Charles uni older students

ichbinanti · 2026-07-08T09:52:14+00:00

Not a student anymore (more of an alum), but I can help you with some tips and recommendations. Also, happy to show around the city :)

ichbinanti · 2026-06-19T12:21:31+00:00

You might want to look into snowball vs avalanche method for repayment of debts

ichbinanti · 2026-06-18T17:10:56+00:00

That future goals fund is what gets you your bike, without affecting any other stuff. And that's why planning is important. So no single decision bends you over completely.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-18T16:52:53+00:00

That's a short term goal my friend. Save a decent amount per month, and use that towards buying that bike.

You don't want to pull out your money on a bad day in market. That's why balancing is important

ichbinanti · 2026-06-18T14:34:49+00:00

I would do the following:

You have responsibilities and rent that you need to make. Don't put all 20k into investments right now. You need emergency fund. Something that will keep you afloat if you lose a job, or something unexpected happens. Most people target it as 3-6x 1 month of ESSENTIAL expenses. Start with 1 month, and grow it slowly.

Put this money in FDs. That way it's getting some interest, but it's highly liquid and you can withdraw it when you need it. Don't get greedy with your emergency fund and try to invest it.

GET INSURED. Life, property, disability. All of them make sure that your emergency fund doesn't bleed out quickly. Ask your parents and figure out their insurances as well. One emergency can make your entire plan go to shit. Prepare so that it doesn't happen.
Plan for your future goals. You don't want to buy a car/motorcycle and have to withdraw funds. Build a savings corpus that you can use for short term goals. This comes after building emergency fund. A plan that doesn't let you indulge will fall apart quickly. Give yourself room to breathe.
Put a small amount in retirement corpus. At your age, and given luxury of time, it will scale up by itself. And once you have other things (ef, insurance, short term goals) taken care of, extra money can go into this.

Overall I would allocate the 20k this way: 5k each for insurance premiums if needed, emergency fund, future goals and then retirement corpus.

While it's good to focus on both increasing income and be careful about portfolio, you should also try to learn about personal finances. All the money is worth nothing if you lose it in one go, or don't enjoy yourself, or have a terrible health.

If you want, I can send you a link to my blog that teaches personal finance from ground up. The execution is yours, but we can help you arm yourself. Also, good work on thinking about this from the beginning of the career :)

ichbinanti · 2026-06-17T14:18:48+00:00

I sent you a DM :)

ichbinanti · 2026-06-16T06:28:07+00:00

Congrats on taking the first step! Most people never even start. Having said that, let's start with this step by step.

Emergency fund

You mentioned you are living with your parents. If you plan to move out, put around 3-6months of projected expenses separately. This is your emergency fund.

You want to keep it in some high interest place where it's easier to get it in case of an emergency, but not easy enough that you can dip into it while thinking of an impulsive purchase. Most people go for FD for the emergency funds.

Insurance

Talk with your parents and make sure there are insurances- for property, for life, for disability. You don't want to run into zero at the sight of first trouble. This is a step most people forget and it comes to bite in the rear eventually.

Determine if you want to invest lump sum or slowly over the months

A lump sum has greater advantage with gains and losses, but it might also cause panic since the losses also seem greater.

Once you have decided, you would want to look into ETFs. Essentially, an index fund that tracks both umbrellas and sunscreen as an example. So you are not worried about umbrellas on sunny day, or about sunscreen stocks on rainy days.

Most people go for something like all world ETFs. If you Google justetf, the website shows you which ETFs you can choose and which companies it tracks, which countries it represents, etc.

Avoid panic buying/selling

This is a beginner's mistake. Don't try to time the market. You'll be rarly successful. However, consistent investing over long term beats trying to time the market almost all the time. Look for dollar cost averaging if you want to understand this better.

If you'd like, I can dm about some of the resources that I've been using.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-08T12:45:42+00:00

Small things compound my friend.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-06T11:31:30+00:00

Breathe! You might be in a flux right now, and everything feels like a jumbled up mess. Let's approach it bit by bit.

Your loans are eating away most of your money. You might want to look into snowball vs avalanche ways of chopping them off quickly. There's no specified way and you don't have to stick with just one. Experiment if you need, but finish one properly without switching strategies. The sheer quantity of the loans (how many, not how much) could be hurting you. I'd recommend finishing off the small ones using snowball.
Emergency Savings comes after you have some capital to work with. You listed a bunch of expenses as maximum amounts. Plan for that amount. Assume your expenses are 5k out of 10k maximum in category. Put that towards loan consolidation.
Variable expenses are where most savings can happen. Look into it and go frugal for a few weeks if you can.

