"Financial planning, I believe, is not exclusively about retirement planning or investing or even portfolio management. If distilled to its purest elements, this discipline is more accurately understood as one that involves applying guiding principles to deal with our past, present and future finances.

• Our past - because some of us may be carrying the baggage of yesterday's excesses that are costing us our future happiness and financial well-being;

• Our present - because now is the best time to act and change course toward a better destination; and

• Our future - because each of us is entitled to dream of a better tomorrow."

Rajen Devadason


While growing up, we were utterly confused about how our finances were to be managed. Nobody taught us anything about money markets, investing and financial planning. We were supposed to study hard , get a secure job and be content with that. But there had to be more to it, I thought.
Surely, a subject that is so important and ubiquitous could not be neglected by the education system. It was a shame that one of the many pillars that a satisfied and contented life rests on, could be so conspicuously absent. Perhaps, financial innovation was too quick for the textbooks to catch on.Or perhaps, the textbooks were created to educate an army of employee-consumers rather than educate potential employers-investors.
Whatever the case was, Invest Ant is a step in the right direction. It aims to address the information asymmetries about financial planning prevailing today. It will teach you the basics of financial planning and enable you to take the reins of life in your hands. A spectrum of topics like investing, banking, insurance and taxes are covered to help you make the most of your hard earned money and enjoy whatever little time you have on earth.
Because life is precious, and you have to have to make the most of it.
Although it aims to impact YOU on a micro-level, at a macro-level, Invest Ant's aim is to create financial inclusion and help the benefits of financial innovation reach everyone. Nobody can grow by merely consuming whatever he is earning. Financial growth is a consequence of diligent planning and the techniques for it must be available to the masses. It cannot be a treasured knowledge resting in the hands of the elites. Our social objectives can be best realized by improving access to this knowledge.
Hence, besides impacting people on an individual level and improving their welfare, Invest Ant hands people as a whole, the tools to carve their destinies in their hands.
Although Invest Ant is written primarily for an Indian audience, I believe that the principles of Financial Planning