
Mint Newspaper, led by Neil Borate, does a wonderful job reporting and educating about private finance and investing. In March 2024, Mint featured my retirement portfolio: You only need a fund where returns remain consistent: Freefincal’s Pattabiraman.
In June 2025, they printed an replace on the portfolio: Why Freefincal’s Pattabiraman doesn’t believe in beating the market. Each articles are by Anil Poste. Be aware that these articles require a subscription. That is an infographic from the piece.

There have been some questions and “observations” about my retirement portfolio, and I assumed I might handle them right here.
Why are you not practising what you preach? Why are you investing in energetic funds whereas recommending index funds?
On this article, I clarify ‘why’ intimately with footage: Why are you recommending index funds when your portfolio has beaten the market?
I’ve not constructed this retirement corpus based mostly on intelligence. I’ve behaved the other more often than not. Solely round 2018 or so did I say, “I’m going to cease making foolish fund purchases and consolidate my portfolio.”
So the portfolio you see as we speak is the residue of all my previous errors. Switching from energetic to passive funds will solely incur tax now. If I swap recent investments to passive, it can take 13 years (calculated after I wrote the above article) for the passive fund to outweigh the energetic fund. Including a passive fund is just muddle for me now.
I’m solely suggesting that younger earners use passive funds and never repeat the errors I made. If you wish to select energetic funds, be prepared for prolonged durations of outperformance. No matter you utilize, have a correct monetary plan first.
That is the evolution of the fairness mutual fund a part of the retirement portfolio from June 2008 to Could 2025. This was created with the freefincal Google Sheets Mutual Fund and Stock Portfolio Tracker.


What is that this 13.9% return? Is that this return not low for a portfolio that’s 17 years previous?
That is my retirement portfolio (as of Could twenty fourth 2025)
Asset | Weight | XIRR |
Shares | 5.72% | 7.44% |
Fairness MF | 59.08% | 16.92% |
NPS | 20.28% | 9.42% |
PPF | 3.72% | ~ 7.5% |
Debt MF | 9.99% | 8.28% |
Money | 1.21% | ~ 5 to six% |
Portfolio XIRR since inception, excluding PPF and money and direct fairness (that’s for 89% of the entire portfolio), is 13.90%
A virtually 14% return for 90% of the whole portfolio (which, for a number of years, was dominated by debt through NPS) after 17 years is appropriate to me any day.
Mutual Fund Holdings (as of Could twenty fourth 2025)
Fund Identify | Asset Class | XIRR | Weight |
Parag Parikh FlexiCap (Since NFO investor. ‘fortunate’ it labored) | Fairness | 20.75% | 58.22% |
HDFC Hybrid Fairness (Since Sept 2011) | Fairness | 14.56% | 16.91% |
Quantum Lengthy Time period Fairness (Since Feb 2013) | Fairness | 13.90% | 11.56% |
UTI Low Volatility (Since NFO investor) | Fairness | 14.90% | 13.31% |
ICICI Gilt Fund | Debt | 7.67% | 14.56% |
Parag Parikh CHF (Feb 2021 Rebalance proceeds) | Debt | 12.99% | 3.93% |
Parag Parikh DAF (Switched from CHF to DAF for tax effectivity; Since NFO investor) | “Debt” | 8.57% | 9.88% |
Do you remorse not investing in gold?
No. I’ve defined why I don’t put money into gold right here – What you need to know about gold before investing in it.
Additionally, Siddhanta Pinto, host of the Get Wealthy with Pattu podcast, talked about a quote by Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (in response to why he didn’t put money into crypto) – “You don’t have to go to each celebration”.
I’m content material with the place issues stand. After all, readers might imagine it’s sub-optimal or unremarkable, which is okay. On the finish of the day, self-discipline with unwavering focus is the important thing.
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About The Writer
Dr M. Pattabiraman(PhD) is the founder, managing editor and first writer of freefincal. He’s an affiliate professor on the Indian Institute of Expertise, Madras. He has over ten years of expertise publishing information evaluation, analysis and monetary product improvement. Join with him through Twitter(X), Linkedin, or YouTube. Pattabiraman has co-authored three print books: (1) You can be rich too with goal-based investing (CNBC TV18) for DIY buyers. (2) Gamechanger for younger earners. (3) Chinchu Gets a Superpower! for youths. He has additionally written seven different free e-books on varied cash administration subjects. He’s a patron and co-founder of “Fee-only India,” an organisation selling unbiased, commission-free funding recommendation.
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