Saturday, July 30, 2011

Personal finance and Investment Tips

Here are some nice articles on Personal finance and Investment Tips. Here you will learn to manage your personal finance in a better way. You will learn budgeting, smart spending methods etc. Also, you will learn about stock market, mutual funds and other investment tips.

Real Estate Investments Made Simple

This article is a part of [Personal Finance Tips to master your own Finances]

Gold and Real estate are very traditional investment avenues. Gold has evolved from its traditional investing and found its place in the modern sophisticated investment world via Gold ETFs. Similarly Real estate is also emerging as an investor friendly avenue with less hassle via PMS route or private equity route. Have you ever thought of investing in real estate will one day be as simple as investing in mutual funds? If no please read on.

Real Estate as an Investment:

Buying a dream house or flat to reside ourselves is basically not a real estate investment. Buying real estate with a view to generate income and capital appreciation is considered as Real Estate investments. Real Estate investments can be further classified into residential, farm house, commercial, retail, leisure. Leisure is a relaxation place where one can spend their free time or vacation.

Depends upon his/her risk tolerance and time horizon one can invest in real estate at different risk levels. It can be at the time of converting a rural land to urban land, or at the time of building development stage or in already developed city area.

Real Estate and Risk:

Most often investors assume real estate prices will not fall down and they only go up year after year. It is not so. During the mid 2009 some of the real estate investments were quoting below 30% to 40% from their 2007 prices. Real Estate investments are also prone for price fluctuations.

Real estate Vs Stock market:

Real Estate is a complex and complicated investment when compared to stock market.
Non-transparent: There is no transparency in the price. It is not easy for a buyer or seller of real estate to identify the last transacted price in the same locality. There is no price discovery mechanism.
Illiquid Asset: Selling a real estate is a time consuming process. It is not liquidable easily. There is no organized market for the buyers and sellers to meet.
Impact Cost: Stamp duty and registration charges are really very heavy when compared to the other investment products.
No Regulator: There is no regulator for the real estate participants and intermediaries. Anyone can become a builder. Technical qualification is not mandatory. Also anyone can become a real estate intermediary or advisor. There is no certification or training to be completed before practicing. As there is no qualification requirement for participants as well as the intermediaries, it is very difficult to see best business practices.

Real Estate hassles:

The other hassles with reference to real estate investment are documentation, maintaining the asset without any encumbrances, and genuineness of the title deed.
There are some practical problems with diversification. Normally an investor invests in a real estate in his own locality. It is very rare to find someone in Chennai investing in the real estate properties located at Mumbai, Delhi or Kolkata. Affordability also limits diversification. An investor may not be able to diversify his investments across various cities with Rs.25 lacs or 50 lacs.

It may not be possible for an individual investor to buy a land and develop a viable project in that land and sell it in the market. Managing the project development need some kind of expertise. Even if an individual is able to do it, he will be doing it in his limited ways and means.

Is there a solution for this? Of late yes.

There are some collective investment vehicles. These investment vehicles will be promoted by an investment management company. The investment management companies collect money from investors. Being professionals, they will identify good projects and do joint venture with the project developers. They will be able to diversify across various cities as well as various types of real estate investments such as housing, commercial, hospitality and the like. These investment management companies charge a reasonable management fees.

At times they collect money via PMS route and at times via private equity route. The minimum investment ranges from 10 lacs to 25 lacs. This amount needs to be invested over a period of 3 years. That is they will collect money from investors in 4 or 5 installments. After 3rd year whenever they exit from a project they will repay the principal employed in the project as well as the profit generated out of that project. End of 6th year or 7th year, the investment management company will exit from all the projects.

The advantages of this collective investment vehicle are
• One can invest into real estate without any hassles. All the hassles will be managed by the professional investment management companies.
• One can invest in various real estate projects at a time.
• One can geographically diversify his investments across India.
• One will be able to apportion his total investment into small sums in large projects like township development, Technology Park, industrial estate, health city…
• Cost advantage because of economies of large scale operation

This is really an investor friendly investment vehicle. Apart from the regular stocks, mutual funds and fixed deposit investments investors can consider investing in these real estate products also. This will give better diversification to your overall portfolio. Also Investors need to be careful in choosing such investment options. Background of the investment management company and their transparency levels are more important. Investors can seek the advice of the professional financial planners before investing.

