Discover the journey to financial freedom and a prosperous future with K.S. Rao, Amit Trivedi, Harsh Roongta, and P.V. Subramanyam
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00:00 Welcome to this webinar series, which is a part of the investor education and awareness
00:14 initiative of Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund in association with Outlook Money. The
00:20 topic of today's discussion is unlocking the path to financial freedom. You know, the concept
00:26 of financial freedom attracts one and all, but the road to achieve it could often be
00:31 painful and require a lot of discipline on the investors and individuals part to achieve
00:37 financial freedom. So, on the occasion of Independence Day, India's Independence Day,
00:42 we'll discuss the importance of financial freedom, the ways to achieve it and the things
00:47 you should keep in mind, including the challenges and opportunities when planning for it. And
00:53 in fact, even life beyond it, beyond financial freedom is something that we'll look at in
00:59 this discussion. I am Nidhi Sinha, Editor, Outlook Money. And I hope that you'll get
01:04 all your answers to all your questions today as we have a panel of four financial experts.
01:10 And let me start with introducing them. First, I would like to welcome Mr. K S Rao, who's
01:14 the head of the investor education and distribution development at Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC.
01:20 Mr. Rao has been striving to take financial literacy across the country for years now.
01:25 We also have with us Mr. Amit Trivedi, who's an author, speaker, blogger and trainer and
01:32 has more than two decades of experience in the capital markets. He's authored a number
01:37 of books as well. Our third panelist is Mr. B V Subramaniam, who's also many things rolled
01:43 into one like Mr. Trivedi and all other experts here. He's a chartered accountant, a trainer,
01:48 and author. And he loves number crunching is what I'm told. The fourth expert on this
01:54 panel is Mr. Harsh Roongta, a personal finance and tax expert who writes for various publications,
02:00 has authored his own book and has been associated with the retail lending industry for a fairly
02:05 long time. So let me start with the basics of the discussion. And I would request Mr.
02:11 Rao to answer the first question of this topic. How do you define financial freedom, Mr. Rao?
02:18 And why is it something that is crucial for individuals?
02:22 Thank you so much. Good morning to everyone. And indeed, it is an honor to be amidst of
02:27 the amazing personalities. And good to have this discussion, Nidhi ji. It's always, you
02:33 know, when it's a time where India is going to celebrate its 77th independence day or
02:39 76 years of independence rather. And we also talk nowadays, it's the we have just stepped
02:45 into our Amrit Kal of the nation, maybe one year, and then another 24 years, if you can
02:50 count where that optimism, positivity, and then we are looking at that economic growth.
02:57 This is a time the conversation around individual financial freedom does make some sense. It's
03:02 probably year after year we discuss, but it's a time where we can go back and implement
03:07 and with us, like, you know, whether Harsh ji or Subrath, the kind of work they do or
03:12 Amitji propagates across, I think it's a time and coming back on the subject when you
03:17 are talking about how do we define financial freedom, probably, let me not confine to one
03:24 word of the financial freedom. And earlier, Subra was talking on the sidelines, it's a
03:28 financial independence from financial freedom, how we can introduce. Probably it is a state
03:33 of having those financial resources, and also having that flexibility to live life on your
03:40 own terms. That's where when you accomplish your financial freedom. And it's probably,
03:44 you know, if in layman terms, if I can call, you know, whether I can have the ability to
03:49 meet all my expenses, and am I saving for my future, right? Am I having the ability
03:55 to pursue my all financial goals, and without the constraint of the financial resources,
04:02 that's where I can look at, you know, I am on the path to financial freedom. Or it's
04:07 like, you know, it's like, sometimes we can, we believe, I have a higher income, I am a
04:12 wealthy, probably it is beyond that you are just, it is like, you know, having some sound
04:17 financial plan. And since with us, we have a wonderful financial planner around, you
04:22 know, it's, I mean, somebody is not only living in the financial freedom now, and you need
04:26 to live for the longer, that's where you have a financial plan rightly, and you have the
04:30 ability to manage your finances wisely. However, I have a financial freedom today, if I fail
04:37 to make one, I mean, if I fail to take one wrong decision, you know, if I if I've taken
04:43 wrong one wrong decision, then I end up I messed up, you know, I have a couple of my
04:47 friends whom I have seen, they say they have accomplished their financial freedom. But
04:52 one mistake of one investing at a wrong place, made them get back to where they belong to
04:57 kind of, that's where you need to have that right financial plan and where your financial
05:02 destiny is right. And I also look at financial freedom is you are free from your financial
05:08 stress. Probably that is the one which is causing so much of mental worry when I talk
05:13 to the people, when I meet across, it's the biggest constraint is when they do not have
05:18 right resources or they have not planned it rightly. And it's like, you know, just put
05:22 it in a simple terms, it is a financial independence is the one which gives you the peace of mind
05:27 and which make use to reach your desired destiny or your dreams into your reality or like,
05:35 you know, and I also look at like this. It's a financial independence can give you the
05:41 choices and you live a stress free life and you are more flexible. And then it is also
05:48 something called your legacy planning. You know, I'm not living for myself. I'm also
05:52 living for somebody else. Like, you know, earlier we used to discuss the charity, the
05:56 philanthropy, we leave it back to the society. And that's where you get the financial freedom.
