Meet Ramkumar, MD at Avi Networks India Pvt Ltd, a Scripbox fan, and a passionate marathoner who recently successfully completed the Berlin full marathon. Read on as he shares his unique experience of training for marathons, lessons learnt and how the same principles apply to long term wealth creation.

The traditional thinking remains though. Most of us are still buying financial products first without really thinking about the utility.

When you do the numbers, the case for starting early becomes even more compelling.

When we choose to invest though, we often have to make compromises. Our savings are usually not enough for all our goals. However, no matter which goal we are investing for, here are three things you shouldn’t compromise on.

Real financial freedom isn’t just about getting out of debt, doing what you want or reaching an amount. It is the number of days you can survive without you or any family member doing physical work, and still maintaining your standard of living.

With financial assets crashing this year, gold has come up as the winner. The last one-year return for gold has shot to around 27% in rupee terms. This then becomes even more enticing for those who feel they missed the gold bus.

As a long term investor, you need to be very clear about why you are investing in the Indian equity markets. If the logic is clear, one will normally stick with their investment plan and not get perturbed by market conditions.

The real challenge, after you know what needs to be done, is all about conquering your emotions. If you can understand yourself and conquer these emotions, your chances of being financially secure early in life will be much higher.

Along with lower annual inflow from your profession, your market linked investment values are perhaps looking lower too. What should you do about your market linked investments now?

The slowing of the economy continues for now. The upcoming festive season is an important period to watch out for.

The common refrain is, “I would have gotten better returns from an FD!” Considering many of these investors have earlier invested in FDs, or their parents have, looking at what their fixed deposit has given them and questioning the value of equity is not wrong, if one considers their point of view.

Investment gurus like Warren Buffet and Peter Lynch have been quite vocal about people making forecasts about the economy or the markets. That’s because market is not predictable in the short-term.