Sunday, November 05, 2006

What is this personal finance anyway?

http://en.wikipedia.org/ defines personal finance as :

Personal finance is the application of the principles of finance to the monetary decisions of an individual or family unit. It addresses the ways in which individuals or families obtain, budget, save and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events. Components of personal finance might include checking and savings accounts, credit cards and consumer loans, investments in the stock market, retirement plans, social security benefits, and income tax management.

A simpler definition which i like is "Whatever you do to achieve financial freedom and security in your life".

All of us live our lives hoping that one day we will have enough wealth to do the things we like; being able to say no for a job we hate or even retire early and travel around the world if you like. Hoping is one thing and achieving it is another - and that is were personal finance comes in. The principles of personal finance provide us with tools to achieve our goals. In this blog i plan to document my journey to financial freedom and hope you will enjoy it and learn from it as much as I do.

Why another blog?

You may wonder why another blog when i already have http://indianvalue.blogspot.com/ which is about investing anyway? This is because i firmly believe that investing and personal finance though related, are two different topics and merit separate discussions. In this blog, i will talk about what, why and how of personal finance - especially about achieving financial security at an early age. Another reason to start this blog is that there are very few personal finance blogs focused on Indians in the blogosphere.
I try to learn from others successes and mistakes and hope this blog will help you in learning from my mistakes and experiences in my journey towards financial security.