06:00 But if I have to define, probably I use the term as a define itself as a financial freedom.
06:07 I mean, you know, one, you need to design the life for what you choice and you need
06:11 to put that is empowering yourself, get to the financial path, which can give you that
06:18 independence and that helps you to navigate and that will energize your entire life. That's
06:23 where I can define financial freedom. Right. So, you know, designing and of course,
06:30 implementing that design into your life to create a financially stress free life in the future is
06:36 one of the ways to define financial freedom, like Mr. Rao said. But before we come to the
06:42 real basics of financial planning and how to go about it, I would like to ask Mr. Trivedi
06:48 about some of the common misconceptions that people may have about this term, about achieving
06:54 financial freedom and are there any ways we can address these misconceptions today?
07:01 Thanks, Ritu. It's a wonderful question. And if you were to talk about misconceptions, the
07:07 first that comes to mind is a lot of people believe that a number can give them independence
07:13 or freedom and that's why a lot of people resort to various calculators where they punch in some
07:18 numbers and the result comes out whether you are financially free or not or you need so much
07:23 amount to be financially free or you need to save so much for becoming financially free.
07:27 The fact of the matter is all the calculators are based on certain assumptions
07:33 and assumptions have a very bad habit of going wrong. Right. So, you are dependent on getting
07:41 the assumptions right, then you are not independent truly. So, first of all, the dependence or
07:49 over-dependence on calculators is a great misconception that a lot of people have.
07:54 Taking a clue from what Rao sir was mentioning, it is about not having stress about finances
08:03 and I am not sure if there is any calculator that can measure the level of stress.
08:09 So, if a calculator can't measure the level of stress and you want to be stress-free,
08:12 then I think we are relying on a wrong tool to get the right result.
08:16 But that's a misconception, number one. Number two, many feel that if I achieve a particular
08:27 amount and I can be free, the big problem in an assumption is what are you going to do after
08:37 and how are you going to spend your time and the way you spend your time is having a great
08:44 influence or impact on the way you spend your money. Is your spending pattern going to change
08:51 completely compared to what it is today? In that case, your assumptions also need to be adjusted.
08:57 Number three, if you are not able to visualize that life post achieving that financial freedom,
09:08 then it's again a very difficult exercise to arrive at. The fourth misconception that a lot
09:16 of people do is that they say that it's all about saving money, investing in the right way and then
09:22 I can achieve financial freedom. But in that process, they stop living today and that clearly
09:29 reminds me of that famous movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara where the character of Hrithik Roshan also
09:35 wanted to retire at 40 and that's why he stopped living when he was in his 20s. I think that's the
09:44 other misconception. Financial freedom is not about sacrificing today for tomorrow. It's about
09:51 living today fully and living tomorrow fully. So these are a few misconceptions that come to mind.
