Finance

How this small-town dentist couple set their personal finance goals

Published

2 years ago

January 1, 2024

How this small-town dentist couple set their personal finance goals

“The property which houses my clinic is on rent which I will have to vacate sooner or later. I had already taken a professional loan of ₹15.11 lakh when I started my practice. I needed money for setting up my dental clinic and also for meeting my personal financial goals,” Akshat Agarwal says.

Early investment journey

Gondia is also known as ‘Rice City’ due to the abundance of rice mills in the area. “People mostly invest in land and when they need money get into informal lending at a high interest rate. I did not want to do it,” he says.

After consultation with relatives and friends, Agarwal ended up investing in more than 10 mutual fund schemes. He also created a stock portfolio. “One of my friends connected me with a mutual fund distributor (MFD) who made me start systematic investment plans (SIPs) in mutual funds. A relative later told me that distributors get commission from mutual fund companies .My distributor had not shared details of the schemes in which I had invested. I did not know that I could track these investments by myself,” he says.

Meanwhile, Agarwal lost about ₹50,000 after dabbling in the stock markets in 2021. “I was clueless about how to set things right and I needed somebody to guide me,” he says.

A random google search landed him on the website of SahajMoney, a financial planning firm founded by registered investment adviser (RIA) Abhishek Kumar. Agarwal had no idea about Sebi-registered RIAs or fixed-fee financial planning model till then. To be sure, RIAs are authorized to impart unbiased financial advice and barred from earning commissions from the sale of financial products.

“When I came to know that RIAs only charge a fixed fee for the advisory, I was impressed,” he says.

Personalized guidance was another big plus. “I had always preferred a personal tutor over coaching classes. And when Abhishek sent me an excel sheet in which I was supposed to share details of all my existing investments and also asked questions about my risk profile, it struck me that nobody had ever sought these details from me. The others would only push a product irrespective of whether it suited my risk profile or not,” says Agarwal.

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(Graphic: Mint)

End-to-end financial planning

RIAs follow a process before creating a financial plan. They seek details of existing savings, investments, liabilities, expenses and financial goals. They also analyse their clients’ risk appetite based on a few questions. It helps them allocate their funds in debt and equities in the right proportion. Not only do they recommend investment products, but also advise on loans, insurance and saving taxes.

Agarwal didn’t have much idea about insurance either. He did have a health insurance policy of ₹5 lakh coverage from a public sector insurer. “I wasn’t aware that insurance and loan advisory will be a part of the package,” he says. On Kumar’s advice, Agarwal bought a life insurance cover of ₹2.5 crore. His wife took a term life cover of ₹1.5 crore. She was paying an annual premium of ₹1.25 lakh for an unit-linked insurance plan, but surrendered the policy and replaced it with the term plan. Besides a family floater health insurance plan from a private insurer, Kumar also suggested that Agarwal buy professional indemnity insurance and property (clinic, machinery, fire) insurance.

The right direction

Kumar asked Agarwal to separate his personal and clinic expenses. “I opened a separate account for my business expenses and earnings. It gives me a visibility of how much I am earning and spending specifically for the clinic vis-à-vis my personal expenses,” he says.

For instance, when he needed to buy medical equipment, he bought it on lease instead of dipping into personal savings. “Kumar suggested that there was no point in buying the machine as the technology will get obsolete in a couple of years,” he says.

Does he follow all advice from Kumar? Not really! “Agarwal wanted to buy a land on loan for his clinic. We initially asked him to defer the plan and focus only on building the corpus but when the couple insisted on it, we advised them to withdraw funds from the emergency corpus because they already had financial liabilities. Financial discipline was needed to move them away from excessive leverage. Moreover, being a small city, their expenses were limited against their cash flows. Their emergency corpus could be built again,” says Kumar.

Fees and process

Kumar charges ₹15,000 as first-time fixed fee to analyse a client’s finances, create a financial plan and recommend products. A renewal fee of ₹5,000 is charged after every six months to review the portfolio.

Did his fees deter the Agarwals? “The fee is surely lesser than the quality of financial advice they have given me,” he says. The process, however, could have been better. “I needed to fill up an excel sheet manually before they could on-board me. The sheet needs to get updated every time I get my portfolio reviewed,” he says.

The client implements the action plan by himself. “Abhishek shares with me relevant links but I make the investments myself. This contrasts with the MFD who had taken care of all the paperwork himself,” he says.

The excel sheet problem, though, could be addressed through account aggregators (AAs). The aggregators act as an intermediary between financial information providers (FIPs) and financial information users (FIUs) and exchange customer data after taking their consent. “Once SahajMoney is live on AA as an FIU, I shall be able to automate the process for my clients. RIAs will be able to fetch the data directly from FIPs after getting client consent,” he says.

The Agarwals, meanwhile, have made up their mind to stay connected with SahajMoney for their long-term financial planning. Their goal is to retire in their late forties before which they want their son to study abroad.