This investment vehicle is in its primitive form only. It still needs to go a long way. As of now there are only a very few companies in India which specializes in promoting collective real estate investment products. But in a few years time these kinds of products will be available from various investment management companies and in different varieties like our present mutual fund schemes.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners, a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.



Tuesday, July 26, 2011

How to create a workable budget that gives you money and life?

This article is a part of [Personal Finance Tips to master your own Finances]

"Modern man drives a mortgaged car over a bond-financed highway on credit-card petrol."


Taking control of your cash inflow and outflow is the base for financial planning. Budgeting is important to gain control over your financial life, be prepared and avoid surprises, save for a major purchase, get out of debt and stay out of debt, expand your lifestyle, and to retire early.

Thiruvalluvar, a much celebrated Tamil poet emphasizes budgeting through his following lines:

Incomings may be scant; but yet, no failure there,
If in expenditure you rightly learn to spare. (Kural: 478)

Who prosperous lives and of enjoyment knows no bound,
His seeming wealth, departing, nowhere shall be found. (Kural: 479)


Most of us hesitate to make a budget because we think it is about cutting all the fun in life. Budgeting is not about cutting all the fun; it is about conscious allocation of funds. Once we start spending consciously, our mind will find out a whole new way of having fun within the budget.

Making Budget: A step by step guide


There is a saying, “God is in the details”. Detail every bit of your financials while creating a budget.

1) Check your financial statements:


It could be your utility bills, d’mat account statement, other investment receipts, ITR, Form 16A, Form 16, bank statement, credit card statement etc. The idea is to make out the monthly average of income and expenses. Therefore the more details you can get the more relevant and accurate will the budget be.

2) Listing out income from all sources:


It is very easy for us to list down the income from employment or self employment. Normally we will lose track of income from investments, rental income and other miscellaneous income. Also check is there any annual income. Don’t forget to record the incomes received by way of cash equivalents like meal voucher and credit card reward points.

3) Finding out your total expenses:


We can easily list down the major expenses. But listing out the miscellaneous and petty expenses would be difficult. This is where the collected financial statements would help. Don’t forget the annual expenses like car insurance and property tax. Once you have recorded all the expenses then split them into fixed expenses and variable expenses. This classification will provide much more clarity.

Most people are surprised to learn that it may go for things that we do not need at all. Writing your expenditures down provides us with the unique opportunity to visualize and find out if any money goes for things that we do not need or want.

4) Are you saving or over spending?


Now you have your total income as well as total expenses. Deduct the total expenses from the total income. You will know whether you are saving some money or doing over spending. If you are saving some money channelize that money into the priority areas such as clearing your credit card outstanding or any other loan to become debt free or retirement savings or children’s future plan. If you are on over spending, then you need to make some adjustments to expenses.

5) Review your spending pattern:


On your expenses list, pay close attention to the variable expenses. This is where you can cut short a few expenses.

Every month we need to keep aside appropriate amount for the proportionate annual expenses.

You can find out the reasons for over spending. Most of the cases it would be emotional buying or unplanned shopping. Once you have pointed out the reasons for overspending, then find out the steps or precautions to be taken to rectify the same.

6) Are you on the track? Check monthly:


Every month set aside an hour to compare the actual expenses with the budgeted expenses. If there is a negative deviation, find out the measures to control them.

Why your earlier budgeting attempts failed?


Budgeting is not a onetime activity. It is a continuous process. Normally we start budgeting with a genuine motive. But after a few months it may get off-tracked like our attempts on dieting or exercising. Therefore one needs to understand the behavioural aspects of budgeting.

1) Positive Approach:


Never focus on the negative aspects. Focus on the benefits of successful budgeting. What will you accomplish by creating a budget? It could be becoming debt free, some money for vacation, planning for retirement or children’s future.


2) Keep your enthusiasm alive:


Budgeting may over a period of time become routine and hence boring. Set a few short term goals like trying to repay the personal loan in 18 months instead of 36 months. If you achieve it reward yourself. Recognition could be a good motivating factor. Inform all your family members, friends and well wishers about your progress on budgeting. You can also join in some of the forums related to money management.

