The Checklist of Life & Investing: For The Year 2022 & Beyond

The year 2021 was unforgettable and so was the year 2020. The routine, peaceful life was shaken up by the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything was sudden and unexpected. New vocabulary got added to our small world. Words like corona, quarantine, remdesivir, work from home (WFH), lockdown, hand sanitizer became new normal. The scary sound of the ambulance siren still reverberates in memory. There were queues of dead bodies awaiting the funeral. It was traumatic. This was once in a lifetime experience. Many of us have lost dear ones. We are lucky to survive and still be around to live another day.

Life is a mystery. It surprises us every moment. Every day dawns with new experiences. These instances are not always bitter. In fact, most of the time, these are the pleasant ones. However, a few moments do pose a lot of challenges. These are the testing times. Such an ordeal does not last forever. In fact, these are divine blessings. They test our character, our tenacity. They offer us the opportunity to become better human beings and enhance our spiritual understanding of life. The one who learns from them will surely succeed in life.

We pray and sincerely hope that the new year 2022 will bring in good health, a lot of wealth, and happiness for all of us. To ensure this, we must prepare ourselves in advance. If we follow the wisdom of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet, I am sure we will sail through effortlessly. Hence, to simplify the process of preparation, I have drawn a checklist for investors. The checklist is inspired by the book “Poor Charlie’s Almanack, the wit and wisdom of Charles T Munger” and the wisdom of Warren Buffet.

Investing and life go hand in hand. We invest to live a happy life, and if we desire to live a happy life, we must invest. Life without appropriate investment is like living on an oxygen cylinder. Hence, I couldn’t restrain myself from adding a few snippets on how to live a happy and meaningful life. So, this is the combined checklist about life and investing. Go ahead, read and inculcate these behavioural traits. If you do so, you will never be put on an oxygen cylinder for the rest of your life.

Checklist for Life:-

• Assume life will be really tough, and then ask if you can handle it. If the answer is yes, you have won

• Life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. Doesn’t matter. Some people recover and others don’t

• Spend each day trying to be a little wiser. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically you go ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. At the end of the day, if you live long enough most people get what they deserve

• Live with change and accept unremovable complexity

• Recognise and adapt to the true nature of the world around you; don’t expect it to adapt to you

• Recognise reality especially even when you don’t like it

• Avoid dealing with people of questionable character

• The only way to win is to work, work, work and hope to have few insights

• Develop into a lifelong self learner through voracious reading and cultivate curiosity

• Acknowledging what you don’t know is the dawning of wisdom

• Stay within a well-defined circle of competence

• Reputation and integrity are your best valuable assets-and can be lost in a heartbeat

• One of the greatest ways to avoid trouble is to keep it simple. The system often goes out of control

• Envy, resentment and self-pity are disaster modes of thoughts

Checklist for investing:-

• Live within your income. Never ever overspend. Save before you spend

• All investment evaluations should begin by measuring risk, especially reputational

• Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing, understand your risk taking capability

• Successful investing takes time, patience and discipline. No matter how great the talent or effort, somethings just take time

• The most important quality for an investor is temperament and not intellect

• It is remarkable how much long term advantage one gets by trying to be consistently not stupid instead of trying to be intelligent

• Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful

• Proper allocation of capital is the investor’s number one job

• Good ideas are rare-when the odds are greatly in your favor, bet heavily

• Be alert for the arrival of the luck. Opportunity doesn’t come often, so seize it when it does

• Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world, near interrupt it unnecessarily

• The big money is not in buying and selling, but in the waiting

• A lot of people with high IQs are terrible investors because they have got terrible temperaments

• If you are new to stock market, it is advisable to invest in mutual funds through Systematic Investment Plan. Continue investment as long as possible. Longer the better

• Avoid speculative activities like intra-day trading, trading in future & options. And yes, please stay away from cryptos. Warren Buffett said, "It's a rat poison squared.”

The ultimate core:-

Investing is not a complex process. Do not unnecessarily complicate it. Keep it as simple as possible. The simplest way to sure shot wealth creation is:-

• Inculcate desired investing behaviour

• Plan and save before you spend

• Invest regularly, have discipline

• Invest on each market correction

• Invest for long term, have patience

• Let compounding work for you

For the past six months, through these articles, we were educating investors about wealth creation and achieving financial independence. The journey has just begun. We strongly believe that wealth can only be created by adapting necessary investing behaviour. Hence, behavioural finance is our focus area. Our core philosophy is to bring in essential change in investors’ behaviour.

Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, brings prosperity, health, and happiness to the entire family. Our objective is to make honest efforts towards creating a happy, healthy, and wealthy society. We aspire to touch at least one thousand families in the next few years. In case you need any hand-holding in achieving financial independence, you are welcome to reach out to us. We will love to help you. We will be glad to assist your friends and relatives as well. Do share this article with those whom you care for.

Wishing you and your family a lot of wealth, great health, and an abundance of happiness for the new year 2022 and beyond !!!!!