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Going on a Road Trip in a New Country Without a Map? Sanjib Saha 18 April 2025 Many of us go through life without a clear vision of what a fulfilling life looks like. I'm not referring to a detailed 50-page document outlining our future, but rather, having a broad perspective on life that helps guide us. As we step into adulthood and get busy with careers and day-to-day activities, having a “50,000-foot view” of where we’re headed can be incredibly helpful. Start with envisioning big life milestones. For a young worker starting out afresh, the milestones might include living…

What Can Derail Your Journey to Financial Security? Sanjib Saha 1 April 2025 I have a kitchen towel that reads: "It’s almost impossible to get rich overnight, but it’s surprisingly easy to build wealth over time." I couldn’t agree more. The formula for long-term wealth is simple—just three fundamental steps: 1. Earn a Reliable Income. Your future earning potential—also known as Human Capital—is your greatest asset when starting out. It doesn’t have to be a massive paycheck, but it should be dependable. Needless to mention, staying employable by keeping up with your field is crucial. 2. Live Below Your Means.…

Five easy steps to figure out your Annual Household Expenses in five minutes Sanjib Saha 20 March 2025 How many of us know our annual household expenses with 90% accuracy? Chances are, we either have a vague number in mind that’s far from the actuals, or no clue at all. Tracking every expense sounds daunting, but if your bank allows transaction downloads, figuring your annual spending is surprisingly simple. Here’s how: Step 1: Download Transactions Most households use a single checking account for payments. Log in and download all transactions from any recent 12-month period (e.g., March 1, 2024 –…

Tariffs, Inflation, Recession, Market Drop – Should We Be Worried? Sanjib Saha 13 March 2025 Everywhere we turn, headlines scream about tariffs, inflation, and a looming recession. It's enough to make any investor nervous. Should we sell? Should we invest in something else? What do we do? Short answer for long-term investors who follow certain basic rules of investing: Tune out the noise and stay calm. Stock market investment is for the long-term – money that you don't need to cash out in several years. Market goes up over the long run, but it can be volatile and uncertain in…

10 Timeless Tips for Achieving Long Term Investment Success — Slowly but Surely Souvik Dey, Sid Roy & Sanjib Saha 25 February 2025 At Dollar Mentor, each of us has a few favorite investment lessons. Some may seem counterintuitive or even insignificant at first, yet they have a profound impact on long-term investment results. Here’s a compilation of our most cherished nuggets of wisdom that guide our personal investment approach. Parking money in a bank account may not be as safe as it seems Unless the bank’s interest rate consistently exceeds the inflation rate—which is rarely the case—your money loses…

Part III - Dividend Investing Considerations Sid Roy & Sanjib Saha 22 December 2024 Read Part II (Questions 5-8) 9. What are the unique risks associated with a dividend paying stock? In general, companies pay and increase dividends to signal financial health. This creates a false impression that all companies that issue dividends are stable companies. Conversely, dividend cuts are perceived as company’s downfall, even though such cuts are necessary for long-term prospects. These perceptions influence management decisions about managing the company’s ongoing income and distract management’s focus from the overall wellbeing of the business. Dividend paying stocks expose the…

Part II - Dividend Investing Basics Sid Roy & Sanjib Saha 22 December 2024 Read Part I (Questions 1-4) 5. What is Dividend Investing then? Dividend Investing is simply investing in stocks that issue dividends to their shareholders. The focus of Dividend Investing is to receive regular income from stock holdings. As such, Dividend Investing influences selection of stocks and prioritizes companies or industries that deliver relatively bigger dividends. Investors of well-diversified stock funds, including broad market index funds, periodically receive dividends simply because many of the underlying companies issue dividends. However, this isn’t Dividend Investing, as the receipt of…

Part I - Dividend Basics Sid Roy & Sanjib Saha 22 December 2024 Over the last three sessions of Ask-Learn-Share this year, we talked about Dividend Investing. In this article, we summarize the key points and questions that came up during the discussions. It is one of those topics that most of us think we know, but rather superficially. So, it was very useful to spend some time on this topic and learn. We will take a different approach for this article and use a Q&A style to present the information. For your convenience, we are publishing three separate posts…

Sanjib Saha 12 November 2024 The S&P 500 Index reached two celebratory milestones this year. The first was to top 5,000 for the first time in Feb 2024. The next was to surpass the 6,000 mark this week. Here’s a brief history of its journey to 6K. March 1957 – The current version of the S&P 500 Stock Index was introduced to capture the stock market performance of the 500 largest US companies. At that time, the index was at around 44. August 1967 – The index more than doubled in the preceding decade to end at around 94. May…