3) Have a realistic expectation:


One needs to keep realistic expectation on the outcome of the budget. Over expectation may demotivate you. Budgeting is not a magic. It is an art like singing and dancing. You will be able to progress it only over a period of time with constant practice.
If you have not done budgeting for yourself and family so far, then now is the right time to take action. The fact that you are reading this article shows you have decided to stop procrastinating, and have answered the ancient question, “If not now, when?” with “NOW!”.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners, a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

How to white list an email address

What is email whitelisting?

An e-mail whitelist is a list of contacts that the user deems are acceptable to receive email from and should not be sent to the Spam or Trash folder.

Spam filters that come with e-mail clients have both whitelists and blacklists of senders and keywords to look for in e-mails. If an email blocking program aka spam filter keeps a whitelist, mail from the listed e-mail addresses, domains, and/or IP address will always be allowed and will be shown in Inbox.

Some spam filters delete suspected junk e-mail messages straightaway, but others allow the user to place them in a quarantined inbox. Periodically, the quarantined messages are observed to see if any of them are legitimate messages. This option is used by some Web-based e-mail clients in place of, or in addition to, a whitelist.

How to Whitelist an email address:

Add the email address to your trusted list of senders, contacts or in the address book.

How to delete gmail account if it is misused by someone

If your gmail account is hacked by someone and he is misusing it, and you think you should delete the account, here is an excellent resource for you.

You can reclaim your gmail account and if you want to permanently delete the gmail account, you can do that too. Follow the steps explained in the article.

How to recover a Hacked or Compromised Gmail Account

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Mutual Funds Mythbuster

This article is a part of [Personal Finance Tips to master your own Finances]

Rahul is working for a mutual fund house. They have recently came out with an NFO (new fund offer). The day on which the fund house announced its maiden NAV (net asset value), he received lot of calls from investors asking why the NAV is at below par. They thought something was wrong.
Then Rahul went on clarifying them that though both an equity fund and a stock extend market-related returns, there are some key differences between the two. If you have similar misconceptions about equity funds and stocks, this article will demystify all those misconceptions.

New Fund Offerings:

A new fund offer is not likely to generate amazing returns as can be the case with an initial public offering from a company.
This is because the NAV reflects the market value of the stocks held by the fund on any day. Because a fund holds several stocks in its portfolio, the NAV can only reflect the combined returns on the portfolio between the NFO date and the date of first NAV.
The first NAV declared by a fund can, at times, be lower than the par value of investment. A lower NAV does not mean a cheaper fund: Just because a New Fund is issued at Rs 10, it does not mean it has a chance of giving better returns than an existing fund that has a higher NAV.
Whether the scheme in which you are planning to invest has an NAV of Rs.15 or Rs.150 does not matter at all.

There is a difference between the price of a listed security and the NAV of a mutual fund scheme. Listed security has a price, determined by the demand and supply of the security. Whereas the unit's NAV of the scheme has a value determined mathematically, by the prices of the securities in the portfolio. If the portfolio appreciates by 10% Rs.15 NAV will become RS.16.5 and Rs.150 AV will become Rs.165. So in whatever the NAV you invest your investment will fetch you 10% return.
So instead of concentrating on LOW NAV and more number of units, it is worthwhile to consider other factors (performance track record, fund management, volatility) that determine the portfolio return.
A fund with higher NAV may give higher returns than a lower NAV fund, if its stocks did better in the markets.

Funds Vs Stocks



Point of distinction

Equity Fund

Stocks

Level of Risk

High

Highest

Entry/Exit cost

No Entry Load; But there will be Exit load. Advisory fee may be applicable.

Demat a\c and Brokerage charges

Options

Options available like dividend payout, dividend reinvestment, growth.

No such options

Minimum Investment

Min investment is usually Rs.5000.

Even one share can be bought.

Measuring Performance

Returns Vs Benchmark

Net Profit margins/EPS

Sub-division

Classified based on stocks in which it invests. (Diversified, Midcap, sectoral, thematic)

Classified as per the industry in which it operates.(FMCG, IT, PSU, METAL)

Pricing

Based on the price of the underlying securities

Based on the demand and supply of the particular stock

Dividends are not extra returns:

Immediately, after the dividend payment of dividend the NAV of the fund will fall to the extent of the dividend payment. Let us illustrate.

