After studying vigorously for almost 9 months, passing 5 exams (with the last one being yesterday) and spending almost Rs. 50,000 ($769) I can finally say I am a Certified Financial Planner.

Who is a Certified Financial Planner?

A certified financial planner or CFP is someone who can help you understand your money better.

A CFP is supposed to keep you honest about your money and to help you get the maximum potential from what you earn. Click To Tweet

CFP, originated in the US in 1985 and is now an international certification valid across 24 countries. While in the US, today there are almost 80,000 CFP certificants this is still a new and evolving field. In India, the latest numbers that I could get were 1816 certificants who find their name on the FPSB directory. Personally, I believe financial planning is one of the good American practices to follow and we have a long path ahead of us here.

Why Certified Financial Planner?

During MBA, finance bored me to no end. The numbers were mind-boggling and I could barely relate to concepts like Working capital or cost of inventory.

Once I started earning, over the years I realized – “hey, money is complicated!”. In my attempt to understand my money better I understood that some of the basics of compounding and discounting still hold good on this side of finance. Personal finance was the bit where I knew I struck gold, when it came to my passion.

The more I talked, the more I had conflicting emotions. My positive thoughts of “I know a lot more than my peers” fought hard with the doubts of “what credibility do I have talking about all this?”. The doubting thoughts were getting the upper hand and I needed to quell them.

Enter Certified Financial Planner. It suited my needs perfectly as it seemed to guide me on the exact areas of my growing passion. With each exam, the imposter syndrome shrunk with enough confidence to finally launch Elementum Money.

What next?

From being a history graduate with dreams of being an archaeologist to a marketer and now a Certified Financial Planner. At this pace, I fear I might live more than the proverbial cat’s nine lives 😉 . Click To Tweet

To me, the CFP certification provides a theoretical base to build on. The learning does not stop here as personal finance is a huge ocean and my exploration of it has really just begun.

While I continue to work as a marketer, I am also working on come up with a model which works best to help people with their finances. My thoughts will continue to find an outlet on this site. You, my dear readers get a front row seat to all that happens.

Till then if there are any questions or any money matter bothering you, feel free to give a shout out in the comments or email me at aparna@elementummoney.com