Expert Answers to all your querries

Disk Partition management using Partition Wizard from MiniTool

2012-01-29T00:54:00.000-08:00

Problem Faced while extending C Drive:

My hard disk was initially divided into two Partitions, one is C Drive that contains OS and the other one is D Drive for data. As the usage became more, more and more programs got installed making C Drive out of space.

I had enough free space in D Drive. I wanted to reduce the size of D Drive and increase the size of C Drive.

The OS in my machine is Windows 7. It has in built partitioning functions in Computer -> Manage -> Storage -> Disk Management. I used options like Shrink Volume and Extend Volume by right clicking on the different drives.

But, I could not extend C Drive by using the space released from D drive.

I thought this might be a common problem faced by many others. That's why I am sharing how I extended C Drive using Partition Wizard from MiniTool.

Problem fixed using Partition Wizard from MiniTool:

After a google search and reading many posts from search results, trying few free softwares, i couldn't find a proper solution for my specific problem. Then I found Partition Wizard from MiniTool. It solved my problem. Thanks to MiniTool team.

Steps to use Partition Wizard from MiniTool:

Download the free software from Partition Wizard website
Install it.
Refer excellent help videos at their help portal.

The second video "2. I can not resize my partitions, Why?" helped me in fixing my problem.

Post your questions/comments. Thank you.

Assign GoDaddy Domain Name to IXWebhosting Hosting Provider

2012-01-26T06:07:00.000-08:00

I have purchased a Domain name from GoDaddy. My hosting provider is IXWebHosting. Now, the question is how to link my Domain Name with my Hosting provider.

It's very simple. I followed the below mentioned two steps to fix it.

1. Add domain on IXWebHosting control panel
2. Set the IXWebHosting nameservers at Godaddy

1. Add domain on IXWebHosting control panel:

Login to https://manage.ixwebhosting.com
Click on Manage.
Then Click on Domains. It will list all the Domains owned by you.
Go to bottom of the Page and Click on Add New Domain.
Enter the domain name and press Submit.
Then Press Continue and then Submit.
Note down the correct nameservers.

2. Set the IXWebHosting nameservers at Godaddy:

Login to GoDaddy.com
Click on My Account
Next to Domains, click Launch.
Select the domain name(s) you want to modify.
From Nameservers, select Set Nameservers
Then select I have specific nameservers for my domains
Then Specify the correct nameservers obtained from step 1(Over write the first two default nameservers with correct ones)
Refer help tutorial at GoDaddy for more details.

Now Select the domain name you want to modify.

You are done. Post your questions in comments.

GIF Image not showing properly in my Blog

2012-01-26T00:08:00.000-08:00

Recently I uploaded a GIF Image in my Blog and noticed that the animation is not showing properly and it appears as a Static Image. Then I did a google search to understand why GIF images are not showing properly in Blogger. I got to know that sometimes Blogger doesn't support GIF images.

Resolution:

There is a work around to display GIF images properly in Blog. Upload your GIF images at Photobucket and get a link for Website or Blog. Just use the link to display the Image in your blog. The GIF image will display properly.

Here is an example.

Uploaded the same GIF image through PhotoBucket:

Protection from Bank Cheque Fraud

2012-01-21T18:53:00.000-08:00

Here are a few things from Citibank that you can do to protect yourself from Cheque Fraud:

When receiving a fresh cheque book, ensure that all cheque leaves are present in the series. In case some leaves are missing, report it immediately at bank helpline or at your nearest branch.
Always keep your cheque book separate from your credit /debit cards or any other documents that may bear your signature. Keep it in a safe and secure place, preferably under lock and key
When writing a cheque, always try and use a ballpoint pen instead of using pens with erasable inks like fountain pen or felt tip pens
Ensure that you draw a line through unused gaps/fields in order to prevent unauthorized alterations or additions to cheques issued by you
Never issue a blank cheque to anyone. Always fill in all the details yourself before issuing it

For more tips on Personal Finance and Investment, click here.

Pictures of DC Avanti at Delhi Auto Expo 2012

2012-01-16T18:44:00.000-08:00

India's First Super Car - DC Avanti - at Delhi Auto Expo 2012

2012-01-16T18:27:00.000-08:00

Avanti, The first Indian Super Car was the main attraction in the Delhi Auto Expo 2012. Superstar Amitabh Bachhan was showcasing the Super Car at the Delhi Auto Expo 2012. The car grabbed everyone's attention for it's Super Design and affordable Price.

The wellknown Automotive Design house, DC Design declared that the First Indian Super Car, Avanti will hit the Indian Roads in first quarter of 2013. The Price of the Super car is expected to be in the range of Rs 25 Lakhs to Rs. 30 lakhs.

More Pictures of DC Avanti here.

