Vishal had been saving since he was 16. Sachin only started when he was 27. What difference has it made?

Vishal and Sachin are old friends. They first met at school and have been inseparable ever since. Now they're old married men of 35.

Vishal's always liked the idea of having a little bit put away. In fact he's been saving Rs.50 a month ever since he was 16. Sachin always meant to do the same, but somehow he just didn't get around to it. He finally opened his savings bank account when he was 27. He's putting Rs.50 a month into it as well.

Sachin expects Vishal to have more savings than him – after all, he's been adding money to his account for nine years more. But he sees that Vishal has even more stashed away than he thought. Both accounts have been growing at 5% a year. He doesn't understand it. What's been going on?

Here's what Sachin expected to see:

Vishal's savings: Rs.11,970
Sachin's savings: Rs.5,040

But this is what's happened:

Vishal's savings: Rs.18,942
Sachin's savings: Rs.5,957

What's happened is compound interest. Every month, Vishal is earning interest not only on the total he's deposited but also on the interest he's earned to date. That means, as the months go by and the interest clocks up, he benefits even more – his growing interest is also earning interest!

Of course, Sachin benefits from compound interest too. But because Vishal's savings have had much longer to grow, they've done better out of it. Sachin jokes that he's going to tell his five-year-old daughter to start saving just as soon as she can.

Rajesh thought the scheme would make him a million – but he's had to learn to live with his mistake.

Forty-year-old Rajesh's always wanted to do the right thing. So when a friend of a friend told him about an opportunity to make money fast, he thought he would go for it. It could provide the financial security he wanted. After all, success was as good as guaranteed, wasn't it?

Well, to cut a long story short, Rajesh lost his money. And he's learnt a lesson – if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is.

What's worse, he's lost his investment, but he also begins to find it difficult to cover his everyday spending. Instead of a financial windfall that would set him up for the foreseeable future, he finds himself worrying about paying his mortgage. And he's already behind on some of the bills.

For a while, Rajesh's been trying to pretend that everything's fine but he's starting to feel overwhelmed.

His brother suggests a discussion with a financial advisor and so Rajesh makes an appointment with few of them to talk things over. It's definitely the right decision. They help him put together a plan to deal with his creditors and a budget to keep his finances on an even keel.

Jaya had come into some money and wanted to make the most of her windfall.

Twenty-five-year-old Jaya recently came into some money when her grandfather died.

She knows she wants to save it rather than spend it, but she finds the lump sum quite intimidating. As she doesn't know the best thing to do, she decides she needs some professional financial advice.

Jaya makes an appointment with an financial planning adviser. Before the meeting she starts to do some preparation by thinking about some of the things she'd like to achieve.

She'd like her inheritance to be the basis of a long-term savings plan, but she's also tempted to put some of it towards a deposit for a place of her own. She doesn't know how best to combine these two goals, or if there are other things she should be thinking about. She sets off to see the adviser armed with her questions.