Next: Fraud and safety
The scams actually happening in India
Digital arrest, job and task scams, doubling schemes. The scripts word by word, why they work on careful people, and what to do the moment they land.
14 min
beginner
Money and your head
The biases that move your money before you notice — loss aversion, FOMO, anchoring — plus the curated feed, betting apps dressed as games, and where help lives.
3 lessons · about 22 minutes · written for reading age 13 · last checked 2026-08-11
Five biases that spend your money
Loss aversion, FOMO, recency, anchoring and herding — what each one feels like from the inside, the tell that gives it away, and why knowing barely helps.
7 min
The feed is a showroom
Curated wins, rented lifestyles and the comparison tax — why your feed is a production rather than a sample of real life, and what it does to your spending.
7 min
When it stops being a game
Fantasy sports, betting apps and gamified F&O share one engine. The arithmetic that makes the average player lose, the warning signs, and where real help lives.
8 min
Check yourself
4 questions at the end. Every wrong answer explains itself.
Tools for this
What changed recently
Dated commentary on this topic — a Budget change, a new rule, a scam pattern.
2026-08-10 · 7 min read
Recessions are not an emergency
Economies have expanded and slowed in cycles for as long as anyone has measured them. That makes a downturn a weather pattern to be ready for, not a rupture.
2026-08-04 · 7 min read
The buffer that buys you a choice
An emergency fund absorbs something that happened to you. A larger buffer does a different job: it lets you leave a bad job or a bad flat on your own terms.
Sources
- Updated study: 93% of individual traders incurred losses in equity F&O between FY22 and FY24 — Securities and Exchange Board of India · checked 2026-08-11
- SEBI Investor Website — behavioural traps and derivatives risk material — Securities and Exchange Board of India · checked 2026-08-11
- Income Tax Department — tax on winnings from online games — Income Tax Department · checked 2026-08-11
- Reserve Bank of India — financial education and digital lending awareness — Reserve Bank of India · checked 2026-08-11
- Tele-MANAS — national tele mental health programme (14416) — Ministry of Health and Family Welfare · checked 2026-08-11