Fund’s cum dividend NAV is Rs.25. Proposed dividend is 50%. You are investing Rs.1 Lac and you will not get Rs.50000 as dividend. It is only Rs.20000 (50% on the face value Rs.10 is Rs.5 per unit) as the unit price is Rs.25 you will get 4000 units. Rs.5 dividend * 4000 units=Rs.20000.

And this dividend is not an additional gain or income. After payment of dividend the NAV of the scheme will fall to the extent of the payment and distribution taxes (if applicable). Now your nav will become Rs.20 and your investment value will be Rs.80000 (4000 units * Rs.20 NAV).

In a nutshell,

Investment amount Rs.1,00,000
Dividend amount Rs. 20,000
Present Value Rs. 80,000

It is nothing but investing Rs.80000 after dividend distribution at NAV Rs.20.

So investing in a scheme because it is declaring dividend in the near future is meaningless.
Usually a company with a liberal dividend policy may enjoy greater investor interest in the stock market. The same is not applicable to an equity-oriented mutual fund.

Investing more number of funds is not actual diversification. It may reduce your return.

Owning several mutual funds doesn’t necessarily broaden your holdings. It will be a mistake to buy the same securities over and over again in different funds with different names. You tend to believe they're diversified. But it is not real diversification.

There are only very few funds which are performing consistently. Instead of investing in few funds, if someone chooses to invest in more number of funds (because he intends to diversify) he may be forced to choose some average performing schemes also. As a result his returns will be diluted. The step taken by the investor to diversify his investment is not leading to diversification but to dilution of return.

Thus ideally your portfolio should not have more than four-five funds.

NO tax for churning:

When we buy shares and sell them within a year we are accountable for short term capital gain tax at the rate of 15%.
But mutual funds provide the benefit of churning of stocks with no tax implications. A fund which churns its portfolio within a year is exempt from tax because it only redistributes these profits to investors.
The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners, a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Cool links to learn Arts n Crafts

This post contains few links that has excellent resource to Learn Art n Crafts. These links contain excellent Video Tutorials that will teach you master Art n Crafts just by watching them. It's very easy to learn as the vides explain everything neatly step-by-step.

Learning Arts n Crafts will help you in many ways:
1. This is a great hobby. You can create lot of beautiful craft items at home in your free time.
2. You can teach your children and make them great artists. Also, it will help them while working on their academic projects.
3. You can teach Art n Crafts to few students as Summer Training and earn some money as part time.
4. You can decorate your own house with Craft items that you create yourself. It's a great feeling.

Art n Craft

This site contains excellent videos tutorials to guide you learn various techniques to create beautiful Art n Craft.

Origami Collections

This site will guide you through excellent videos tutorials to learn various Paper folding techniques(Origami Techniques).


Paper Quiling Crafts

You can learn various Paper Quiling Crafts by following the video tutorials in this site.


Nylon Roses

Learn and create beautiful Nylon Roses and Flowers here.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Your Spouse has a Key Role in your Personal Finance and Money Management

This article is a part of [Personal Finance Tips to master your own Finances]

In most of the Indian families, the personal finance is something which is not managed by the couples together. It is only one person who manages the personal finance and money management of the whole family. In most of the cases the male partners and in a very few cases the female partners mange personal finance. Only very rarely both of the partners together manage their personal finance aspects.

What would be the outcome in an organisation where the purchase department works totally independent and without any understanding with the finance department of the organisation? Purchase dept may overspend; finance dept will lose control; misunderstanding and conflicts between both the depts; the result is the organization’s growth gets destroyed.

Similarly, if the personal finance is handled by only one partner, then there could be a lot of mismatch between you and your partner in saving and spending pattern. This will lead to misunderstanding and marital stress. Instead of having independent saving and spending plan, having an interdependent plan will help you in managing your money effectively and achieving your financial goals.

You go out for dinner together. You go to the movie together. Why don’t you manage your personal finance together? This will build money compatibility for you and your spouse. Both of you can have a better relationship and understanding with each other.

Why it is so important?

You may wonder why personal finance should be managed by both of the partners. Here are some points to ponder over;

1) In case of Emergency:

Suppose the partner, who is managing personal finance, met with an accident and need to be hospitalized for one month or so, then how does the spouse will run the show?