All About Investing & Not Investing In The Stock Market

2012-01-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

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

Do’s and Don’ts in the Stock Market:

Let’s introduce do’s and don’ts of investing:

Most of us have our own perception of investment based on our experiences, but also tend to be confused with the opinions given by others. Knowing the do’s and don’ts of the stock market would help us turn really as a smart investor.

The do’s and don’ts in the stock market are:

Slow, steady, and boring wins the race:

It is best not to panic over information about stocks on the media. Being slow and steady with looking at the activities that your money is to be used for would ensure that you invest in ventures that are good, useful and profitable.

Reading good books on personal finance will help you in taking right financial and investment decision. In addition, finding good financial advisors would help you get advice regarding stocks and mutual funds, along with entrusting the custody and management of your funds to them.

All this may seem too boring and time consuming, but it is better to be cautious than bitten too hard.

Don’t give any weight to market forecasts. All opinion pro and con is already built into the price of equities today:

Market forecasts on the media has got good entertainment value but doesn’t have any investment value. It is just enough for long-term investors to invest in good stocks, and mutual funds that would appreciate in the long run.

It is best to understand that market forecasts only show you the expected direction in which the market is heading based on the available information. This forecast is only a forecast and need not become reality.

In addition, market fluctuations are the very nature of share markets and should mean nothing to long tem investors. Making accurate market forecasts is tough, as they are influenced by various factors like the outcome of political elections, the direction of the economy, interest rates and world events. It is also wise to know that these fluctuations are incorporated in the price of the share, stock or mutual fund.

Do make your own analysis of the stocks, shares and mutual funds:

It is unadvisable to place your full faith on analysis of others regarding stock, shares and mutual funds. No wise man would always tell you all about his market beating strategy. Making ones own analysis keeping your financial goals in view and framing a strategy would help.

This involves studying the performance of top performing stocks and mutual funds over 5 years and existing mutual funds over a period of 3 months to decide on which stock to maintain and which to dispose off. All this would ensure that you are investment smart.

Don’t think you can successfully engage in short-term market timing:

As a long- term investor you should never contemplate taking advantage of short-term market dealings and speculations. Playing with shares and mutual funds in the short-term market may give you a profit in a few transactions but will not give you profits forever. So you can’t have an investment strategy which gives profit inconsistently. We need a strategy which can bring profits consistently so as to be a successful investor in the long run.

It is true that playing in the share market is neither entertainment nor fun. It is also futile to borrow or work on short-term margins to make money.

Don’t assume that if anyone were genius enough to devise a market-beating strategy he would be stupid enough to share it with anyone:

Stock tips are good to learn, but not to act on for speculations. It could prove dangerous to act on speculation tips given by one and all, as they may not be correct. In addition, everyone has his or her own perception of investment, with other not having full knowledge or skills.

You need to take time to think over each tip and analyze if it contributes to your long-term objective of capital appreciation. Similarly it is not advisable to subject your money to risk with investing in investment fads that may or may not earn you huge profits.

The final advice:

You need to make a calculated decision considering the pros and cons whenever you make an investment. In addition abstain from trading often in the stock and mutual funds market. Always think in terms of long term investing.

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

What's a Leap Year? Leap Year Calculator

2012-01-10T09:16:00.000-08:00

Leap Year Definition:

"A leap year is a year containing one extra day in order to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year."

So, a leap year in the Gregorian calender has 366 days where as a normal year has 365 days. The extra day is added in the month of February making it 29 days.

The Next Leap Year:

The next leap year is in current year 2012 and hence, February 2012 has 29 days.

Leap Year Algorithm:

Here is the Pseudocode from Wikipedia to determine whether a year is a leap year or not in either the Gregorian calendar since 1582 or in the proleptic Gregorian calendar before 1582:

if year modulo 4 is 0
then
if year modulo 100 is 0
then
if year modulo 400 is 0
then
is_leap_year
else
not_leap_year
else is_leap_year
else not_leap_year

Leap Year Calculator:

Enter the year you wish to check

How to track Google Adsense Check Delivery?

2012-01-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

Google generally sends Checks through BlueDart courier in India once a publisher's Google Adsense earning crosses $100.

Steps to track your Google Adsense Check:

Open Google Adsense account.
Go to Home -> Payments

Go to the Latest Issued Payment at the bottom of the page and click on details to view the details.

Now you will see the Payment Details.

You will get the payment number there. Remove the initial "0" from that number and use that number in Bluedart.com as Reference Number and Press "Go".

Now you will see the Status of your Adsense Check Delivery and also you can see the Expected Delivery date.

How to control unnecessary spending?

2012-01-02T11:43:00.000-08:00

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

Are you up for these 3 Financial Challenges?