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Finance

UST Finance Students Compete on Global Stage in CFA Research Challenge

Published

9 hours ago

March 21, 2026

Press Room

UST Finance Students Compete on Global Stage in CFA Research Challenge

A select team of students from the University of St. Thomas’ Cameron School of Business has officially launched its bid for the FY 2025–2026 Texas Region CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) Institute Research Challenge, a prestigious competition often referred to as the “Investment Olympics” for university students.

The CFA Institute Research Challenge is an annual competition that provides university students with hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis. The competition tests students’ analytical, valuation, report writing and presentation skills, challenging them to take on the role of real-world research analysts. The 2025–2026 cycle involves more than 6,000 students from more than1,000 universities worldwide.

Representing UST, the team is comprised of Team Captain Chih Jung Ting, MSF; Vice-Captain Daria Kostyukova, BBA/MSF; Reginald Paolo Laudato, BBA/MSF; Simon Wong, BBA in Finance; and Anjali Sebastian, BBA in Finance.

Finance

Town Finance Director To Step Down In April

Published

21 hours ago

March 21, 2026

Press Room

Town Finance Director To Step Down In April

Nantucket’s municipal finance director Brian Turbitt has announced his resignation and will leave his position with the town on April 21st.

“With mixed emotion, I have submitted my resignation from the position of Town of Nantucket Director of Municipal Finance, effective April 21, to pursue an opportunity off-island,” Turbitt wrote in a message to the Current. “I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Town Manager Libby Gibson and her administration during the past 12 years and am extremely proud of all we have accomplished as a team. My time on Nantucket has been the experience of a lifetime, and one for which I am truly grateful and will never forget.”

Turbitt told the Current that despite his resignation, he will still attend the Annual Town Meeting in his current role on May 4th. Turbitt often presents and defends many of the town’s budget requests during the meeting, which falls just weeks after his scheduled departure date.

As the town’s chief financial officer, Turbitt oversees the town’s budget, guiding the $170 million operation. Turbitt has been with the town since 2014, but his 12-year tenure will end next month.

Finance

300 years of wars show they are ‘always disaster times’ for holders of government debt because of inflation and financial repression | Fortune

Published

1 day ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

300 years of wars show they are ‘always disaster times’ for holders of government debt because of inflation and financial repression | Fortune

Government bonds, especially Treasuries, have long been seen as a safe haven during recessions, geopolitical calamities, and other market-moving disasters that create uncertainty.

But after looking at 300 years of U.S. and U.K. history, the Center for Economic Policy Research found that wars and pandemic-scale emergencies have pummeled holders of debt.

“The historical evidence reveals a striking pattern: government bonds have repeatedly generated substantial real losses during these extreme episodes,” authors Zhengyang Jiang, Hanno Lustig, Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, and Mindy Xiaolan wrote. “They have even underperformed equities and real estates which are traditionally regarded as risky assets.”

That’s because wars typically triggered large increases in government spending, averaging about 7% of GDP annually during the first four years, and tax hikes alone were rarely sufficient for financing needs, they added.

The finding comes as the U.S. is waging war on Iran while the national debt has exploded to $39 trillion. The Pentagon is seeking more than $200 billion in a budget request for the conflict, sources told the Washington Post.

Across their dataset, the CEPR authors calculated that bondholders suffered average real losses of roughly 14% during the first four years of conflicts. The losses were so steep that they reduced the real value of government debt outstanding.

To add insult to injury, cumulative bond returns were more than 20% below the cumulative returns on stocks and real estate, the opposite of how those assets perform during financial crises or recessions.

“Whenever there is a major war, we observe a sharp decline in the bond performance — wars are always disaster times for bondholders,” they warned. “Similarly, the bondholders also suffered large losses during the ‘war on Covid-19.’”

Center for Economic Policy Research

A key factor in bond losses is inflation, according to CEPR, which said the cumulative rate averaged about 20% in the first four years of wars.

In fact, during the current U.S.-Israel war on Iran, Treasuries and government debt from other countries have sold off sharply as surging oil prices have raised expectations for elevated inflation while budget deficits are also seen worsening. Since the war began three weeks ago, the U.S. 10-year yield has soared more than 40 basis points.

But profligate spending wasn’t the only way inflation weighed on bonds. The think tank said it was often the result of policy choices to reduce debt burdens without explicitly defaulting, such as by suspending gold standard commitments.

Another reason bonds perform so poorly during wars is so-called financial repression, or government policies that curb borrowing costs by influencing financial markets. That prevents bond yields from keeping pace with inflation.

For example, the Federal Reserve implemented yield-curve control, capped Treasury rates, and launched massive bond buying during World War II.

CEPR’s findings have particular relevance for U.S. debt as Treasuries continue to form the foundation of the global financial system with the dollar serving as the world’s reserve currency.

That status has allowed the U.S. to borrow more cheaply than investors would otherwise allow. Meanwhile, the interest on U.S. debt is now the fastest-growing budget item and is already at $1 trillion a year. CEPR said its report presents governments with an important tradeoff.

“Protecting taxpayers from large spending shocks may require shifting part of the burden onto bondholders through inflation or financial repression,” it said. “Economic theory suggests that such policies may be optimal when taxation is highly distortionary. However, they also reduce the safety of government debt and may raise borrowing costs over time if investors anticipate these risks.”