09:58 Now what we need to do, I think some of the answers are going to emerge from the panelists
10:02 out here and you've got some great experts in Subra who's written that wonderful book Retire
10:08 Rich and Harsha who's become financially independent himself thrice over. So they are
10:14 going to guide us on what to do about it. Definitely. So I'll come to Mr. Subramaniam
10:20 later. First, I would again from the lens of financial planning, again I'm asking a very
10:26 basic question for the benefit of our viewers is that what are some of the essential steps if
10:33 one has decided that I want to achieve financial freedom, what are some of the essential and basic
10:39 steps that he or she should take in this journey? The general freedoms that you have, your life is
10:47 not in compartments that this is my financial life, this is my physical life, this is my emotional
10:53 life, this is my social life and I think increasingly people are realizing that just
11:01 having financial resources, Mr. Ram mentioned about mistakes that people might make
11:10 and Amit just mentioned about you can't stop living. So just like you would do a systematic
11:21 investment for financial resources, just like you would plan for financial resources, I think you
11:28 need to plan for the other aspects of your life because now there is ample research which shows
11:36 that unless you have good social connections, unless you have good emotional health, people
11:45 don't really live long enough to enjoy their freedom or their independence. What is the use
11:54 of having choice that you have the choice that you can travel to the places you want to but if
12:02 you can't because you are physically not capable of traveling or your doctor tells you to. So my
12:09 point is the biggest mistake you asked about financial planning, the biggest mistake you can
12:15 make, I will not really right now go into do this or do that etc. I think the biggest mistake that
12:24 people make is treating finance as a isolated area or isolated part of their lives. People need to
12:35 realize, I mean Amit gave the example of Hrithik Roshan's character that he plays in Zindagi Na
12:41 Milegi Dobara, you don't really have to watch movies for this. I am seeing this every day with
12:47 my clients. When we do what is called life planning, it's not financial planning, it's
12:54 life planning and you probe a little and you find so we have this famous probing question
13:02 that if you add all the resources in the world, what would change in your life? Now not all
13:09 clients respond but very many of the clients, their first response is "sabse pehle I am going
13:15 to give up my job". Then you probe further etc. Then you realize and a lot of clients realize
13:23 he is in a position to give up his job in any case and do something he enjoys and still not
13:29 lose the freedom. So I think the definition of freedom needs to encompass a much wider canvas
13:39 than we have traditionally given and I think to a great extent it is the profession, it is the
13:47 academicians, it is the media. All of us need to take this up that man is a social animal and he
13:55 is most happy when he is with family, with his tribe and I think finance is very important. It
14:03 is very difficult to be happy without money but it is a necessary probably condition but not in
14:10 you know it is a hygiene. Just because you have money you're not going to be
14:17 free. So I think these are the two things that one need to look at. Look at a full picture,
14:25 enjoy your journey. It's very important to enjoy your journey because journey is the destination.
14:32 I think that really is the key. So actually Mr. Surumanyam, since you know the debate has taken
14:39 this direction that you know Mr. Trivedi also said that you know you shouldn't stop living today but
14:45 then there is a balance between not stopping to live today or enjoying the things that you can
14:50 enjoy at a younger age perhaps but it's also said that if you really need to want to achieve
14:59 financial freedom and I mean it in the way of finances and money that you have enough
15:06 corpus to kind of pursue what you like. So how does one balance the two ideas? Sometimes you
15:14 know they stand facing each other. So how does one balance that? Okay let me quote Warren Buffett
15:22 when he says there is something called an internal scorecard and an external scorecard. If you know
15:27 how to live for your internal scorecard you can enjoy life better than when you live for your
15:33 external scorecard. So if you decide that you will have great fun in visiting the beaches,
15:37 you can visit Goa, you can visit Puri, you can visit Mahabalipuram but if you think you're working
15:44 for the external scorecard it has to be Phuket, it has to be Maldives because your passport should
15:49 have a stamp and you should put it on Facebook saying I went abroad. So if you start living for
15:55 the external scorecard it's very difficult to retire because you'll keep on chasing something
16:00 which is somebody else's dream. So create your own dreams and if you do that then it might become
16:05 easier. Do you have to sacrifice? I think it's a very strong word. I mean we all sacrifice our
16:11 sleep by getting up in the morning and brushing our teeth. If we didn't have to brush our teeth
16:16 we would sleep for five more minutes but that's the wrong way to look at it. The discipline of
16:20 brushing your teeth keeps you in good health, good oral hygiene. So discipline is in fact a way
16:29 that you get freedom. For example, if you keep all things in its place you don't have to spend
16:34 time searching for it. So some of those things you have to know what you want in life. If you can
16:39 write it down saying I want this, I will achieve this then you can achieve financial freedom.
