Being financially literate doesn’t guarantee you success in your money life. The Arekars were already making investments out of the income they were earning; first from their regular jobs and then the business venture that they set up in 2014 (after they had quit their regular jobs). They knew what investments like fixed deposits meant, why insurance needs to be bought, and so on, but they never quite comprehended the necessity to put it all together in a cohesive manner, so that it would all eventually lead to a financial goal. Worse: they had no financial goals.
Where they were
They had made lump sum investments in equity mutual funds in 2008—when markets had corrected—and stayed invested. But the investments didn’t have any purpose. An occasional systematic investment plan (SIP) was also started somewhere in between. Manisha had also invested in a tax-saving mutual funds. But the purpose was to save tax, more than to make reasonable money out of the investment. Insurance policies were brought regularly but randomly—Salil’s parents used to decide the amounts every year, after consulting an agent who had known to the family for a very long time.