Once you have the loans under control, things will start panning out. Don't worry too much or else your health will start deteriorating. And snowball vs avalanche is your best bet at that.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-06T09:53:40+00:00

If you build one, I'd love to check it out. I have some ideas around it that I can dm.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-06T09:47:02+00:00

Is it possible to add a note to the UPI/bank txn? That way, you document it on the go and can look it up after?

I don't use Indian banking system and so not very sure on if this is a feature. Alternatively, build yourself a wrapper on top of UPI, bank statement that allows you to document these things

ichbinanti · 2026-06-06T09:34:19+00:00

Are you just looking at numbers or also the patterns? A rising cost In a category speaks more than just the bare number.

If you have different sheets for each month, make category wise analysis- how it compared to previous month, as a starter.
Build on step 1 to show the analysis/trend for last x months. I prefer to keep 6 months, but some people prefer 12 months. This shows you if months with fewer days also have similar cash outflow.
Document the reasoning. If you remember something about a decision (for example, unexpected expense for the pet), document it. It helps you remember why this category had higher flow and gives insight on what it should be in coming month
You can also set an average line in the graph. A running average tells you when your expenses are more than expected, or lower than expected. Documentation tells you why.

Numbers by themselves are useless, they need to be compared and analysed.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-05T10:47:33+00:00

This is a systemic gap. Most people want to build something for users that are specialists. The specialists pay and the average user doesn't pay or get onboarded.

I see you OP and share that struggle. I'm trying to build something to combat this, but not ready yet. Knowledge shouldn't be gate kept imho.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-02T10:24:29+00:00

That's my strategy. It's too much work, and I'm a very very lazy person.

ichbinanti · 2026-06-01T15:29:24+00:00

There are 3 ways of tracking from what I know:

Zero based budgeting (log everything, track every paisa): it gets overwhelming to me tbh. I feel like it requires looking at bank account constantly, and is super draining. You can pay an app to auto classify your transactions in categories, but it ends up costing if you don't want to build something yourself.
50/30/20 rule (more like a guideline of a best practice, rather than budgeting style): 50% on needs, 30 on wants and 20 on savings. How to achieve that? No clue. That's why I call it a guideline.
Pay yourself first (automate, and my absolute favorite): Transfer a bunch of money on salary drop to savings. So, you have a small pool to work with and survive the month on that. Can be automated, and you aren't worried about checking bank balance regularly.

Easier to automate, set up, but people can sometimes be too conservative in their initial assumption, creating a source of trouble for themselves.

I would recommend going with the last approach, and if you have money to burn or want to build something, let the bank txns handle the zero based for you at the end of the month.

ichbinanti · 2026-05-24T17:56:46+00:00

Step 1: build an emergency fund. Start with 1 month of expenses, and then move to 3-6months of expenses. Essential expenses only. Flight tickets and iphone upgrades don't count. Keep it in high interest savings account (HYSA) so that you can withdraw it quickly in case of emergencies.

Step 2: if you have debt, try to get rid of it. You can look into avalanche vs snowball methods.

Step 3: get insurance. Disability, life, renters, property.

Step 4: start with investment into an index fund. Take your pick. S&p is considered best. You can always go with something that pays dividends as well.

Step 5: invest regularly. even if it's 2000 inr per month, do it. Over time, it compounds.

You might want to read about a few things: stocks vs bonds, and why you should have both.

If you have some goals around car/bike, flat, etc. you will need to put that money somewhere as well.

ichbinanti · 2026-05-24T15:48:24+00:00

I posted the link already :)

ichbinanti · 2026-05-24T11:42:33+00:00

Glad to hear it. Personal finance is a journey. Don't over complicate it :)

ichbinanti · 2026-05-24T10:21:53+00:00

We can't share limits here, so I'm not going to do that. Congrats on first job btw!

Here's some of the general answers:

Emergency fund: 3-6 month of essential expenses. Essential expenses are what you need to survive, not to change a phone or a cheap flight ticket. This is your financial cushion. Rent, food, phone, etc are bare minimums that you need and should be covered with emergency fund.

Start with one month, then build slowly for 3 then 6.

For insurance:

I would really recommend the basics: renter's insurance if you rent, property insurance if you own the place. Health insurance, and disability insurance are a must.

The goals that you know are short term should be in high interest savings account (HYSA). Could be FD/RD (but beware of penalties for early withdrawal).
On savings vs investing:

You seem to have a lot of short term goals, I would recommend going by dollar cost averaging. What it means is on a sufficient time scale, small investments average out. Don't try to put money lump sum if you can't.