During the accident, if the partner has missed his wallet which had all the credit cards and debit cards then how does the spouse block those cards before it is misused? Where does she or he find that information?

In case of emergency, nothing will help except the practice of managing the personal finance together.

2) Real Workable Budget:

When you alone prepare the budget for your family, then you can’t expect your spouse to spend according to the budget. If you prepare the budget along with your spouse, he or she will come forward to help you in saving more.

You just try this. Involve your spouse in budgeting and monitoring the spending. You will see the spending coming down day by day and both of you will start spending consciously.

3) Combined Financial Goals:

It is better to identify the goals of your spouse as well as yours and check that is there any goal which is contradictory to the goal of your spouse.

You may want to retire and settle in the same work city. But your spouse may want to settle in the native place.

You may plan to buy a farm house to spend your leisure. But your spouse may be interested in spending her/his leisure at different places like hill stations and other tourism places. For this goal a time share slot with a resort provider may be suitable.

So identifying and settling your difference of opinion regarding the financial goals at the blueprint level is much easier and cheaper, instead of doing it at the execution level.

Overcoming the barriers:

There are some barriers or objections in involving their spouse in managing personal finance. How to overcome that?

1) No Time:

My spouse is not having enough time to look at these things. ‘No time’ is a false excuse. If it is one of your priorities, then definitely it will somehow find its time. Only thing is you have not realized it as one of your priority. Personal finance is definitely a priority item for each and every family because it is going to secure your future.

2) Not interested:

My spouse is not interested in personal finance. Everyone is interested in their own future and their kid’s future. So logically everyone needs to be interested in personal finance. You need to motivate them and make them understand, how this personal finance management is important in achieving their life goals.

3) Doesn’t know:

My spouse doesn’t know about personal finance. No one has born in this world with the skills of money management. We all learned it here. So why don’t you educate him/her on personal finance. Money management is an important life skill. Everyone should know. You want your kids to manage the money better and wiser. Why don’t we educate our spouse first?

Overcoming the barriers in getting your spouse involved in personal finance management and getting them involved will be a life transforming exercise. Don’t miss it. Together you will be able to achieve your life goals easier and sooner.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Fear and Greed - Avoid them to Become a successful Investor

This article is a part of [Personal Finance Tips to master your own Finances]

Avoid these two emotions and Be a successful Investor:


Let’s start having a look:

An experienced long-term investor once told me that when he looked at his face after a share market fall he found despair and fear, while the same face showed enthusiasm and happiness with a share market appreciation. This made him realize that greed and fear were the 2 magnetic forces that caused confusion in investment goals. A balanced and objective approach would help him achieve his long-term financial goals.

Hindrances to positive and objective approach to investment decisions:

My close look at investment behavior has made me realize that fear and greed is not separate but complimentary emotions in an investor. Greed is merely a mental state born out of fear, with investors feeling the fear to lose money and then being unable to meet their family financial obligations. In addition, social pressures to earn in line with close relatives and friends and provide for benefits like higher education in a prestigious college, a grand marriage for children and a house with all modern amenities and furnishings leads to greed.

It is interesting to observe our brains dwell in the middle of negative emotions like fear, disappointment and greed, and these emotions influence our investment decisions, creating confusion in investment decisions. So we as investors start looking for security and confidence in our investments.

This makes me highlight 2 powerful influences on investor behavior namely 1) An investment portfolio based on ones personality
2) The follow the flock policy.

Basing investment portfolios on ones personal likes and dislikes are the first of the powerful influences, it is like investing in cars and fancy gadgets just because you love them. Investing on shares just because you think they are smart or flashy is ambiguous, for they could sink in the long run. It is better instead to invest in profitable ventures that pay in the long run. It is true; our investment fancies make us pay a heavy price.

The follow the flock for fear of being the black sheep policy makes you as an investor to believe in following others in the share markets. You would then be playing a vital role when the going is good and exiting never to return when the share market goes down. The pitfalls of group behavior lead us to buying high and selling less.

It is also true that follow the flock behavior leads to unbalanced investment emotions of black or white (wrong or right) with no shades of objectivity and rationality. In addition, group behavior leads to extreme situations of profit or loss and price swings in the share market that is highly undesirable. Buying high and selling low has made many investors suffer heavy losses in the long run.

