Shilpi Johri is a Financial Planner. She does Comprehensive Financial Planning and counsels families and individuals on the matters of personal finance. She appears and is quoted regularly on various TV channels, Newspapers and Business magazines. She spoke to us about her new book “Money, Life & You”.
Who is the ideal reader of “Money, life & you”? What was your motivation to write this book and what would you like your readers to take away from it?
In the book I have covered 8 socio-economic trends of our country. They are: Education and Skill gap, Job Insecurity, Urbanization, Digitization of our lives, Dilemma of Being an NRI, Hesitation of Women participation in personal finance, Retirement and Property investing. These trends and challenges are faced by most of the urban adult population. Hence I would say that this book is for everyone no matter what your age, life stage and gender is!
I would love to hear ‘Aha, this is my story’ or ‘Oh my God! is this about me?’ ! from my readers 🙂
In your interactions with clients what are some of the behaviors that are most difficult to manage and cause the biggest impact in ones financial outcome? Any anecdotes that highlight this would be great.
‘Impatience’ and ‘Too much too early’ are the two major behavior problems I see during my interactions. These can have lasting outcome on someone’s financial life.
Both these things are so common that If I quote one incidence…it will be an injustice to the other 🙂
How do you see the role of women changing in managing a families finances? Do you see them getting more involved? What steps are required to get more women to take an active interest in investing?
Women are still hesitant when it comes to taking personal finance decisions. I have dedicated a chapter in the book to why women are reluctant and why they are required to change themselves. Also how they can become more participative. It is a fairly detailed analysis …instead of giving random tips here, I would recommend ladies to read it.
How do you think the new generation of Indian’s see money differently than their parents and grand-parents? How will this affect the financial products landscape?
We are gradually shifting from being ‘great savers’ to ‘great spenders’. With every positive change in our income, we automatically enhance our lifestyle with out giving a second thought that it the change may not last. We are becoming oblivious to the fact that if these are interesting times material possession wise, these are also ‘Uncertain times’ professionally and financially.
With the uncertainty I think demand for Insurance products will increase. Also, since people are more open to take calculative risk…Mutual funds can become useful product.
What are some “money” rules that have helped you simplify and make sense of your finances? Any lessons / anecdotes in financial management that you would like to share with us?
Money rule is simple…’What comes in has to go out’!…So we need to focus on both ‘Ways to increase our Income’ and ‘Ways to optimize our expenditure’. There is no end to your lifestyle enhancement ways but do only what can make you sleep comfortably at night.
Everyone’s writing process is different, what is yours? What were some of the challenges you faced on the road to publication?
To my pleasant surprise…it was a very smooth road to the publication! Publishing team at CNBC was great and very helpful…We worked together seamlessly to get this book published.
And as far as my writing style goes the two things important to me are ‘Structured approach’ and ‘Absolutely No Jargon’…The book is for everyone even if they do not understand personal finance or financial products. This book is a ‘Non fiction Life story of people around us’.
Thanks Shilpi for your time and all the best for your book.