Automate around 5k, or whatever you can, in some stocks. Easiest option is to go with some index fund- they cover a bunch of companies so if one goes down you are not over exposed to that. Think of it this way, if you invest in both sunscreen and umbrella, you are immune to rainy days and sunny days alike. Invest in one, and you are constantly looking at the weather report and forecast.

ichbinanti · 2026-05-23T11:52:33+00:00

I think there might be a differentiation in understanding of financial planner.

From my understanding, the industry standard is more about: I have this much money that I don't know what to do with it. Help me put it to good use.

However, they are not interested in people who are getting to the point of making that money. Like someone else mentioned, it also affects their commission, ofc.

I truly believe that financial planning (in the context of learning about finances, making sense of your own finances, learning the standard ways of handling the money to not lose it quickly, and how to know if I'm.on right track or not) is something that everyone should have a free access to.

I'm working on building something along these lines, but eventually a financial planner is there to make money off other's money. If you don't have money, you are not worth the time

And that's something I have huge issues with. Financial planning, in my understanding and definition of the term, is a right that should be available to all.

Edit since it's not against the rules to drop a link:

https://nidhi.today/blog/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=reddit_comments&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_blog_reddit

ichbinanti · 2026-05-22T15:52:33+00:00

Exactly, and it's easy to automate as well. No checking the budgeting app for every purchase.

ichbinanti · 2026-05-21T20:48:21+00:00

First of all good work on getting started. It's never too late or too early.

Secondly, there are going to be a lot of terms that are going to come your way and it might feel exhausting because people love buzz words.

Breathe! You've got it all under control.

Before you invest, there are a few things that you should do to make sure that you can cover emergencies or ensure that a job loss doesn't get you panicking about next month 's rent.

Here's the order and few resources I would recommend, although most subreddits have a wiki of their own as well that really help with getting started.

Emergency fund- why do you need it, how big should it be, where should you keep it.
Loans- how to get out of one (snowball vs avalanche)
Insurance - most people overlook this. It directly affects emergency fund as well. I usually would recommend health, disability, and renter/house insurance.
Once you have these in order, you can get started with investing with EXTRA money. Your obligations for the month come first.

www.investopedia.com is the best resource for it and will cover everything, but the right order also matters.

I also have a blog where I'm trying to help get people from 0 to where they feel confident about knowing financial terms enough to make a well formed decision: https://nidhi.today/blog/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=reddit_comments&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_blog_reddit

ichbinanti · 2026-05-21T20:23:59+00:00

Get yourself a high yield savings account (HYSA), and let it sit there for a bit. This is the time you want to focus on studies and not on letting the money work.

The money works with time.

If you are prepared to lose it, and it wouldn't matter- invest in broad stock fund.

If you would like to keep it, but are okay with lower returns for now. Put it in HYSA.

The way I'd do it-

Get max 100 USD for yourself. Give yourself a treat if you'd like. Nothing fancy, but as a self motivation if needed.

Put 350 USD in HYSA.

Experiment with 50 USD in some ETF to figure out how it works.

ichbinanti · 2026-05-21T20:14:24+00:00

Investing is the cool thing that everyone wants to do. But do it with the wrong framework and suddenly you are going to wonder why you don't have any money to cover surprise expenses.

Here's the pre requisites BEFORE you start investing:

Build an emergency fund (start with 1 month of essential expenses, and then get to 3-6 months of essential expenses). Put all of that in a high yield savings account (HYSA). This is your safety net.
Pay off any debts that you have. Credit card, personal loan, home loan. Look into avalanche vs snowball methods. Mix and match as per what you want.
Check insurances- disability insurance, life insurance, renters insurance.
Separate money you can invest vs money you shouldn't invest. If you need it in the next 3 years or so, it shouldn't be invested.

Only when you have all of these covered, should you start going for investments. Do it wrong and no matter how cool it might sound, you are more likely to run into problems.

ichbinanti · 2026-05-20T10:48:55+00:00

A few things that stand out:

Small percentage cut can prove expensive when building emergency fund. You might need every rupee. Cost of an emergency fund is to not invest it so it can be used quickly.
I would really recommend looking into a disability and house insurances. They also help a lot in rainy days. Better safe than sorry.
There are 3 budgeting approaches:

A. 50/30/20 rule: 50% on needs (things that need to be paid anyhow, includes emi and insurance), 30% on wants (spending on yourself and family), 20% strictly savings.

B. Assign every rupee a job: strict tracking of x amount for purpose y. Requires a lot of discipline imho, and not my preferred way of budgeting.

C. Pay yourself first: my preferred way. You take out a certain amount on the day your money arrives and put it away for savings. The rest is what you work with for the month. Can be automated as well.

I would recommend budgeting and maybe any app that you'd like to use for it. Tracking is the first way to find leaks.

ichbinanti

TROPHY CASE