A look at positive investment behavior:

Aim at lower returns for market forces play a very vital role in deciding the price. It is good to be investment smart with humility and lower aspirations that makes achievement of financial goals a reality. I have never known of any high return investments that did not have high risks.

Patience over a lifetime and being able to assume stress helps in aiming for long term positive returns and contributes to assuming less financial stress after retirement.

Positive investment behavior requires balanced moods, one of neither elation nor panic. Neither selling in a panic due to share market positions or adverse world or country conditions is advisable, nor is a reaction of extreme financial prosperity, both can destroy a lifetime of healthy investment. A long-term investor needs to realize that neither despairing nor elation of situations in civilization proves worthy for long term financial portfolios.


Let’s just sum up:

I am sure you would be congratulating yourself with all the knowledge gained and would neither allow emotions, group behavior nor your personal likes and dislikes to influence your long term financial goals. It is true you would have also realized that patience, humility and appetite for stress could contribute to long-term achievement of your financial goals.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners, a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

How to find the Name of the Primary Key in a table in SQL Server

1. Finding Primary Key Value Using SP_KEYS:

If you want to know the Primary Key Name in a table, the simplest and best method is to run the following query in SQL Server:

EXEC SP_PKEYS [Table_Name]
Example:
EXEC SP_PKEYS tblEmployee


Result:
The last column in the result shows the primary key name.

2. Finding Primary Key Value using SP_HELP:

You can use below query to find Primary Key in a table:
EXEC SP_HELP [Table_Name]
Example
EXEC SP_HELP tblEmployee

Result:
This command returns a lot of information about a table like Table Name and Owner, Column Names and Datatypes, Identity Column, Indexes, Primary Keys etc. The Primary Key Name is highlighted in the snap.

3. Find all the Primary Keys in a database:

If you are using SQL Server 2005 or higher, you can use below query to find all the Primary Keys in the Database:
SELECT * FROM sys.all_objects WHERE TYPE = 'PK'

Hope this post is useful. Get Dotnet Projects and Interview Questions at http://dotnetprojectninterviewquestions.blogspot.com/

How to drop primary key from a table in SQL Server

Drop command to drop Primary Key in SQL Server:

If you have created a Table (in SQL Server Database) with a Primary Key and later decided to remove/drop the Primary Key from the Table, you can use the below command to do so.

1. First identify the Name of the Primary Key.
2. Now execute the below command:

ALTER TABLE [Table_Name]DROP CONSTRAINT [Primary_Key_Name]
For example:
ALTER TABLE tblEmployee DROP CONSTRAINT PK__tblEmplo__AFB3EC6D24E777C3

Get ASP.net, C#.Net and SQL Server Interview Questions at http://dotnetprojectninterviewquestions.blogspot.com/

alter table to add primary key in SQL Server

Alter Table command in SQL Server:

If you have created a table without a Primary Key and at a later stage, you realized that you need a Primary Key, you can use alter table command to create Primary Key.

Create a table using below command in SQL Server:


CREATE TABLE tblEmployee
(empID INT NOT NULL,
empName VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
empDept INT)

Now, the table tblEmployee is created, but doesn't contain a Primary Key. Use the following alter command to create the Primary Key.

ALTER TABLE tblEmployee
ADD PRIMARY KEY(empID)

You may get following error if the field you want to alter to PRIMARY KEY is a Nullable field..
Msg 8111, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot define PRIMARY KEY constraint on nullable column in table 'tblEmployee'.
Msg 1750, Level 16, State 0, Line 1
Could not create constraint. See previous errors.

First you have to alter the column to make it NOT NULL.

Command to ALTER a Column from NULL to NOT NULL in SQL Server:

ALTER TABLE tblEmployee 
ALTER COLUMN empID INT NOT NULL

Then you can run the alter command to add Primary Key.

Hope this article was useful. Follow my Dotnet Interview Discussion blog at http://dotnetprojectninterviewquestions.blogspot.com/

Monday, July 4, 2011

Mental Accounting: Get Richer by avoiding this Money Mistake

This article is a part of [Personal Finance Tips to master your own Finances]

Get Richer by avoiding this Money Mistake

Mental Accounting is one such money mistake even smart people are committing. Understanding this mistake and avoiding this could make us richer.

