Put it in order
Sequences where the order is the whole point.
22 rounds · nothing is saved or sent anywhere
Put these in order
Put the free-report routine in the order it happens.
- File a free dispute online for anything that looks wrong
- Read the accounts grid and the enquiries section closely
- Confirm your identity with PAN and an OTP
- Find its free annual credit report page
- Pick one of the four bureaus
From Credit scores, decoded · Your report is free — go and read it
Put these in order
Kabir leaves his first job after two years and withdraws his provident fund balance. Put the consequences in the order they actually arrive.
- Twenty years later, the missing two years of compounding are the largest single gap in the balance
- His continuous service record resets, and the five-year clock begins again
- His new job starts a fresh account, so compounding restarts from zero
- Because he had under five years of continuous service, the withdrawal is taxable
- The balance lands in his bank account and feels like a bonus
From EPF, NPS and the retirement machine · The UAN, and what taking it out really costs
Put these in order
A man dies without a will, leaving a fixed deposit with his sister as nominee. Put what happens in order.
- The money is divided — the sister keeps only her own share, if she is an heir
- Succession law works out who the legal heirs are and what each is owed
- The sister holds the money as a trustee, not as its owner
- The bank pays the balance to the sister, and its legal duty ends
- The family gives the bank a death certificate and the nominee's details
From Nominee vs heir: who actually gets your money · What happens after, and how to keep it clean
Put these in order
You have found a flat and agreed the rent verbally. Put what follows in order.
- On day one, video the whole flat and note the electricity metre reading
- Pay the deposit by bank transfer, so the amount is provable later
- Sign on stamp paper and keep one original copy yourself
- Read the final agreement fully and match it against what was promised
- Get every agreed term into the draft agreement — rent, deposit, notice, lock-in
From Renting in India, decoded · Deposits, verification, and moving in
Put these in order
Put these in the order that matters most in month one.
- Set up a small automatic transfer on payday
- Give HR an honest investment declaration
- Work out your real monthly in-hand
- Activate your UAN and check PF is actually being credited
From Your first payslip, line by line · Three things to do in your first month
Put these in order
Put the checks in the order they usually run, from first look to final payment.
- Confirm the occupancy certificate exists before possession and the last payment
- Match the sanctioned building plan against what is actually built
- Pull the encumbrance certificate from the sub-registrar's office
- Have a lawyer run a title search on the land's ownership chain
- Look the project up on the state RERA portal — registration, timelines, complaints
From Buying a home without getting played · The paperwork that does the protecting
Put these in order
Put your money's journey through a mutual fund in order:
- The scheme publishes that day's per-unit value (NAV)
- The value of those holdings moves every trading day
- The fund manager invests the pool in securities
- Your money joins the pooled money of other investors
- You buy units of a scheme from the fund house
Put these in order
Put these in the order you should do them if this call comes.
- Call 1930 if money has already moved
- Look up the agency’s real number yourself if you want to check
- Tell one other person, out loud
- Hang up
From The scams actually happening in India · The digital arrest call
Put these in order
Put a simple will together, in the right order.
- Keep it somewhere safe and tell the executor where
- Have two witnesses watch you sign, then sign themselves
- Write it plainly, date it and sign it
- Name an executor: the person who will carry it out
- Decide who gets what — people, amounts, percentages
- List what you own and what you owe
From Wills and succession: who inherits what · A valid will, and what happens after
Put these in order
Put the life of an education loan in the order it actually happens.
- EMIs begin — on the principal plus every rupee of unpaid moratorium interest
- Course ends and the one-year moratorium runs
- Interest starts from the very first disbursement
- Fees go to the college in stages, semester by semester
- Bank sanctions the loan before the course begins
From Education loans, eyes open · The moratorium is not a pause on interest
Put these in order
Here is the ladder as many people build it. Put the rungs in that order — then read why.
- Regular investing begins
- The buffer grown to three to six months
- Card balances and app loans cleared
- Term cover, if anyone depends on your income
- Health cover for the household
- One month of essential expenses set aside
From First salary: the order of operations · The ladder, and why it is in that order
Put these in order
A ULIP premium arrives at the insurer. Put the stages in the order they happen — and notice what reaches the market at the end.