Let’s begin learning:
The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket. ~ Kin Hubbard

Kin Hubbard is right in saying that if we do not spend money unnecessarily we would be able to save money and double it. However most of us like to spend and would find it difficult to not spend at all. We feel that it could stress us further.

Accepting the 3 financial challenges could help you in controlling unnecessary spending. Once you control and avoid unnecessary spending you can save more and invest more. So you can achieve your financial goals easier and earlier.

Here are the challenges:

A Day Away from spending:

The challenge of not spending for a day could be difficult, but could help save and render some important life lessons. It is true as most of us have regular daily expenses on coffee, tea, lunch, and snack at regular intervals and fuel to travel to and from work.

Effective planning with implementation of this challenge involves ensuring that your fuel tank is full on the earlier day. Then setting the coffee vending machine the night before could ensure you refreshing brewed coffee to enjoy before you leave for work. Similarly, carrying homemade lunch and healthy snacks like salads, nuts, seed and snack bars could help you eat healthy and save money.

It is not as difficult as it appears. Once you start practicing it, it becomes part of your habit like fasting. It opens new ideas to you on saving on daily routine expenses.

A Week Away from Credit Cards:

We all tend to spend a lot on small and big purchases with using the credit card. Credit card tends to make us spend excessively on unwanted purchases.

Buying things on cash would only make us spend on things that we absolutely consider necessary. It is found that sometimes postponing the purchase and preferring to pay cash could make us realize that the need was just momentary.

During the week away from credit card, you will be able to understand some of your spending pattern. You will come to know on what items you make impulsive buying and on what items you make need based buying.

As you are using cash to buy and not plastic money, you may want to negotiate the price. This develops your negotiation skills.

It is also true that buying unnecessary things with credit cards causes financial stress and spoiling of important life relationships. So avoiding credit card for a week could make you a need based buyer and better negotiator.

A Month Away from Eating Out:

The last challenge of not dining out for a month could be difficult for many today. This is difficult but you would realize on implementation that it saves you a lot of money that is usually spent eating out in restaurants and cafeterias.

Avoiding eating in restaurants would not only create huge savings, but also would help you avoid excesses in foods. In addition eating out only on special occasions as a family would help you enjoy the food. It would make the family realize the value of spending money lavishly.

When we have a kid around one year old, we won’t offer any outside food. We will pack the home made food or snacks for the kid. You can follow the same for the grownups.

Again this is not as difficult as you think. Think of having a homemade food as a family in a park or beach. This will bring a different experience and enjoyment to your family. This will give you new ideas on having more fun with lesser money.

A Final Note:

All these challenges do not mean that you should not spend at all on dining out or on getting good things of life. It only means you should spend the right amount of money for the right reasons. This self-control would not only help you save more but also in preparing you psychologically for a consumerism.

I am sure you would learn a lot with these spending challenges once you try them.

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.

Online Electricity bill payment in Odisha

2011-12-26T11:35:00.000-08:00

Now you can pay your Electricity Bill Online in Odisha.

Steps to Pay Electricity bill Online in Odisha:

1. Open the OrissaOnline website.
http://orissaonline.gov.in/Site/Index.aspx

2. Existing Users login to the website. New users register by clicking on the Register link.

3. Once you login, you can see the list of Online Services available.

For Example: 1. Electricity Bill Payment (NESCO/WESCO/SOUTHCO)

2. Electricity Bill Payment (CESU)

3. School Service

Click on either Option 1 or 2 based on your area Division (This information is available in your Electricity Bill).

4. Now, Enter your Area Code and Consumer Number (both the information are available in your electricity bill). Then press search button. It will list all the details like ConsumerID, Name and address. Press Proceed to make the payment.

Instruction Manual for Investing

2011-12-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

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

Let’s open the manual:

Every gadget you buy in the market comes with an instruction manual or user’s manual. But your salary, savings...retirement don’t come with an instruction manual. So we don’t know how to handle these and we end up mishandling. The result is poor investment choices and unhappy retirement. This article is an effort to draft an instruction manual for our investments.

Investment forms an integral part of our work life, with many wanting to save and invest to meet our long-term financial needs. We would all agree that just living from paycheque to paycheque would leave us in a bad financial state making us incapable of meeting our family’s financial commitments and our expenses after retirement.

Don’t Fly Blind: Have a Financial Plan:

It is vital to chalk out a financial plan at the very beginning of our career. This plan would tell us how much we should save and invest. This plan also ensures that our long-term financial needs are met. It may prove difficult and sometimes costly in the long run if we chalk out a financial plan on our own. So it is better to engage a professional financial planner, who would be in the right position to advice us on the investments to meet our long-term objectives in life.

Generally investment advisors or financial planners ensure that we invest in the right type of investments that are relatively safe and tax efficient. They ensure that our investments do not divert away from the set financial goal. The advisors or planners who charge a fee, can be expected to act in the best interest of us; their clients. But we will not be in a position to trust those who live out of the commissions earned from selling insurance policies or mutual funds or stock broking.