16:44 Some things you can't afford in your lifetime. Whatever financial freedom I have I won't be
16:49 able to buy a 1 billion dollar spaceship. That's for Elon Musk to buy, that's not for me. So you
16:55 have to know what is reasonable, what you can achieve. So I tell some of my clients look
17:01 some of your goals are worth laughing, there is no way how you will be able to get it right. So
17:05 you have to understand what you want, what your family's goals are because we are not earning
17:10 money only for ourselves, we are earning money for our children, for our spouse and everybody.
17:16 So sacrifice, I think sacrifice is too strong a word. Taking one hour out a day to go to the
17:23 gym, is it a sacrifice? Yes, but it gives you help. So you have health freedom so that you
17:29 don't have to go to the doctor, you don't fall ill. So all freedom will come with some discipline.
17:35 In fact, Gandhi says when he talks about freedom, he says freedom from needing to have a servant
17:42 which means you wash your own clothes, you wash your toilet, you spin your own clothes,
17:47 that's the famous charkha. So he says independence or freedom means freedom from everything, freedom
17:53 from bad health. So you need good health, you need good money. So financial freedom is a part of it.
18:00 So how do you get to financial freedom? You start saving, you start investing and all those things.
18:06 Do you get up every day and tell the world how disciplined I am, I brush my teeth every day?
18:12 It has to become a habit. Once it becomes a habit, you don't think you're doing the world
18:16 a favor by brushing your teeth or taking bath and all that. We have just made it a part of our lives.
18:22 So financial habits, whether it is saving money, whether it is investing it wisely and all that,
18:28 all that has to be built into your life. If you think you're doing a big sacrifice by doing that,
18:34 you will never do it. It's like, you know, diet. If you think, oh my God, I'm doing this, oh my God,
18:40 I'm doing this, it is not sustainable. After a week, you will give up and say, I don't care.
18:45 But if you build it into your life saying, OK, I know sugar is bad, I know I must exercise,
18:50 that gives you health, I mean, freedom from ill health, which is good health.
18:55 So freedom from bad financial habits of blowing money way beyond your capacity,
19:00 saving money, investing money. If you get all those good habits, you just walk into financial
19:06 freedom. So, yeah. So do you have to make sacrifices? Sacrifices, yes. But don't try to
19:11 emulate somebody else's lifestyle. Don't say, oh, he went to Switzerland for two weeks, so I should
19:17 also go. If you can budget Goa and get your financial freedom, you go to Goa. Don't copy
19:21 others. Don't worry about the external scorecard. Build your internal scorecard and if you stick to
19:28 your internal scorecard, you will achieve your financial freedom. You can't live beyond your
19:32 means and achieve financial freedom. You just can't. Right. That's a very interesting insight
19:39 that you have to have your goals internally, fix your needs and wants in your life, which will,
19:47 I think, really give the real financial freedom, so to say, to any individual. And it can mean
19:52 different things to different people, of course, depending on the affordability and so many other
19:59 priorities in life, etc. So, you know, just taking ahead this discussion, of course, that Gandhi
20:05 example was fantastic and kind of brought home the point very clearly. But this question I'm
20:11 putting to any of you, if you have any real life, you deal with clients and other people
20:19 on a regular basis. If you have an example which can be shared with the viewers, which kind of
20:24 shows what real people do. Of course, Gandhi's example is worth emulating, but he's also a
20:33 figure that people do not perhaps equate, can't equate themselves with him. So if any of you
20:41 have an example like that, please let our viewers also have a share. Yeah, yeah, sorry, let me jump.
20:48 I have this guy, I met him when he was not yet 50, he was 48 or 49, a chartered accountant
20:54 practicing in Hyderabad. He told his firm where he was a partner that I will work only four days a
21:01 week. So he would take Fridays off. And every Friday, he would visit some older relative,
21:08 could be a friend's father or somebody, he would go to their house, he would look at their finances
21:14 and say, okay, redeem this mutual fund, invest in this mutual fund. And Hyderabad is not a very
21:19 big city. He would organize a motor mechanic to look after their car or an electrician if they
21:25 had a problem or something like that. And he would call up that auntie and say, Auntie, I'm coming to
21:29 your house for lunch. He's saying it excites them a bit. So one whole week they are preparing for my
21:35 coming. So I go every Friday, he visits somebody and helps them has lunch and comes back home. He's
21:41 saying I'm preparing for retirement. I'm trying to do something useful for society. This was very
21:47 different. Not too many people do it right going and helping somebody some random could be his own
21:51 aunt or it could be friends, mother or somebody. So many of his friends call him up and ask,
21:57 how is my mother? She's not telling me the truth about her illness. Can you find out and he go
22:02 every Friday, he takes his car and goes to somebody's house and solves if they have a problem.
