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In 2021, my mother was unwell, hence I was spending some time with my parents. As a Financial Planner, I was thrilled to find that even at the age of 80, he is absolutely financially independent and can support himself for next 20 yrs, too.

And I realised that there is so much that we have learnt / can learn from him.

Born in 1940, my Dad has seen both, pre and post-independence era. He has seen poverty and is absolutely a self-made man. As the eldest of 7 siblings, he had to start working at the age of 15 on a contractual basis. Very early on he realized that there was no alternative but to study hard to land a good job to give a decent life to his family. He acquired skills in typing and shorthand on his own (without any classes) to land a stenographer’s job.  He studied under streetlights and did his graduation as an external, while holding 3 jobs parallelly. After graduation, he got a similar permanent job in a PSU. He went on to do his LLB also on part time basis. In the meantime, he married and had 3 kids and still he was studying. He got his DLP and LLM. And with his work ethics and additional degrees, he was also getting promoted in this company. He was more concerned about security(job) and he loyally stuck to his company. He became an officer and later became legal Manager and then Sr. Manager.

Lesson 1 : Work Hard – He has always said, “There is no alternative to hard work”.

From the beginning, all 3 of us were constantly reminded about this. So it has, kind of, got ingrained in our DNA over time. So, there is no shying away from hard work and getting our hands dirty.   

Lesson 2 : Learning is a continuous, lifelong process -  Keep updating yourself.

Money was always scarce, but surprisingly, somehow, there was always money for our books and classes. We may not get money for any frills, but books…. We always got.  While others depended on library books, he would buy us whatever books were required. Some new, some second hand… but we would always have the books that were needed.  This has made us “learners” for life.

Lesson 3 :  Disciplined Saving and Investing (and Power of Compounding 😊): 

With whatever income he had, he diligently put away a portion of it for future. He ensured that all of us got proper education and became independent. Post his retirement at 60, he not only married off his 3 daughters, but have helped multiple relatives/friends/needy people from time to time, and still have never needed to seek any financial assistance from anyone.   Its not at all surprising, that even at 80 yrs of age, he is financially independent and can take care of all his expenses for next 20 yrs also. (Children’s education, Marriage and Retirement (not to forget, Charity) planned for and met all the financial goals √)

Lesson 4 : Delayed gratification:

Even when we wanted something (eg a new bicycle), we had to wait for that money to be accumulated over next 2-3 months and then only we were able to buy. This taught us to ascertain our future goals and start saving for it in advance.

Lesson 5 : He would call it – Simple Living and High Thinking (I call it Frugality😉) :

He would always say, “Needs are few, Wants are many” – When resources are limited, focus on the Needs first. Whenever, we would demand anything, his first question would be – “Is it necessary?” We would have to justify why it is required. And we had to argue our case in his court 😉

This also brings me to –

Lesson 6 : Detailed Analysis and Empowerment to take decisions :

While going through his documents recently, I found Master Share Certificates. I remembered as a 16 yr old, I had read in the newspaper about Master shares. I saw him filling some forms for FD and I asked him, why he was not investing in Master Shares. He asked me to go and find out all the details and convince him why he should invest. Once I did that, he bought Master shares in my name. I had absolutely forgotten about them, but memories came back when I saw those Master Share Certificates and few more Bonus shares as well (It’s a different matter that I now need to figure out a way to dematerialize them ☹)

That taught us to analyze all the pros and cons of every option and take educated decisions.

Lesson 7 :  Diligent record keeping :

He got couple of bags filled with files. I opened my laptop, despairing that I have gotten into a long haul of getting all the records straight. But he handed me a diary instead. And what do I find? Each and every detail of investment, diligently noted in it. The ones which had matured, were crossed out and new entries made. The files had each and every document filed away.

We are so much into digital world these days, that we have forgotten the art of maintaining records. And in these difficult times, we have all seen families struggling on demise of the main bread earner due of unavailability of financial records. 

One of his famous sayings is “Lead by Example” and that is what he has always done – “Lead by Example”

I am still wondering whether to call him “A Rich, Poor Dad” OR “A Poor, Rich Dad”.

Any guesses???

                                                                                                                                                              By : Seema Kakade Ahuja

                                                                                                                                                                     CFP, QPFP