What is SIP?

Guides that use SIP

15 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 put in 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 route one ₹10,000 SIP takes through your platform, clearing, the AMC, the RTA and the custodian — and what each may 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 answer depends on 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 mistakes is avoidable.
• Goal-based investing: mapping dreams to specific bucketsA goal is an amount, a date and a priority — and the date decides most of the allocation. Why buckets work, and the glide path that avoids a mid-drawdown end.
• 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 buys — regret protection, not extra return — and how it is taxed.
• The psychology of a market crash: behavioural finance that survives contactLoss aversion, herding and action bias are not character flaws — they are default settings. The pre-commitments that work when in-the-moment judgement fails.
• 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.
• A surplus and a loan: prepay, refinance or invest?Prepayment is a guaranteed, tax-free return equal to your loan rate — cut the tenure, not the EMI. When a balance transfer or investing the surplus beats it.
• Insurance is not an investment: term plans and the LIC questionBundled policies do both jobs badly. Sizing a term cover from needs, not folklore, and judging an endowment you own on forward numbers, not on premiums paid.

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.