22:08 If they don't have a problem, he gets a good lunch. So I said, do you have 52 people? He said,
22:12 I have 200 people. So next three years is taken care of. I thought it was very interesting.
22:16 It's a beautiful story. Of course, it's a really beautiful story. So coming to Mr. Rungta,
22:23 we have been talking about how financial freedom is about your attitude, your emotional health and
22:28 other things. But of course, investing also has to have a it has to be part of this discussion
22:34 because we are discussing it from the outlook money point of view and the financial lives of
22:39 people. So what is the role of financial planning in the way people invest and what will be some of
22:47 the takeaways that you would suggest to our viewers? I think first, I think to this
22:53 incident narrated by Sudra, I think what that person is doing and I'm taking away Rao Garu's
23:03 copyright by using acronyms SSIP. This is a social systematic investment plan. He's really,
23:11 really, really planning for his investment. But coming to say financial decisions that you take
23:22 and how do you take them? Like any financial, any major financial decision that you take
23:28 has several tradeoffs. And let me explain that with the example of this very specific
23:38 person. This is not my client. This has been narrated by somebody else, but I think it's very
23:45 apt. So this is the client of my colleague at ARIA, Vishal Dhawan. And he mentioned he has
23:53 mentioned this on more than one occasion. So there was there is this doctor and running a
23:59 very thriving practice. It's a doctor couple running a thriving practice and they were planning
24:05 to sort of set up a multi-specialist hospital. And that involves a huge amount of investments.
24:11 They would have to take loans, etc. And obviously, they sought approval. They sought recommendations
24:21 from the advisor. And I think one of the things that a good advisor does is he looks at the
24:27 totality. So obviously, the hospital area is something the doctors know reasonably well.
24:36 But what the advisor knows well is what are the tradeoffs that he is making. So he knew that the
24:42 doctor would every year would take off three to four weeks to go on a trek and that and he was a
24:50 wildlife photography enthusiast. And that was something he really looked forward to.
24:55 One thing was clear and he had debt free, plenty of money, etc. But moment he went in for this,
25:04 this was looking extremely doubtful. So the real to turn that decision into the hospital looks good.
25:12 It looks like a good investment. You have obviously looked at it. I have not looked at it
25:16 in detail. But have you thought about the fact that you will have to compromise with your
25:22 wildlife photography and this three to four weeks trekking holiday that you take every year.
25:30 Then put in those terms. It was not very difficult for that doctor to take that decision. And I think
25:40 he thanks the advisor till date today. There are many more examples. I can give one more. I mean,
25:47 I had this client very, you know, doing extremely well in his life. He had a house, he bought
25:57 another investment property like a lot of mistakes that client make. He had this huge property on
26:03 which rental was coming, but he had a huge loan as well. Salary running into more than 10 lakhs
26:10 a month, etc. But not too much left because lifestyle to boot, EMI is to pay. And he was
26:18 feeling he liked his job, but he was feeling very hassled because he just didn't have time to do
26:23 things. So when he came to us and we sort of looked at it. OK. And one of the things that we
26:30 suggested to him is that why don't you sell off this second property? He clearly wanted to take a
26:37 break. What he didn't like about his job was the incessant traveling that was required and he wanted
26:44 to take a break. But with all the EMIs, etc., he was finding it very difficult to take a break.
26:49 And then when we suggested to him that you sell off the second house, use the surplus, etc.,
26:57 to pay off that loan, pay off the loan, become debt free. You already have some investments.
27:02 OK. You can continue to live the way you live, provided you do at least some job. And can you
27:09 get those kind of assignments? He said, yes, of course, I can get those kind of assignments.
27:14 What happened in that case was that he went back to his own company, he liked doing what he was
27:20 doing. He went back to his own company and he negotiated with them. What I don't like about
27:28 this is the traveling. I don't want this set of responsibilities that require traveling. I'm
27:34 enjoying this. He was a great resource. The company hired him as a consultant. Less hours, very little
27:43 cut in pay, very little. No compromises on lifestyle, some adjustments in the way that he
27:50 had his investments. He now had time for his fast growing children at that time.
