Do you know someone who has invested in Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) for the last 15-20 years?

Here is the answer I posted a little while back at Quora:

Yes, of course. SIPs over long years help you get investing results over a complete investment cycle. That's why you are advised to stay invested for 5-7 years.

With an investing experience of many years and a relevant consulting experience of two decades, I feel I am qualified to add a few practical aspects so that the risks involved are clearly laid out.

First, there is no escape from the fact that if we incur higher costs of acquisition...Click here to read the entire answer.

The Search for The First Scheme to Invest

If you are like most people who start out saving and investment from their salaries, you must be familiar with an option called SIP or Systematic Investment Plan that simply means investing a preset amount every month on a preset date in a mutual fund scheme that invests in equity or stock market.

Essentially, the idea is that while promoting a regular saving habit this method of investing uses various entry dates and therefore various purchase prices to maximise the gains from one's investments.

Equity investing being investing in fluctuating market that has varying ruling prices even within a single day is ideally suited for SIP because when prices fall you buy more quantity with the same money whereas when prices are higher you acquire less quantity. This helps in controlling the average acquisition price.

However, to get started you also need to know where to start and it'd be useful to know what key things to keep in mind for a simple solution to find the best sip plans.