If Something Happened to You, Could Your Family Find Your Money?

 

Nobody likes this question, so let's get it over with quickly. If you were seriously ill or died tomorrow, would your family know where your money is?

For a lot of Nepali households, the honest answer is no. One person handles the bank accounts, the demat account, the insurance and the loans, and it all lives in their head and their phone. When something happens, the family is left searching through drawers, guessing passwords and visiting banks one by one, at the worst possible time.

Reading Your Salary Slip: Where Your Pay Goes Before It Reaches You

 

Your offer letter said Rs 60,000 a month. Your bank account says something smaller. Most people shrug and assume "tax," but a salary slip tells you a lot more than that, and a few minutes reading it can catch mistakes, show you money you're saving without realising it, and help you budget on the right number.

Here's how to read one, line by line.

What a Share Trade Really Costs: Commission, Fees and Capital Gains Tax

 

You buy a share at Rs 500 and sell it at Rs 540. That's Rs 40 profit per share, right? Not quite. By the time the broker, SEBON, the depository and the tax office have taken their share, a fair chunk of that Rs 40 is gone.

None of these charges is big on its own. But if you don't count them, you'll overestimate your returns, and if you trade often, they can quietly eat most of your profit.

Your Loan History Follows You: CIB Reports and Blacklisting in Nepal

 

Every time you apply for a loan from a bank or financial institution in Nepal, someone checks your record with the Credit Information Bureau (CIB). Most people never think about it until a loan is refused, or until they find out a relative's unpaid loan, which they signed as guarantor, has their name on it.

Here's what the CIB is, what it knows about you, and how to keep your record clean.

SIP in Nepal: Investing a Fixed Amount Every Month in Mutual Funds

 

A question I get a lot: "I don't have a big sum to invest. Is it even worth starting?" Yes. In fact, for most salaried people, investing a small fixed amount every month is a better habit than waiting to save up a lump sum and then trying to pick the perfect moment.

That habit has a name: a Systematic Investment Plan, or SIP. Several open-ended mutual funds in Nepal offer one. Here's how it works and what to check first.

Festival Spending Without the Hangover: Start Saving for Next Dashain Now

 

Dashain is just behind us and Tihar is a couple of weeks away. If you're like most Nepali households, this is the most expensive stretch of the year: new clothes, meat, tika money for the little ones, the bus or flight home, sweets and lights for Tihar, gifts for the sisters.

None of that is a mistake. These are the moments the money is for. The mistake is treating it like a surprise. Dashain comes every year, around the same time, and costs roughly the same. Yet every year a lot of us pay for it with a festival loan, a credit card, or a few months of quietly cutting back afterwards.

EPF, CIT and SSF: Where the Retirement Deduction on Your Payslip Goes

 

If you have a salaried job in Nepal, your payslip probably has a line that quietly takes a chunk of your pay before you see it. It might say PF, SSF, CIT, or some combination. Most people I talk to know the money is "for retirement" and not much else.

That's a problem, because for many salaried people this is the biggest pile of savings they'll ever build, bigger than anything in a bank account or the share market. It's worth ten minutes to understand where it goes and to check that it's actually arriving.

Small Scans, Big Leaks: Getting Control of Your Wallet and QR Spending

 

A few years ago, paying for tea meant opening your purse and seeing the notes get thinner. Now it's a scan, a beep, done. eSewa, Khalti, IME Pay, mobile banking, Fonepay QR codes on every shop counter. It's genuinely better: faster, safer than carrying cash, and you have a record of everything.

But there's a catch I noticed in my own spending. When paying stopped hurting, I stopped noticing. Rs 60 here, Rs 120 there, a ride, a recharge, a snack. None of it felt like spending. At the end of the month, it was a few thousand rupees I couldn't account for.

Buying Gold This Tihar? Jewellery Isn't the Same as Investing in Gold

 

In most Nepali families, gold isn't really a financial decision. It's a wedding gift, a mother's security, something you buy on Dhanteras because it's auspicious. I'm not going to tell you to stop doing that.

But I hear the same sentence every year: "Gold is the safest investment." Sometimes it's true and sometimes it isn't, and the difference mostly comes down to one thing. Are you buying gold, or are you buying jewellery?

Before You Sign for That Loan: What an EMI Really Costs You

 

Festival season is loan season. The scooter ads, the "zero down payment" phone offers, the cousin who just got a personal loan approved in two days. Somebody tells you the EMI is "only Rs 11,000 a month," and it sounds manageable.

The monthly amount is the number lenders want you to look at. It's the least useful number on the page. Before I sign for anything now, I work out three other things: the total I'll pay back, how the interest is calculated, and what the loan does to my monthly budget. It takes ten minutes, and it has talked me out of at least one bad decision.