27:56 OK, so a little bit of planning, giving a different perspective can help people take
28:05 life changing decisions. And I think that is the reward for the advisory profession that we are in,
28:13 that it enables us to influence some really smart people to be able to live their lives
28:24 really better. Got it. So, you know, how to fulfill your life through making changes in
28:30 your investment patterns is what I can understand from that. And we've, of course, been
28:35 been talking about, you know, making changes in our emotional and expectations and goals and
28:42 everything. And I guess everything comes together on this. But Mr. Trivedi, earlier you were talking
28:49 about how it is also important to plan the post-retirement, let me not say post-retirement,
28:57 but post-financial freedom period, as in, let's say you've achieved everything, you've achieved
29:03 the money that you want, it can take care of your life later. But and you've left your job, perhaps,
29:09 maybe a lot of people do that. But then there could be a vacuum, there could be a space left
29:16 which you need to fill with other activities. So, what is your suggestion on that? A lot of people
29:21 we also talk to sometimes they forget about that aspect. They are so focused on investing and
29:26 this goal of achieving that kind of money or corpus that they, you know, kind of forget about
29:33 it. So, please tell us about something. So, another wonderful question, Niti, and,
29:39 you know, this also brings out one of the misconceptions that I could have talked about
29:43 earlier. But financial freedom or financial independence is not a destination, it's a state.
29:51 Once you achieve that state, you got to live life and that life is actually the destination,
29:58 the way you live your life and that's where some of the decisions become very important. One of the,
30:01 you know, wonderful stories that Subra narrated was about that chartered accountant from Hyderabad.
30:09 So, he has figured out a way of properly utilizing his time. The story that Harsha mentioned about
30:17 that doctor couple, they loved to travel but then for that they needed to take time out of their
30:25 routine work. So, do you have a hobby to pursue? Do you have a socially responsible activity to do
30:34 or you simply do a part-time job as the case of that consultant that Harsha mentioned? You may
30:41 continue to earn but the idea is to properly utilize your life. There's an old joke about
30:47 retirement, it says, I mean, again, it's an English joke and not trying to be gender biased but it's
30:53 a joke. So, I'm just narrating it. It said retirement is a very bad phase because there the
30:58 wife gets full husband and half the salary. Now, that's where if the husband and wife can't live
31:05 together or a person who's not employed in any meaningful activity is likely to fall prey to
31:13 that old saying an idle mind is devil's workshop and then that workshop starts producing stuff which
31:20 poisons the family life. So, it's more important to decide what to do in the retirement phase,
31:29 financially free phase, whatever you call it. Now, take for example, there are many who have
31:38 so much net worth that probably they would be able to take care of their future generations
31:45 and Subra loves to keep putting Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, nanogenerations. They've got
31:51 so much wealth that probably next four or five generations can be fed out of that wealth
31:57 but they are busy, they are meaningfully employing their time. I think that's one big thing that
32:09 needs to be planned and there are multiple factors that come into taking this decision. One is what
32:16 kind of social life that you want to live. Second, what kind of spiritual life that you want to live.
32:23 Third, how good is your health. Fourth, what are your hobbies. Fifth, can you contribute to the
32:32 society now that you achieved that freedom and that's where one of the lessons that Rao Sir has
32:39 repeatedly highlighted during various webinars that we've jointly had. Ultimately, it's about
32:47 the fourth G of his 4G, give. We've got something from the society, I've achieved that financial
32:57 freedom. Now, am I the owner of that wealth or am I trustee of that wealth and start looking at that
33:04 wealth in that manner that now God has chosen me to channelize that money for well-being of
33:11 others who are not privileged enough. I think that's what I would come to. Having said that,
33:20 let's come to the discussion of money. It's almost always forgotten that we invest for a purpose
33:32 and all the purposes that you list down, the so-called financial goals are nothing but deferred
33:38 expenses. So how are you going to spend your money in that phase of life called financial freedom?
