Google Maps & your Financial Map

When I landed in Chandigarh to go to a place called Jibhi (Himachal Pradesh), I got into a taxi and looked at Google Maps. I needed to know how much time I would take to reach. It said I would reach at 21.18 hours. Well, I got into the taxi—and I knew it was going to be a beautiful journey of 7 hours and 18 minutes.

Google Maps knew the route, the amount of traffic, etc. What it did not know was the speed at which the driver would drive, and the breaks that we would take during the journey. When you go to a Financial Planner and tell her about your goals, she tells you that if you invest Rs 8,000 a month for the next 36 years, you will have a corpus of `8 crore and you can retire in the year 2057.