Nepal Money Basics: a complete guide to personal finance in Nepal

This is the index. Every post on this blog tries to answer one specific question about money in Nepal — taxes, banks, retirement, insurance, home loans, NEPSE. This page maps them into the order you actually use them, so you can read them as a sequence rather than as a list.

If you only have ten minutes today, read the first link in each section below. The rest is depth.

1. Understand your money

Before you change anything, see what you have.

• How to read your Nepali salary slip — basic, gross, allowances, PF/SSF, CIT, TDS. Read this first.
• The Bikram Sambat fiscal year, decoded — why your tax year ends in mid-July, not December.
• The 15-minute monthly money review — the single habit that compounds harder than any investment.

2. Save the gap

Saving rate beats investment returns for the first decade. Get this number right and a lot of other questions become easier.

• How much should you save from your salary in Nepal? — the right target by income band.
• The emergency fund: how big, where to keep it — Kathmandu-specific cost-of-living math.
• Sinking funds for Dashain, Tihar, and the wedding season — the budget category most Nepali households miss.
• Hidden subscriptions and the monthly leak — the audit nobody runs.
• The 72-hour rule for impulse buying in Nepal — a behavioural lever that needs no spreadsheet.

3. Protect what you've saved

The fastest way to lose a year of savings is a single uninsured hospital bill or a lapse in dependent protection. Cheap before clever.

• Health and life insurance basics in Nepal — term vs endowment, NHIP, private floater, and the Rs 40,000 deduction.

4. Retire on purpose, not by default

PF/SSF happens automatically. CIT is the lever you actually choose.

• CIT vs PF vs SSF: where the next Rs 1,000 of retirement money goes — the framing post.
• Transitioning from EPF to SSF — what changes when your employer moves you over.

5. Invest the surplus

Once retirement contributions are running and the protection layer is in place, the next decision is where the surplus goes.

• FD vs mutual fund vs CIT in Nepal — comparing the three you actually have access to.
• NEPSE vs SIP vs FD: a 25-lakh case study from Kathmandu — what the same Rs 25 lakh would have done in each.
• Reading a Nepali mutual fund factsheet — the four numbers that matter.
• Cooperative FDs offering 13%: where the risk hides — the headline rate is real; so is the risk.

6. Earn more (and reconcile the tax)

Side income, freelance USD, and the tax that nobody warns you about.

• Freelance and side income tax in Nepal — when TDS isn't enough.
• Remote work, USD earnings, and the NPR reality — exchange-rate timing, repatriation, and the IRD view.

7. Big-ticket decisions: home, vehicle, education

Most household wealth in Nepal is locked into a house, a vehicle, or a child's education. The right time to do the math is before you sign.

• Home loan EMI math in NPR — formula, LTV cap, prepayment math, with a calculator.
• Renting vs buying in Kathmandu — the rent-yield ratio that decides it.
• Bike vs car vs rideshare in Kathmandu — total cost of ownership, not sticker price.
• EV vs petrol: when does the break-even land? — the only honest answer is "it depends" — here's on what.
• The 12-month runway for studying abroad from Nepal — what you actually need before you apply.

8. The roadmap, end-to-end

If you want one post that ties it all together:

• A beginner's roadmap to financial independence in Nepal — every step above, sequenced.

How to use this guide

Three honest reading paths:

• New to all this. Start at section 1, work down to section 4. That is roughly the first two years of work for most salaried readers.
• Already saving and confused about CIT/SSF/insurance/home loans. Jump to sections 3, 4, and 7 — those are the three places mistakes are most expensive.
• Past the basics, deciding what to do with surplus. Sections 5 and 6 are the relevant ones.

The blog will keep growing — dhukuti math, IPO/Mero Share walkthroughs, gold-as-an-asset, wedding budgets, and a few more — and they'll be filed into this same index as they land. Bookmark this page if you want the up-to-date map.

Questions or specific situations you want covered? Email parjanya57@gmail.com.