Money Wise: Wealth Management/Investment Book for Indians (Book Review)

Money Wise: The Aam Aadmi’s Guide to Wealth and Financial Freedom is a wealth management/financial investment book written for common middle class and upper middle class Indians. High time someone wrote a book on this topic and I am glad that the popular fiction author Sharath Komarraju, has done it! This book has been published by Harper Collins India.

Once people have figured how to make money, they can’t be content with keeping it in the savings account. Why? Because inflation reduces the purchasing power of the money every year or even every quarter! That’s the reason why sound financial planning/investment strategy is required.

The first thing anyone will think of is Fixed Deposits or Recurring Deposits in Bank. Yes, liquid cash is one effective way of investing the money. But there are other ways too, like Government/Corporate bonds that are relatively safe and stable, Gold that will always retain its value, land/real estate that can appreciate quickly, and stock market which is a gamble.

The author says our investment portfolio should be a mix of all of the above so that we will be covered during inflation, recession, boom & bust. The author takes us through each investment option in somewhat good detail and explains the positive and negative aspects related to them.

I found most of the advise sound, especially as I am clueless on wealth management topics. But I found the suggestions too safe. There are people who may like to take more risks to get better returns, but I guess this book is not for them. It is for a typical middle class/upper middle class family to want to safely explore wealth management options and grow their wealth better than what they maybe currently doing.

I never considered Gold coins/ETFs, Government/Corporate Bonds, Safe Stock market options, etc. as an investment option until now. Hence this book is an eye opener to me. I guess I don’t have to worry about all this now as I have very less wealth to “manage”. But it maybe useful in the future, so good to know anyway 🙂

Destination Infinity