However, it is best for you also to be cautious and not allowed to be fooled by flattery. Since it is your money you need to be cautious and vigilant.

Do control what you can:

The first thing that we can control is unnecessary expense on investment. It is in our interest to try to minimize or avoid investment expenses like entry load, exit load, fund management fees, commissions for buying and selling stocks, account maintenance fees, allocation charges, administration charges, surrender charges, and other overheads. Small drops make a mighty ocean. Similarly these small amounts of cost cutting will definitely pay us in the long run.

The second control is over the diversification of your investment. You also need to ensure that at all times your investments are done over a wider variety of assets. This will ensure that you do not suffer large losses in one type of investment. The losses in one would then be offset by the gains in the other and you will be financially safe at all times.

The third control is the maintenance of our asset allocation to reach our financial goal. We need to keep a check over the asset allocation or ratio of equity to debt and to other things in your portfolio with the help of a professional financial planner. This will help us ensure that we are not taking more risk than what we want or can possibly handle.

Do pay as little attention as possible to the financial media:

It is best not to be influenced too much by the media to buy and sell investments. Investing is not a competitive sport. Buying and selling stock frantically by being influenced by the media is counter productive to your financial objectives.

It is best to understand that our conscious investment is for long-term wealth appreciation. So we should not be distracted by the investment shows that run 24 hrs a day, investment column they publish 365 days a year. Media doesn’t understand your requirements. So it is difficult to get a customized solution for your personal finance.

Don’t fall into "Invest and Ignore":

We have invested your precious savings, so do not be careless and sleep over it. Though our investment advisor would make sure that our investment grows, it is better that we too are vigilant and keep track of market conditions. It is our precious savings that we have invested. So if we lose it, we would be losing not only money but also our peace of mind.

Don’t fall into "HNI Trap":

Being a high net worth person exposes us to being influenced to invest in dubious projects that may bring down your financial status. This is true because the financial industry are on the look out for people that have a lot of money and are of a high status. They try to influence them to invest in dubious projects appealing to their status and vanity.

Being a HNI doesn’t mean that you need a completely different set of investments. They try to pack something and will say “This is a HNI product”, just to massage your ego and get business. Many HNIs would be lot richer, if they could have bypassed their private banking department and just invested in an index and a very few diversified equity funds.

A final thought:

The instructions in the user’s manual need to be used to get the maximum benefit and long life of the gadget. Similarly, having read the set of instructions to make wise investment decisions, it is up to you to follow them strictly or leave it and go back to your routine life.

If you decide to follow these instructions, you will definitely see a lot of positive changes and financial prosperity in the long run. So today is going to be the first day for rest of your life.

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.

Ultra Low cost tablet AAKASH is now available online for purchase

2011-12-15T19:17:00.000-08:00

The much awaited Ultra Low cost tablet AAKASH is now available online for purchase in India. It will be very much useful for students. It will help to access internet and work with documents like word, excel, power point, pdf files etc. Also, it will support multimedia files like Images, audio files and Video files. Students will be able to watch Youtube videos in the device and learn from video tutorials.

It will cost Rs 2,500. To get your AAKASH Tablet, Order Online at http://www.aakashtablet.com/
You will get the delivery in one week time and you have to pay the cash on delivery.

So, why delay? Book as soon as possible.

The 10 Financial Doctrines of Wise Retirement Planning

2011-12-13T01:05:00.000-08:00

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

Let’s begin on planning finance for retirement:

It is usual for many of us to aspire for a financially secure and happy retired life. However being financially prepared to meet the demands of retired life by saving and investing requires considering and following the 10 doctrines of wise retirement planning.

A look at the 10 doctrines to wise retirement planning:

1) Provide for contingenciesh:

Most of us tend to underestimate our retirement needs. Provision for medical emergencies with inadequacy of medical insurance in old age requires financial provision. Lack of government social security schemes and retirement benefits to self-employed and private sector employees creates requirement for more provision for contingencies after retirement.

2) Think that you will live long:

This is true with increased life expectancy. Now you will have more years of life after retirement. Thanks to medical advancements. So it is better to plan for the additional years and avoid living frugally in old age.

3) Plan that you will retire early:

It is wise to provide for contingencies arising that require you to retire early. You could suffer ill health, lose your job, or need to care for a sick or elderly member of the family. Women may have to opt voluntarily to look after the family needs. All this requires more savings for retirement needs.

