planning, stocks, mutual funds and estate planning among other things in an educational format so people can use that information to make their own decisions.

I have a selfish motive as well – to learn from the collective wisdom and improve my investing skills!