Most money advice online is written for people in the US or India. It talks about credit scores, 401(k)s and investing apps we don't even have here. So I'm starting this series with the basics, written for how money actually moves in a Nepali household: a salary or a small business, remittance from a brother in Qatar, a loan from the cooperative, Dashain shopping, and relatives who need help when something goes wrong.
None of this is complicated. The hard part is doing it in the right order. Plenty of people open a Demat account before they have even Rs 10,000 set aside for emergencies, and then they're forced to sell shares at a loss the first time someone in the family gets sick.
If I had to start from zero again, this is the order I'd go in.
1. Find out where the money actually goes
Spend one month writing down every rupee that leaves your hands. Rent, groceries, Pathao rides, mobile recharge, tea with friends, the Rs 2,000 you gave your cousin, the Rs 500 you spent on something you can't even remember now.
A notebook is fine. So is an Excel sheet or a free app. The best method is whichever one you'll still be using on day 25. I'd keep it simple: date, amount, what it was for. That's it.
Don't try to fix anything that first month. Just look. Most people find one or two categories that shock them. For me it was eating out. Small amounts every day added up to more than my electricity, water and internet bills put together.
At the end of the month, group everything into a handful of buckets: housing, food, transport, family, debt, personal, and "other". Now you have a real picture instead of a guess.
2. Build a small cushion before anything else
Before you think about shares or IPOs, put aside some money that's only for emergencies: a hospital visit, a broken bike, a month without income. Even one month of basic expenses changes how you sleep at night.
This money should be boring. Keep it in a savings account you can reach quickly. Don't lend it out, don't put it in a cooperative promising high interest, and don't invest it in shares. Its whole job is to be there on the worst day of your year.
Once you have one month covered, slowly work toward three months. If your income is irregular, aim higher. I've written a separate post on building an emergency fund on an irregular income.
3. Deal with expensive debt
If you're paying high interest on a credit card, a personal loan, a loan from a moneylender or a "manpower loan" taken to go abroad, paying that off is usually a better "return" than anything the share market will reliably give you.
Think about it this way. If a loan costs you 18% a year in interest, every rupee you repay early is like earning 18%, guaranteed, with zero risk. Very few investments can promise that.
List all your debts with the amount, the interest rate and the monthly payment. Keep paying the minimum on everything, and put any extra money toward the most expensive one first. When that's gone, move to the next.
Not all debt is bad. A reasonable home loan or education loan can make sense. The problem is high-interest debt that keeps rolling over month after month.
4. Give every goal a number and a date
"Save for the future" isn't a goal. "Rs 3 lakh for my daughter's +2 admission by Shrawan 2085" is.
Once a goal has a number and a date, a few useful things happen:
- You can work out the monthly amount. Rs 3 lakh in 24 months is about Rs 12,500 a month.
- You can tell whether the goal is realistic or needs adjusting.
- You can decide where the money belongs. A goal two years away shouldn't be sitting in volatile shares. A goal fifteen years away probably shouldn't sit only in a savings account losing value to inflation.
Write down three to five goals. Typical ones: emergency fund, children's education, a house or land, a business, retirement, a wedding, a trip home if you work abroad. Then put them in order. You probably can't fund all of them fully at once, and that's okay.
5. Invest only what you won't need soon
NEPSE can drop 20–30% and stay down for a long time. We've seen it happen more than once. After the index got close to 3,200 in 2021, it spent the next couple of years well below that level. People who had put in money they needed for rent or fees had to sell at a loss.
So the rule is simple. Money you need in the next one to three years stays in safer places like savings and fixed deposits. Money you won't touch for five years or more is where you can consider shares or mutual funds. My post on saving vs investing goes deeper into this.
When you do start investing, start small. Learn how Demat, Mero Share and brokers work. Read about the companies you're buying. Make your mistakes with Rs 20,000, not Rs 20 lakh.
6. Protect what you've built
This step gets ignored the most. If something happens to you, will your family be okay? If someone falls seriously ill, will one hospital bill wipe out years of savings?
Basic health insurance and, if people depend on your income, life insurance are part of a money plan, not an extra. So is making sure your spouse or a trusted family member knows which accounts exist and where the documents are kept.
And protect yourself from scams. Never share your OTP, PIN or Mero Share password with anyone. Scammers in Nepal have become very convincing.
7. Review once a month, adjust once a year
Pick a day, maybe the first Saturday of each month, and spend 20 minutes looking at what came in, what went out, and whether you moved closer to your goals. Once a year, maybe after Tihar, look at the bigger picture: goals, insurance, investments, debts.
You don't need to be perfect. Some months will go badly. A wedding season or a medical emergency will throw everything off. That's normal. What matters is coming back to the plan.
What's coming next
That's the whole roadmap. Over the next few weeks I'll go deeper into each step:
- A monthly budget you'll actually stick to
- Demat, Mero Share and broker accounts explained
- What to check before applying for an IPO
- Dividends, right shares, mutual funds, FDs, insurance and how to avoid scams
If there's a topic you want covered, or something about money in Nepal that confuses you, leave a comment. I read all of them.
General information, not personal financial advice. Rules, rates and fees change, so check with the official source (SEBON, NRB, CDSC, IRD or the Nepal Insurance Authority) before you act. Have a question? Leave it in the comments.