4) Beat the inflation before it beats you:

Inflation affects the personal finance needs of the working class, but pay rises could help them resolve it to a certain extent. However the retired have to save more to reduce the impact of inflation. Investing in modes that give you extra returns could help greatly.
Investors come to me and say “I would like to accumulate 2 crores and retire”. But when we really work out the inflation adjusted retirement corpus, the 2 crores would not be sufficient for him to have comfortable retirement. 2 crores may feed you enough in the first year after your retirement. The returns from the same 2 crores will not be sufficient for you take care of all your needs on the 10th year after your retirement because of the skyrocketing inflation figures.

5) Provision for increased medical expenses after retirement:

Most of us underestimate medical expenses after retirement, with these expenses being inevitable in old age. Hence more provision for medical insurance helps. A consideration of your family’s general health, family history of certain genetic disorders, and the class of hospital you get treated would help in proper estimation for medical insurance.

6) Provide for your spouse and dependents who may outlive you:

It is inevitable that this need should not be overlooked. Your spouse and dependents need to live a secure financial life after your lifetime. Taking up insurance policies during your working life and well thought out retirement planning will take care of your dependents and spouse financially.

7) Realize you need to be vigilant about sources of retirement income:

Sometimes we may be ignorant of benefits on retirement like provident fund, gratuity and other benefits. In India the lack of social security schemes after retirement makes it necessary to invest more in good income generating sources for steady flow of retirement income. The advice of investment consultants, along with financial education and information contributes to good financial standing after retirement.

8) Educate yourself about retirement savings plan management:

When the majority is relying on the pension schemes in the form of ulips offered by various public and private insurance companies, as a smart investor you need to understand the hidden charges of these pension policies. These policies are all heavily front loaded.
So you need to evaluate various investment options available for retirement. You need to accumulate sufficient knowledge in this regard. In addition learning to keep track of them with professional help makes these saving plans work for you.

9) Plan for an income for life:

Your retirement plans need to be financial plans to make income last you a lifetime. Pensions or annuities providing best income need to be safeguarded, as withdrawing large sums from them could end you in financial insufficiency in the final years of your life.

10) Take professional investment advice that works:

Many do realize the importance of financial advice from professional financial advisors, but in practice seek it from family, friends and colleagues. A right financial advisor could give you good investment advice to have financially secured retirement ife.

A final note:
I am sure you want to emerge financially secure for your retired life and will follow these 10 financial tenets to wise retirement planning.

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.

Ads in WordPress Blog

2011-11-29T18:10:00.000-08:00

Earlier you were not allowed to put Advertisements in your WordPress blog. If you wanted to put ads in your Wordpress blog, then there is a good news for you. Now you can put Advertisements - read the Official News from Wordpress here:
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/wordads/

What are the top performing ad units in Google Adsense

2011-10-30T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Ad performance depends on many factors in a website. The factors are Position of the Ad, Dimension of the Ad, Background/foreground Colors etc.

With respect to dimension, below four categories are known to be the best performing Google Ads.

1. 336x280 Unit:

How to check that my number is on DND

2011-10-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

If you want to activate DND(Do Not Disturb) service which is a good initiative by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to keep you away from Spam SMS or Promotional calls, follow these steps.

But if you receive Spam SMS or Promotional calls even after you register for DND, difinitely you can check you phone number if it is there in the DND database or not. If it is not there, you will have to register again for DND.

How to check that my number is on DND:

1. Open the National Do Not Call Registry by clicking on below URL: http://ndncregistry.gov.in/ndncregistry/index.jsp

2. Click on DND Registration Check Button

3. Search Screen will appear. Enter your phone number and press Search.

4. If your number is registered for DND, you will get below message.
"This Number is Registered in NDNC Registry Database"

If not yet registered for DND, you will get below message.
"This Number is not Registered in NDNC Registry Database"

Post a comment if you found this article useful. Let us know if you have any issues.

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today -19-10-2011

2011-10-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 19-10-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

What is the 350-year old Taj Mahal?

A: A Palace
B: A Crown
C: A Mausoleum
D: A Hotel

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 20th-Oct-2011 8:30PM IST.

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today -18-10-2011

2011-10-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 18-10-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

In the film "Mr. India", Mogambo was looking for a formula to enable what?

A: Immortality
B: Influenza
C: Invisibility
D: Intelligence

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 19th-Oct-2011 8:30PM IST.

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today -17-10-2011

2011-10-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 17-10-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

Nabh and Gagan are synonyms of which Hindi word?

A: Aasmaan
B: Samudra
C: Surya
D: Prithvi

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 18th-Oct-2011 8:30PM IST.

Really Tough Movie Quiz on ibnlive

2011-10-15T22:38:00.000-07:00

Participate in Movie Quiz (Bollywood and Hollywood) in CNN-IBN News Channel to win cool goodies.

