Deepak Shukla - No-Frills Investing: A Simple Roadmap & Step-By-Step Action Plan To Achieve Financial Freedom

Yes, core values such aslove, compassion, character, honesty, integrity undoubtedly arecardinal and come first but for most of us, when it comes toknowledge and life skills, the ability tomanage and grow our hard-earned money is of paramountimportance . Yetdespite the fact that mostpeople will likely agree with this statement, they will also admitthat they are woefully lacking in this critical skill .I have personally dealt with lots of highly educated, exceptionallybright and successful clients over the years who could talkintelligently about many diverse subjects but as soon as we starteddiscussing money and investing in any depth, their attention spanwould waver after the initial excitement and their eyes would startglazing over!

I am at a bit of a loss tounderstand some of the reasoning behind the average investors lackof knowledge of the basic concepts of saving and investing moneywisely. One factor behind it might be that traditionally, in thepast, it was taboo and even considered crass to talk about moneyamongst family and friends. The situation has improved somewhat inthe last couple of decades but money is still not something we arecomfortable discussing openly. I also believe that the we asparents need to start talking more openly to our kids not onlyabout simple things like what money is andhow it is useful to buy things but alsohow spending less than we make and saving for a rainy day can help us down theroad. This teaching of basic financialconcepts in a simple but interesting wayshould continue throughout school as well so that when we enter college oruniversity, we can budget and know how tomake ends meet as well as manage our sparse moneyresources . This is a cause dear to me butfor now, I will leave this challenge of encouraging early financialliteracy to parents, educators and governments!

Another factor that mayperhaps be responsible for this moneyknowledge/skill gap is that in developedWestern countries, we have traditionally had enough well-payingjobs and adequate incomes to be able tonot just meet our basic needs but even a lot of our wants like international travel, discretionary consumergoods, luxury beauty and fashion products, upscale liquor and foodetc. Schooling is mostly free and you can get through college withthe help of loans and grants etc. As a result, there has not been the same impetus to save early andinvest as has been the case in other less-developed or developingcountries in Asia or South America etc.This may explain the zero savings rates in the West compared tosaving rates approaching 20% and up in some developed Asiancountries. Our relative affluence in the Western countries over the decades seems to have created this culture of complacencyand instant gratification that we arefinding hard to shake off even as the world is globalizing andtraditional jobs are fast disappearing. Compounding the problem isthe fact that we are working and living much longer. In the past,we only had to provide for 10-15 years of retirement but aslongevity has increased, we now have toprovide for 15-30 years of retired living.

The need to re-educate or re-train isincreasing along with the need to thinklonger-term and educate ourselves in the critical financialskills needed to save early and invest right so wecan continue to enjoy the quality of life we have enjoyed in thepast. To make matters worse, it appears that our banks andfinancial institutions have jumped in like charlatans to notonly exploit our money skills gap bycharging us high fees for managing our money but also making moneymanagement seem even more complex than it is in their advertising campaigns! The bottom line is that the banks and other financial institutions keepgetting richer, making billions of dollarsin profit at the expense of the poorconsumers of financial services who keep finding it harder to makeends meet and save enough for their retirement.

The only good news in all of thisis that with the continuing advancements in information technologyand social media, the process of moneymanagement including investing, is actually getting simpler, fasterand cheaper than ever before. But to takeadvantage, you have to educate yourself inthe basics of saving and investing money and perhaps just asimportantly, develop a money mindset andthe commitment tofollow-through and implement what you learn consistently and forthe long term.

My purpose in writing thisbook is to share my skills and experience in life and as aprofessional money manager with you and try to help you bridge the relevant money skills gaps just enough to still keep it simple and easy-to-understand whilealso helping you set up an intuitivestep-by-step process to:

Part 1 : Build Your Savings Early through budgeting, living modestly and eschewingconspicuous consumption while adopting certain strategies/tacticssuch as using an automated and recurringsaving process etc to grow your savingsfaster as you transition through the various life stages ofeducation, career, raising your family, retirement andpost-retirement.

Part 2: Investing Your Savings Right throughsimple, step-by-step, easy to understandinvesting strategies that are also easy to implement foryou without needing the costly,time-consuming and unnecessary services of a financial advisor thatoften do not deliver promised results.

I am writing this bookspecifically for the majority of us whocomprise the great middle-class (Mrs. Janeand Mr. John Doe, you know who you are!). Although the moneymanagement process and strategies described in this bookwill benefit most people in all stages oflife, I believe it will especially benefit younger people in latestages of college or early stages of their career the most (hopethe free-spending millennials are tuning in!), simply because they have more time over their lifetime tobenefit from them. The book, as a matter of fact, makes a greatgift to these young adults! Let me also say who this book may notbe suitable for: day-traders and othershort-term oriented get-rich-quick types looking to score a quickhome-run. I also want to point out that Iam based in Canada and a lot of the illustrations, data and someproducts I mention in the book are Canadian; however, theunderlying principles and strategies apply equally to most peopleliving in the United States or indeed outside North America aswell.