Behavioral Finance experts say that mental accounting works this way: Let us say you have bought a Rs.200 ticket to a movie. When you show up at the entrance of the theatre and realize you have lost your ticket, do you buy another ticket?

If you are like most people, you would probably think twice. You may still drop down the money, but you will now feel that you paid Rs.400 for a Rs.200 movie.

But let's construct the scenario differently. Let’s say you hadn’t bought the ticket yet, and you show up at the entrance to buy your ticket. Unfortunately, you realized you’ve lost Rs200 in cash since you walked from the parking place. But fortunately, you still have enough in your wallet to cover the cost of the ticket. Do you buy the ticket? Again, if you are like most people, you may feel upset about the lost money, but it probably won't affect your decision to buy the ticket. Why?

Behavioral Finance experts conducted similar experiments. They found that 46% of those who lost the ticket were willing to buy a replacement ticket. On the other side 88% of those who lost an equivalent amount of cash were willing to buy a ticket.

Both scenarios are a loss of Rs.200. However, in the second scenario you separate the loss of the Rs. 200 from the purchasing of the ticket. In the first you consider the cost of the movie as a total of Rs.400 and suffer at the high cost.

It is because of the psychological phenomenon known as mental accounting. One of the fundamental concepts in Economics says that wealth in general and money in particular, should be fungible. Fungibility, in a nutshell, means that Rs.100 in lottery winning, Rs.100 in salary and Rs.100 tax refund should have the same significance and value to you since each Rs.100 has the same purchasing power at the market. But do you treat them in a similar way?

Mental accounting has enormous consequences in your daily life. It affects how you spend money and how you save. It influences how you deal with losses and windfall gains.

How Does Mental Accounting Affect You?

1) The source of the money affects how it is spent.

a. You tend to dine lavishly with the “gift meal vouchers” given by your company. But you will be dining consciously if you are paying out of your salary.
b. You are most likely to spend more with credit cards than with cash.
c. You may consider Tax refund as“free money”. In actual terms it is your own money. You will not spend tax refunds, birthday gift money or lottery winnings on essential things like utility bills, school fees, paying off your credit card debt. But you will be more than happy to spend the same money on discretionary items such as vacations or a trendy mobile phone.

2) Don’t be a victim of ‘Relative cost’.

Assume you are going to a super market to buy a laptop. The price is Rs.40000. But you get to know that there is another branch of the supermarket, a ten minutes walk away, in which the same laptop is sold for Rs.39950. Will you walk down to the other branch?

Let us say instead of buying a laptop you have planned to buy a memory card. The price at the supermarket is Rs.100 and at the other branch is Rs.50. Where will you buy the card?

Most of us will make a trip to the other branch for the memory card but not for the laptop. Because we think that the Rs.50 saved on a Rs.100 item is better than the same amount saved on a Rs.40000 item.

But both the situation is same. You save Rs.50 by making 10 minutes walk to the other branch.

Remember that money is money. Rs.50 saved on Rs.40000 laptop is not less money than Rs. 50 saved on Rs.100 memory card.

How to face Mental Accounting and spend consciously?

• You can use mental accounting to your advantage by spending money out of your salary. Immediately invest the “free money” like Tax refunds, gifted money or any other windfall gains.
• Imagine that all income is earned income.
• Use the free meal vouchers and other gift vouchers to buy essential items.
• Pretend you don’t have a credit card. I am not telling you not to use credit cards. I am saying you should stop and think: would I buy this if I was using cash?

A Successful Practical Strategy:

You can have two bank accounts. One for the purpose of savings and the other one for spending.
Every month you need to set aside some amount for expenses as per your budget or previous experience. That amount you need to transfer to your spending account. Balance amount you need to keep it in savings account.

You need to meet all your expenses including your credit card payment from the spending account. You should not spend from your savings account.

In between, if you receive any cash gifts or windfall gains, deposit them in your savings account. If you receive gift vouchers, then transfer the money equivalent of that voucher from your spending account to your saving account. That is your spending limit will not go up by just receiving the gift voucher. So that you will not use it lavishly and use it only on pre-planned things.

When it comes to money your mind unconsciously plays this trick of mental accounting. You have understood that today. So hereafter, you can avoid this mistake and you become richer day by day.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in.
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