A CFO's monthly personal-finance review

Last week's post on the five jobs of money got a lot of DMs. Most common: "okay, but how do you actually run this?"

Fair question. First Sunday of every month. 30 minutes. One sheet. Not because I'm disciplined. Because my monthly P&L at work is the same shape as my personal one — and running a business taught me something I wish I'd learned earlier: if you can't see the number, you can't manage it.

Four things I look at, in this order.

1. In-hand, not CTC.

CTC is a recruiter's number. In-hand is yours. Under the Income-tax Act 2025 (effective 1 Apr 2026), sections got renumbered — 80C is now Sec 123, 80D is Sec 124. Benefits unchanged. One thing to re-check: the HRA metro list expanded. Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and Ahmedabad joined the original four. If you moved cities recently, re-run the exemption.

2. Cashflow: where your SIP sits.

Open your tracker. Is your SIP under Fixed or Variable? If Variable, you're treating investing as discretionary. Which means in a bad month, it gets cut — exactly the month you shouldn't cut it. SIPs belong in Fixed. Same row as rent and EMIs.

3. Net worth — specifically Liquid Net Worth.

Total NW is vanity. Liquid NW is the honest number. Most people count equity and MFs as liquid because they settle in T+1/T+2. Technically true, practically misleading. Markets drop 30% exactly when you need the money. So I track two:

• Broad Liquid = Cash + Equity + MF + Debt MF + Gold − CC − PL. What you could raise in a week.
• Safe Liquid = Cash + Debt MF + Gold − CC − PL. What you can rely on regardless of market.

The gap is the volatility you're running. Most people have never looked at it.

Correction from the previous week: I had Dry Powder direction backwards. Scale UP when markets are frothy (ammo for the correction), DOWN after a drawdown (you should have deployed). Fixed in the tracker.

4. Leverage: one question, three signals.

Can I take on more debt, hold, or prepay? Signals: Debt/Assets, Debt-to-Income (DTI), EMI/Inflow. Ceilings: 60%, 3x, 40%. All three comfortably below → capacity. Deploy. All within, not comfortably below → hold. Any one breached → prepay first. Leverage decisions feel emotional in the moment. The framework makes me honest. I've been wrong about my leverage more times than I'd like to admit. This stops that.

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The thing nobody tells you about running personal finance like a CFO: it's not about the sheet. It's the 10 minutes of sitting with the number and asking why. The sheet is just the forcing function.