Participate on Really Tough Movie Quiz on ibnlive

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today -13-10-2011

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 2, Pooja Bedi

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 3, Shonali Nagrani

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 4, Nihita Biswas

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 5, Shradha Sharma

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 6, Mandeep Belvi

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 7, Raageshwari

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 8, Vida Samadzai

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 9, Mahek Chahal

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 10, Sonika Kaliraman

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 11, Pooja Missra

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 12, Gulabo Sapera

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 13, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi

Big Boss Season 5 Contestants Photos

2011-10-04T20:04:00.000-07:00

Here are the 14 Contestansts of Big Boss Season 5.

Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 1, Shakti Kapoor
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 2, Pooja Bedi
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 3, Shonali Nagrani
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 4, Nihita Biswas
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 5, Shradha Sharma
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 6, Mandeep Belvi
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 7, Raageshwari
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 8, Vida Samadzai
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 9, Mahek Chahal
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 10, Sonika Kaliraman
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 11, Pooja Missra
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 12, Gulabo Sapera
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 13, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi
Bigg Boss 5 - House inmate No. 14, Juhi Parmar

Shakti Kapoor

Pooja Bedi

Shonali Nagrani

Nihita Biswas

Shradha Sharma

Mandeep Belvi

Raageshwari

Vida Samadzai

Mahek Chahal

Sonika Kaliraman

Pooja Missra

Gulabo Sapera

Laxmi Narayan Tripathi

Juhi Parmar

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today -04-10-2011

2011-10-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 04-10-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

Which of these would usually glow in the dark?

A: Silver
B: Aluminium
C: Radium
D: Gold

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 5th-Oct-2011 8:30PM IST.

Answer:

C: Radium

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today -03-10-2011

2011-10-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 03-10-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

Which of these Hindi is used to describe a hunger strike?

A: Annagiri
B: Annaprashan
C: Annakut
D: Anshan

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 4th-Oct-2011 8:30PM IST.

Answer:

D: Anshan

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today - 29-09-2011

2011-09-29T09:11:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 29-09-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

Which of these phrases would you use while asking someone to sit down?

A: Shab Ba-Khair
B: Tashreef rakhiye
C: Nosh Farmaiyye
D: Kushaamdid

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 30th-Sep-2011 8:30PM IST.

Answer:

B: Tashreef rakhiye

KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question of the Day - 2011

2011-09-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

This page will contain all the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question asked in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011.

Send your answers to KBC 5 on time to win Rs. 1 lakh.

ALL you wanted to know about Company Deposits

2011-09-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

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

Company Deposits are simply nothing but fixed deposits in companies that earn a fixed rate of return over a period of time. Company deposits are really down-to-earth products. The influential advantage of the company deposits is its plain simplicity. Company deposit is understood even by the most novices among the investors community.

Have you ever wondered the logic behind why pure vanilla flavored ice cream sells more than any other flavor? Similar logic is just as true when it comes to the company deposits vis-a-vis many other modern investment options.

With the meltdown of NBFCs almost a decade ago, company deposit market had a major slow down, but volumes still remain significant and there are loyal investors who prefer company deposits to other investment products.

Advantages of Company deposits:

* Assured return.
* Higher interest when compared to bank deposits.
* Low risk when compared to stock market investments.
* Service at your doorstep.
* Lock in period in most of the cases is 6 months only.
* If the interest income is less than Rs.5000 in one financial year, then NO TDS.

Risk in Company Deposits:

Company deposits are basically unsecured. That is if the company defaults in repaying the interest or principal, the investor will not be able to recover his capital. As a company deposit holder, you don’t have any lien on any asset of the company, in case it goes into financial difficulties. This makes the company deposits a risky investment option.

Identifying Risky Company Deposits:

One of the important tasks in investment planning in company deposits is to identify the risky company deposits and avoiding them. If you find any of the below symptoms in any of the company deposit scheme, then it is better to avoid such company deposit schemes.

* Poor credit ratings like A or lesser ratings.
* Companies making losses.
* Companies that skip dividends.
* Companies that offer higher than 3% to 4% of bank deposit rates.

Checklist for choosing right company deposits:

There are some good investment options in company deposits. Also there are some bad investment options. If you know how to select the right company deposit then company deposits can be really an interesting investment option in your portfolio.

* You need to ignore all the unrated companies and need to choose companies with the rating of AA or higher.
* Choose the company with better reputation within a given rating grade. If you read business papers and magazines periodically, it is not difficult for you to check the credentials of the company.
* Take the help of the qualified financial advisor in choosing the right company deposit. But mind you, there are very few reputed and qualified financial advisers.
* Company deposits need to be spread over a large number of companies in different industries. By this, you can diversify your risk. Irrespective of the rating and reputation of the company, don’t invest all your investments in a single company deposit scheme.
* You need to check on the servicing level and standard of the company. You need to ignore companies that don’t care or care little about issues like sending interest warrants and principal cheques.
* After investing in a company deposit, you need to constantly track the company’s credit rating. The times are uncertain and downgrades are rampant.
* Check the company’s balance sheet for its asset back up, profitability, reserves, existing borrowings and loans.

