“50% of my salary gets used for basic expenses and loans, 30% for short-term goals, luxuries and entertainment, and the remaining 20% is what I save and invest,” says Santhosh Kumar about his simple money-management formula. This Bangalore-based radiologist has figured this out by himself, after reading tons of material on investments on the internet.
It’s not a bad formula and upon hearing it, we were naturally curious about where the 20% gets invested. “I use ELSS funds to save taxes and the rest goes into smallcases,” Santhosh tells us.
He’s been investing in smallcases for over a year now, but that wasn’t always the case. Santhosh was introduced to the stock markets in 2013, but he stayed away because it was a ‘risky thing’. “I started my investment journey with ELSS funds,” recalls Santhosh. “I knew about smallcase but I was hesitant at first.” He didn’t fully understand how equity investments worked at that time but Santhosh made an attempt to learn.
“I was unable to find genuine advice at first,” he says. “There is so much of it on the internet that it is easy to get lost or fall for someone fake.” On smalltalk, the smallcase content platform, Santhosh was able to read about how the stock markets function and the benefits of investing in a portfolio of stocks.
Eventually with time, Santhosh was able to learn what he needed to know about equity investments. During this time, Santhosh was also monitoring smallcase returns and finally decided to invest when he came across a webinar on YouTube that explained the difference between mutual fund returns and smallcase returns.
What Santhosh noticed was that smallcase returns were higher than mutual fund returns by a wide margin. The cost of investing in a smallcase was also much lower. He began with Magic Formula – Low Cost Version and later invested in other smallcases as well.
“Investing individually in stocks isn’t for me,” says Santhosh. “I am happy with the returns I get from smallcases and prefer to invest in them.” The more he invests, the more he understands how investing in a portfolio of stocks mitigates risks.
Santhosh now invests regularly in smallcases and helps the people around with their finances as well. “I advise my brother, sister and colleagues about how to invest,” he says. “I tell them to use ELSS funds to save taxes and invest the rest of their savings in smallcases.”
Double thumbs up to you, Santhosh.
(smallcase Stories are features where users talk about their investing experience with smallcase. If you have a great story to share, write to us at blog@smallcase.com)
