Few days back, I received a very interesting email, snippet is as follows “…. I am developing a keen interest in your dividend investing philosophy. The more I read the more I get excited about. The earlier one starts, the better it is and I want to start now……. I am 24 years old and have a full time job for last two years. The earlier I start the better it will be for dividend investing. Can you advise 5 companies where I can invest and forget them…..”.

After exchanging few emails I observed his (I don’t know whether it was his or her, for the sake of this post I will use “his”) parents had taken a low six figure educational loan for him to complete this MBA education. After he started working, in his quest to quickly earn few bucks, he started investing in equity markets and is now under water. Now this reader wants to put his financial house in order.

On a personal note, I have gone through the student debt phase. I can very well understand what it means to be under student loan debt.

I am not a personal finance advisor. So I could not give him any specific advice per se. However, I shared my personal experience and discussed with him a very high level frame which I had followed. This discussion was not directly related to dividend investing. But I think it followed the essence of dividends investing (i.e. strong foundation and small building blocks). I thought of sharing this framework with readers of my blog. Continue reading rest of this article…