On this fateful day, 3 years back was born out of my passion and zeal and corporate frustration this blog! Looks like third time is the charm, considering I have started and stopped two blogs before this (one, a random thoughts thing and two, a food blog). But, that still doesn’t mean I am too happy with what has happened so far in Year 3.

When I started Elementum Money I had topics literally over flowing out of me which translated to posting 3 times a week. Of course even the enthu levels were spilling out in my usual pattern of excitement over a new thing. Year 1 then I ended up penning down 130 posts. Gradually the energy levels tapered off and Year 2 saw 64 posts come out. Seeing this trend, can you guess how many posts in Year 3? Yup, 32. Halving it again. If this trend continues, I will end up with 16 posts in Year 4 or an average of 1.25 a month, which in my books is totally unacceptable! But then, I often tell myself I have atleast kept it alive unlike a lot of fellow bloggers who have shut it down.

So, how does Year 4 look like for Elementum Money? Do I go all out with promises and commitments like the first blogiversary post? Or do I go completely the other way to keep the bar fairly low as I did on the second blogiversary, although that hasn’t worked to my advantage either. Well, sorry for the anti-climax but I think it’s high time to just wing it. Despite the fact that I keep adding the next new shiny thing into my armour of self-commitments, Elementum Money isn’t going anywhere out of that list. 

Top 5 Posts from Year 3

As usual, I am not sharing numbers but only the top 5 most popular posts from the ones published last year. Looked like quite an interesting mix to me. Hope you enjoy reading this pick too.

1. 32 movie dialogues for 32 years

This was a birthday post that I did after a hiatus of skipping the idea for the 31st birthday. I listed down 32 dialogues, all from Bollywood movies that I either parrot out at frequent intervals IRL (In Real Life) or even truly believe in. Some were funny, some obviously very filmy or dramatic and some pretty deep. Looks like it struck a chord with some readers too. Considering I am self publishing my first novel this month (Yes! More details closer to the date), should be easy to guess what I have planned for this year’s birthday post.

2. Coffee can investing – Saurabh Mukherjea, Rakshit Ranjan & Pranab Uniyal

While the post talked about the book, the phrase itself has become quite a buzzword atleast in the Indian investing circles. The main idea is to have a stringent filtration process to nail down a few companies that seem to have a high probability of surviving any crisis and only growing stronger. From the description, it is obvious that most of those companies will come from the large cap stable. The book describes how to go about constructing such a portfolio that you then leave untouched for 10 years and see the magic.  

3. 7 tips to survive the lockdown

A post that hopefully remains valid only in this year. I wrote the post in the early part of the lockdown, namely April when I was going batshit crazy within my confined radius. While I like to believe the intensity of how crazy I still feel about this isolation has subsided to an extent, it still served as a handy reminder for some useful things to keep my head straight. I am guessing it helped some readers too, if it features as #3 on this list.

4. 7 life lessons from my sales job

This is a post dear to my heart. My transition from a cushy butt-in-a-seat marketing role to the investment counsellor sales oriented role came with a fair amount of trepidation and excitement, with healthy doses of passion. The passion is still alive and kicking. Excitement for any new things fades away as stillness settles in. As for the trepidation, some days I am still amazed at how much I have learned about the field moving from theory to practice. More importantly, I learnt so much more about myself and as I put in the post some life lessons to hold on to.

5. Why we need development economics

This post is one of those mulling posts which come out more coherently than the way it brews in my head. While I am totally for capitalism, I believe I also have a streak of leftist liberalism in me. Like so many aspects, I like to be straddle both ends – left or right brained? Creative or numbers? Capitalism or development economics? I say, give me a blend of both. Last year, when Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo won the Nobel Prize in Economics this streak of looking at economics as a means of a more equitable society took over me. I checked up on the duo and what do they have to say on the topic and noted 3 main conclusions. But, honestly, when I went back to the post I realised that the ending of the post is the real kicker. And it made me nostalgic about my commute all over again. As I break out that box of tissues to stem my emotions (spoiler alert, I am being sarcastic), why don’t you check out this post.

Yesterday, I was thinking about how important a month October has been in my life. It’s a month of birthdays, the month that Elementum Money took shape, a month of transition from marketing to finance and finally also the month I will hit the publish button on my book. As I went through the five most popular posts, I realised that three of those were written in October last year (the only other post that month was the blogiversary post). There really is something about me and this month.

On that note, let’s see what Year 4 has in store for Elementum Money!