Every investment has its distinct features and benefits. Likewise each investor has specific risk taking ability and personal needs. Professional investment planning needs matching of the product benefits and features with the financial objectives of the investors. So one need to weigh the various alternative investment options like bank deposits, debt funds vis-a-vis company deposits before making a choice.

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.

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today - 28-09-2011

2011-09-28T18:35:00.001-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 28-09-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

Which of these insects is known for producing lights?

A: Tilchatta
B: Jugnu
C: Tataiyya
D: Titli

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 29th-Sep-2011 8:30PM IST.

Answer:

B: Jugnu

Google Celebrates 13th Birthday with Party Doodle

2011-09-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Google Celebrates 13th Birthday with Party Doodle. Today's doodle is a little more elaborate than most previous birthday doodles.

Google is the dominant search engine is into many other services like web email provider (gmail), web documents, advertisements,maps, video (Youtube), social networking (Google Plus) etc. Google has it's own Internet Browser (Chrome) and mobile Operating System(Android).

Site Statstics/Page view or Site Hit Counter now available in blogger

2011-09-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

A good news for Bloggers. We used to use third party Widgets or Hit Counters to show Site Statistics or Page Views in blogger. These Hit Counters are very much unreliable as sometimes they become unavailable thus not counting the Total Page View accurately.

We have a solution to this problem from blogger now. Blogger has introduced a new Widget called Blog's Stats. Using this widget, you can show total page view of your blog in your site. You can show All Time, last 30 Days or last 7 Days data. Also, you have different styles and animations.

To add blogger Blog's Stats to your blog, follow below steps:
1. Go to Design of your blog.
2. Click on "Add a Gadget" at the location you want Blog's Stats Widget
3. Click on Blog's Stats
4. Customize your view and Save.

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today - 26-09-2011

2011-09-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 26-09-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

With respect to income in India, what does the 'B' stands for in the abbreviation BPL?

A: Behind
B: Backward
C: Below
D: Beside

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 27th-Sep-2011 8:30PM IST.

Answer:

C: Below

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today - 22-09-2011

2011-09-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot Question for Today - 22-09-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

In which of these films does the lead hero play double roles?

A : Chandini chowk to china
B : Whats your rashee
C : Kites
D : Kaminey

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 23rd-Sep-2011 8:30PM IST.

Answer:

D : Kaminey

All you wanted to know about Mediclaim Policy

2011-09-22T10:24:00.000-07:00

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

Health care costs are sky rocketing day by day. Therefore the need for having a mediclaim policy for you and your dependents has grown. Suppose you have to undergo some medical treatment or need to be hospitalized for certain reason, then a mediclaim policy will be of immense help to you in covering your health care expenses. The reason is Mediclaim offers protection in case of unexpected medical and health care emergencies.

Hospitalization expenses in case of illness, disease or accident will impose a heavy financial burden on individuals and families. This is where the mediclaim policy comes in handy. The mediclaim policy can reimburse the hospitalization expenses or can pay the hospital directly on behalf of you.

A mediclaim policy provides a health cover of certain amount of money. This amount depends on the amount that the insured person was insured for.

The mediclaim policy can be taken for an individual or for an entire family. Some insurance companies allow a discount on the premium if the policy is taken for a family.

Insurance companies have fixed some age limit for medical test. If the individual is below that age, then he or she need not undergo medical test for taking mediclaim policy. If the individual is above that age limit then he needs to go for medical test.

If any pre-existing disease has been found out in the medical test, then those diseases will not be covered under the mediclaim policy for a waiting period of a first few years.

If you have a mediclaim policy from your employer, that may not be sufficient. Employer may cover the employee and not necessarily his entire family members. And moreover these policies are not portable and cannot be individualized if you leave the job. Employer provided policies cannot be transferred to another employer in case you switch your job. Also employer provided policies will give you coverage as long as you are employed. Once you retire you may not be having coverage.

It is really unfortunate that only after your retirement you need health insurance at the most. If you plan to take a fresh policy after retirement, insurance company will not cover the pre-existing diseases at that point in time. Though your employer provides a health insurance policy it is better for you to take a separate health insurance policy at least with a small amount of coverage.

The coverage amount of the health insurance policy need to be decided based on your health consciousness, your family health history, and the class of hospital you choose for treatments.

If you are not health conscious or you don’t do regular exercises or you don’t follow proper diet or you frequently take outside food or don’t go for annual health check-ups then it is advisable to go for more sum insured coverage in your mediclaim policy.

If your family has got any adverse health history like heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer, any form of paralysis, or any hereditary disorder then you need to choose higher coverage amount in your health insurance.

