Money Clinic
Your personal toolkit for smarter financial decisions
Money ClinicYour personal toolkit for smarter financial decisions
As required under SEBI Investment Adviser Regulations, this assessment helps us understand your risk appetite and craft a suitable investment strategy for you.
All information collected here is strictly confidential and used solely to assess your investor risk profile and build a personalised financial plan. Your data will never be shared with any third party, sold, or used for marketing. It is securely stored and accessible only by your adviser at AK Rao Personal Finance Advisory.
A PDF of your risk profile has been downloaded. Your adviser will be in touch within 24–48 business hours.
Schedule a Consultation →15 questions that go beyond the basics. Most people have never been asked these — but a SEBI-registered adviser thinks about all of them when building your plan.
1. Do you have a dedicated emergency fund covering at least 6 months of your household expenses?
💡 This must be in a liquid instrument (savings account or liquid fund) — not locked in FDs or mutual funds.2. Do you hold a pure Term Life Insurance policy with a cover of at least 10× your annual income?
💡 Only a pure term plan counts here. Endowment, money-back, or ULIP policies with a life cover do NOT qualify.3. Do you have a personal or family floater Health Insurance policy independent of your employer?
💡 Employer-provided group cover ceases the day you leave the job. Without a personal policy, one hospitalisation can wipe out years of savings.4. What percentage of your monthly income do you consistently save or invest?
💡 The global benchmark for financial independence is a savings rate of 20%+. Anything below 10% makes compounding work very slowly.5. Are your mutual fund investments in the Direct Plan or the Regular Plan?
💡 Regular plans pay a 0.5–1.5% annual trail commission to your distributor — silently deducted from your returns every year. Direct plans have no commission. On ₹50L over 20 years, that difference can exceed ₹30 Lakhs.6. Do you know the expense ratio of your mutual fund investments, and do you actively compare them?
💡 An expense ratio of 1.5% vs 0.5% on a ₹20L investment over 15 years can cost you over ₹8 Lakhs in lost compounding — for exactly the same underlying portfolio.7. Do you hold ULIPs or Endowment / Money-Back policies as part of your investment or savings strategy?
💡 ULIPs and endowments bundle insurance and investment — doing both poorly. They typically deliver 4–6% returns after charges. The same premium in a term plan + equity mutual fund almost always significantly outperforms them.8. Are your investments clearly mapped to specific financial goals with defined timelines?
💡 Investing without goal-mapping is like driving without a destination. Without knowing when you need the money and how much, you cannot choose the right instrument, risk level, or exit strategy.9. Is your equity allocation broadly in line with your age and risk profile? (A starting rule: equity % ≈ 100 minus your age)
💡 A 45-year-old with 95% in FDs is taking the wrong risk — the risk of inflation slowly eroding wealth. A 25-year-old with 90% in equity is well-positioned for long-term compounding.10. What portion of your total net worth is concentrated in real estate (including your home)?
💡 Real estate is illiquid, undiversified, and generates no monthly cash flow unless rented. Many Indian families have 70–80% of their wealth in one flat or plot — a single asset that cannot be partially sold in a crisis.11. What type of debt do you currently carry?
💡 Home loans are productive debt (asset-building, tax-deductible). Personal loans, credit card revolving balances, and gold loans are expensive debt (12–42% interest) that destroy wealth fast.12. Are your overall investment returns (across all instruments) likely beating inflation after tax?
💡 Inflation in India runs at 6–7% p.a. An FD at 7% pre-tax gives ~5% post-tax for a 30% bracket taxpayer — a real return of nearly zero. Your wealth must grow faster than inflation, or it is slowly shrinking.13. Are you using tax-efficient instruments strategically — beyond just filling your Section 80C limit?
💡 Sophisticated tax planning includes: LTCG harvesting (₹1.25L tax-free equity gains per year), NPS (additional ₹50,000 deduction under 80CCD(1B)), tax-loss harvesting, and structuring debt investments through debt mutual funds for indexation.14. Have you created a Will and filed updated nominations across all your financial accounts, mutual funds, and insurance policies?
💡 Nomination is NOT the same as inheritance. Without a valid Will, your assets can be legally contested and frozen for years, leaving your family financially stranded — regardless of your net worth.15. Do you work with a SEBI-registered, fee-only financial adviser — someone who earns zero commission from any product they recommend?
💡 A commission-based adviser earns more when you buy more expensive products. A SEBI-registered fee-only RIA is legally required to act in your interest alone — the same way a doctor works for the patient, not the pharmaceutical company.15 questions · takes about 3 minutes
Markets are rational. Investors aren't. Ten scenarios — each one designed to expose how your brain is secretly making your investment decisions. Most people are surprised by what they find.
Behavioural finance research shows that the average investor underperforms the market by 4–5% annually — not because of bad funds, but because of predictable, systematic thinking errors.
This is not a personality test. There are no right answers — only honest ones.
10 scenarios · takes about 4 minutes · completely anonymous
These are the mental patterns most actively influencing your financial decisions right now.
Why Smart People Make Bad Money Decisions — your greatest investment risk isn't the market; it's yourself. Learn how to recognise your biases and build a structured plan to overcome them.
Why Losing ₹1 Hurts More Than Gaining ₹2 — how this single bias silently drives more financial mistakes than any market crash.
A SEBI-registered fee-only adviser helps you build a system where your investment decisions are governed by a plan — not by how you feel on a given Tuesday. No commissions. No product selling. Just a process designed around your specific blind spots.
Book a Complimentary Consultation →Your personalised retirement dashboard — corpus needed, savings gap, inflation reality, and interactive scenario planning.
Tell us where you are and where you're headed.
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