33:49 Couple of examples, couple of stories were shared. I recollect one such story when I was
33:55 teaching some CFP students. One of the days, one student came and said, Sir, I need help. I mean,
34:01 can you just go through these numbers because it's unbelievable. Now, this doctor couple in their
34:07 early 40s were living in a small town in India. None of the metros, not the top town. So the cost
34:15 of living was very reasonably moderate and that doctor couple was earning something like
34:23 between them around 70 to 80 lakh rupees per annum and they came to this financial advisor and said,
34:31 we want to be free by 50. We want to stop working by 50. So he started collecting the data,
34:42 started working on the numbers and did the cash flow and then he was shocked. So he did not share
34:48 the data with or the result with the couple. He came to me because the number suggested that this
34:55 doctor couple will have to continue working at least till the age of 72 to 75 years, not 50.
35:04 And he was puzzled. I mean, 80 lakhs a year and a city such as small as this.
35:10 The fact of the matter was their lifestyle was ultra lavish for the city. Now, if the spending
35:19 pattern is such, now imagine a busy doctor couple who's spending so much time in the hospital is
35:25 still spending so much money. The moment that much time is also freed up, what would happen to the
35:30 level of expenses? Now, that's the other thing and that's where some amount of budgeting exercise
35:38 will have to be thought through and how do you allocate those resources? How do you, you know,
35:45 towards which activity and in that process sometimes you may be financially free but you
35:52 may still need to generate some cash inflow through an activity so that that inflow doesn't
35:59 get replaced by additional outflow of money. That requires careful planning and I think
36:06 Harsha was mentioning something beautiful. It's not about money alone. Money is just the means to
36:12 an end called living a fulfilling life. So, coming to the end of this discussion in a way, Mr. Rao,
36:18 I would request you to kind of crunch this discussion into a few points and tell us about
36:26 the main takeaways that our viewers should take with them. Thanks Nidhi for it and but it's a very
36:32 interesting conversations, interesting anecdotes and you know it's a lot to carry and it's a put
36:37 it and end of it you know I'll take from where Amit is starting about it's a it's a probably
36:43 whether it's a financial independence or financial freedom or earlier when you know Harsha and Sir
36:49 and Subra was talking about probably one we need to look at is a for your financial well-being.
36:54 I mean you know when you call financial well-being it is a quality of your life determines what you
36:59 are then the quantity of wealth what you have and then coming back on the financial freedom if I
37:04 look at if I put some steps method to the madness for a common person even for everyone any one of
37:10 us if I need to look at where to start financial freedom looks a bigger term and it's looks like
37:15 a destiny and where Amit was telling it's not a destiny but it's a state where you need to move.
37:20 If it is a state where you need to move the first thing we need to get is I mean the right way to
37:25 look at is you know get your own financial advisor then he can guide you he or she can
37:30 guide you to the path you know somebody said to me in Lucknow I mean you know he said if you want a
37:34 financial independence have an independent financial advisor for you I mean you know but
37:39 but but other way around I look at is like you know build your own capability on financial literacy
37:44 I mean where you do a lot of work from outlook money and the kind of work you know with the first
37:49 first step coming is a financial literacy then the second step comes is once you are literate
37:54 once you are knowledgeable once you understand personal finance where you want to go then you
37:58 need to build your financial capability and financial capability is like not the lifestyle
38:03 where Amit was talking about but you know how you are making sure that you live a life of
38:07 abundance with the decisions you take and where you have started saving and understanding investments
38:13 that will lead to the third step I call it the financial security I mean you know you
38:18 switch to the first step before even the independence or freedom you are talking about
38:22 literally be literate and be capable then get to the financial security then the fourth step you
38:27 look at that you know you aspire for your financial freedom where your assets and liabilities matches
38:32 and you know where you are living expenses you don't need to worry the ultimate goal when you
38:37 look at financial independence is like you know you're working is a pure choice like you know
38:41 earlier in one of the examples I started talking and you know but you know you you live out of
38:46 passion but you know you're you don't need to work for money rather you know that is the money is not
38:50 a priority but rest of the things have taken care I mean to put it in simple terms I mean
38:55 be financially literate get financial capability right and aspire for financial security then
39:01 accomplish your financial independence then to the freedom. Right, so financial emotional and even
39:08 physical security that we have discussed today are all important ingredients that can kind of
39:15 lead you to the recipe to financial freedom which again can mean different things to different people
39:22 and there would be some people who may be happy with small freedoms some may be looking at very
39:27 big ones and like our panelists highlighted there would be some with so much money but they have
39:32 found a purpose which will never let them retire. So on that note, thank you so much gentlemen for
39:38 this engaging conversation on financial freedom today and happy independence day to our viewers.
39:45 [Music]
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