What is SIP?

Guides that use SIP

13 guides put this term to work.

• The magic of compounding: why starting early beats starting bigMost of the wealth arrives in the final stretch, from money contributed decades earlier. The worked example where five times the contribution still finishes behind.
• How mutual fund investing actually works: follow the money, liveInteractive diagrams of the whole pipeline — the route one ₹10,000 SIP takes through your platform, clearing, the AMC, the RTA and the custodian, and what each is allowed to touch.
• SIP 101: the secret weapon of disciplined investingA SIP is a standing instruction, not a product. What it genuinely does, the variants worth using, and the four things it is regularly oversold as.
• SIP or lumpsum: when should you put it all in at once?Averaging is a behavioural device before it is a mathematical one. What it buys, what it costs, and why the honest answer depends on a question about you rather than the market.
• Rupee-cost averaging: why market crashes are your best friendThe worked example where a market that went nowhere still returned 30% — and the strict condition, almost never stated, on which the whole effect depends.
• The twelve mistakes that cost first-time SIP investors the mostAlmost none of the money new investors lose goes to bad funds. It goes to plan, cost, horizon and behaviour — and every one of these is avoidable by someone who was warned.
• Goal-based investing: mapping dreams to specific bucketsA goal is an amount, a date and a priority — and the date alone decides most of the allocation. Why separate buckets work, and the glide path that stops a goal arriving mid-drawdown.
• STP: how to deploy a lump sum without betting on one dateThe waiting money earns debt-fund returns instead of sitting in savings. What an STP actually buys — regret protection, not extra return — and why each instalment is taxable.
• The psychology of a market crash: behavioural finance that survives contactLoss aversion, herding and action bias are not character flaws — they are the default settings. The pre-commitments that work, because judgement in the moment does not.
• Analysis paralysis: how to stop researching and startThe gap between a good fund and the best fund is small; the gap between investing and researching is enormous. The one-hour version that gets you started.
• Teaching children about money through mutual fundsA ₹2,000 loss at fourteen teaches what no explanation can. What to teach at each age, and the minor-folio rules that surprise families at eighteen.
• Case study: a 20-year SIP through every crashComputed from a real index fund's NAV history: ₹24.5 lakh became ₹86.75 lakh at an XIRR of 11.18% — after being down 39% three years in.
• Your master plan: a 30-year wealth blueprintThe five decisions that determine the outcome, ranked — fund selection comes fifth — the blueprint by life phase, and the seven-line policy statement to write today.

More on ways of investing

The transaction types the calculators model.

Step-up SIP

A SIP whose instalment rises by a set percentage each year.

Lumpsum

A single one-time investment.

SWP

A fixed amount redeemed on a schedule — a SIP in reverse.

STP

A scheduled move from one scheme to another within the same fund house.