- At year end, the fund value is whatever is left growing
- Each month, administration and mortality charges are recovered by cancelling some of your units
- What remains buys units of the fund you picked
- The premium allocation charge comes off the top
- You pay the year's premium
Put these in order
Form 16 just landed in your inbox. Put the checks in a sensible order.
- File the form away — the ITR asks for these figures
- Check every deduction in Part B is real, not just declared
- Check which regime Part B assumed
- Match Part A's quarterly TDS against your payslips
- Confirm the PAN on it is actually yours
From TDS, Form 16 and AIS: where your tax went · Form 16, decoded
Put these in order
The pre-filing reconciliation drill. Put the moves in order.
- Keep the proofs — statements, certificates, feedback receipts
- File the ITR using the reconciled figures
- Submit feedback on the portal for entries that are wrong or not yours
- Match Form 16 and interest certificates against what the statements show
- Log in to the income tax portal and download 26AS, AIS and TIS
From TDS, Form 16 and AIS: where your tax went · 26AS, AIS, and the mismatch drill
Put these in order
Put these in the order that costs the least if you get it wrong, first to last.
- Regular investing
- Clearing high-interest debt
- Health cover
- A small emergency buffer
From Budgeting that survives real life · A method that holds in Indian households
Put these in order
A commonly used order for the money conversation with parents — easiest door first.
- What they would want if a big medical decision came
- What monthly income actually arrives, and from where
- What cover exists, and what it excludes
- Whether nominations are current on every account
- Where the documents and policies are kept
From Your parents' money, and yours · Papers, nominations, and the conversation
Put these in order
Your first paid gig just closed. Put the money-hygiene setup in the order that protects you most.
- Each quarter, match Form 26AS and AIS against your invoices
- Keep receipts for work expenses, even if you plan to use presumptive
- Set aside a fixed share of every payment for tax the day it arrives
- Open a separate bank account that only work income touches
- Send a numbered invoice with your PAN, the date and a clear description
From Freelance and gig income: the tax rulebook · Advance tax, and invoicing like an adult
Put these in order
A minor collision, nobody hurt. Put the claim in the order that protects it.
- Take the vehicle to a garage on the insurer's network for a cashless repair, or pay and claim it back
- Report to the police where anyone is injured or another person's property is damaged
- Tell the insurer — helpline or app — before any repair begins
- Photograph the damage, the other vehicle and the place, before anything is moved
- Get everyone clear of traffic, and the vehicle too if it can move
From Motor insurance: the cover the law asks for · Add-ons, and the day you claim
Put these in order
Put the making of a private trust into a sensible order.
- Transfer the property to the trustee, who accepts it
- Register it, where immovable property is involved
- Have the instrument of trust drafted and signed
- Choose a trustee who will still be around in twenty years
- Identify exactly which property is going into it
- Decide what the trust is for, and who it is for
From Trusts and family wealth: what a trust is · Three roles, and a split down the middle
Put these in order
Put the net worth sum into the order you would actually do it.
- Write the date beside the answer, because it is only true for that day
- Subtract the second total from the first
- Add those up — that total is your liabilities
- List every amount you still owe, in full, rather than the monthly payment
- Add those up — that total is your assets
- List everything you own and what it would fetch today, not what it cost
From Net worth and the maths behind money · Net worth is the report card
Put these in order
Put the whole ladder in the order it actually works.
- Appeal, within the window the rules allow, if an award goes against you and you have grounds
- If the ombudsman cannot decide it, or the loss is larger than it may award, file with the consumer commission
- Take it to the sector's ombudsman, free, with the firm's reply or its silence attached
- Wait out the clock the rules give that firm — 30 days for a bank, a month for an insurer, 21 days on SCORES
- Complain to the company's grievance officer in writing, and hold the reference number
From The ombudsman and the consumer court · The consumer commission and your complaint
Put these in order
Put the life of a card e-mandate in order.
- No further recurring transactions are allowed on it
- You use the issuer's online facility to withdraw the mandate
- A notification arrives at least 24 hours before each of those charges
- Later recurring charges run on their own, with no authentication
- The first charge goes through, authenticated as well
- You approve the mandate with an additional factor of authentication
From Buy now, pay later — and the debits you forgot · The permission you gave once