If you will be choosing high class hospitals for your treatment then you need to go for higher sum assured. If you will be choosing medium level or low level hospitals then you can choose the coverage amount accordingly.

Also you need to revise your health insurance coverage amount based on the changes in the above factors and the changes in the medical cost. Also the increase in the age needs to be considered for deciding the coverage amount.

The icing on the cake is you get tax benefit under section 80D for the mediclaim premium paid. For senior citizen the limit under this section is Rs.20000 and for others it is 15000.

Most people don’t think about health insurance very often. But it comes to mind first when a loved one is sick. Mediclaim policy is one of those things everyone knows he or she should take but usually puts off until a more opportune time. Living without a mediclaim policy is like going out on a rainy day without an umbrella or a raincoat.

If you have not covered adequately yourself and your dependents with mediclaim policy 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, delaying 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.

How to send Jackpot Question's Answer to KBC5

2011-09-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

Here are all the methods by which you can send your Answer for Jackpot Question to KBC5.

For IDEA Subscribers:

Dial 55456 ’11′ for Option A
Dial 55456 ’12′ for Option B
Dial 55456 ’13′ for Option C
Dial 55456 ’14′ for Option D

For BSNL Landline Subscribers:

Dial 505 2525 ’11′ for Option A
Dial 505 2525 ’12′ for Option B
Dial 505 2525 ’13′ for Option C
Dial 505 2525 ’14′ for Option D

All other subscribers:

Send your answers by SMS to 5252525

BSNL mobile subscribers can send SMS to 52525
Similarly IDEA subscribers can SMS their answers to 554567

To answer Jackpot question by SMS, type ‘KBCQ’ answer (your option A/B/C/D) and send it to 5252525.
For example if your answer is option A, then SMS KBCQ A to 5252525.

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today - 21-09-2011

2011-09-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

This is a part of [KBC 5 Ghar Baithe Jeeto Jackpot 2011 Questions]

Here is the Jackpot Question for Today - 21-09-2011 asked by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan in KBC 5 (Kaun Banega Crorepati 2011 shown in Sony Entertainment Television)

Question:

Which element is used in the glass tube of a clinical thermometer to measure temperature?

A. Iodine
B. Mercury
C. Platinum
D. Radium

Send your answer to KBC to win Rs. 1 Lakh. Lines are open till 22nd-Sep-2011 8:30PM IST.

Answer:

B. Mercury

Mutual Fund SIP: for Short term or Long term?

2011-09-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

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

It may look very strange when everyone is advocating Mutual Fund Sip for long term, what is the necessity for this debate on ‘Is Mutual Fund SIP for Short term or long term?’.

Theoretically doing a Mutual fund SIP for long term will work for investors. But for practical reasons we need to commit a Mutual Fund SIP for short term. That is we need to break that long term into many 6 months or 1 year periods and commit your Mutual Fund SIP for first 6 month or 1 year.

Then at the end of 6 month or 1 year renew your SIP for another 6 month or 1 year. You need to renew like this till you complete your predetermined long term period.

You may think it is an unnecessary paperwork and waste of time. But you will be completely convinced when you have finished reading this article.

Contribution towards Mutual Fund SIP Changes:

How much you are contributing towards Mutual Fund SIP changes over a period of time.

1. At the beginning of a career a person will be able to commit Mutual Fund SIP for small sum of amount. As he progresses in his career, he or she will be able to increase his contribution towards Mutual Fund SIP.
2. Similarly, when someone reaches a stage where he need to spend more on kid’s higher education, daughter’s wedding, buying a house or meeting a major financial commitment, it is difficult for him to continue the same amount of Mutual Fund SIP contribution.
3. So whenever you renew your Mutual Fund SIP at the end of 6 month or 1 year, you can look at your cash flow position and based on that you can renew the Mutual Fund SIP for the increased amount or the same amount or the reduced amount.

Portfolio Review:

Also it gives you a chance to review your portfolio with your advisor once in 6 months or 1 year.

1. The scheme which you have chosen for Mutual Fund SIP is performing well when compared to its peers or not? You need to review this periodically. The scheme may turn out to be a laggard.
2. The scheme may be performing well when you have chosen for doing SIP. But over a period of time, it could have derailed from its performance. This is something like our cricket players. They will be in a good form in the game for some period of time. Then they will lose their form after sometime. So you need to periodically check up whether the fund is performing NOW or not.
3. If you are committing a Mutual Fund SIP for 10 years, then the advisor may not be coming back to you whenever you call him for reviewing your portfolio. If you commit for 6 months or 1 year he or she will be definitely coming to you for renewing the Mutual Fund SIP. You can have a review with him or her at that time.

When you commit Mutual fund SIP for long term, generally we ignore to review it. It may generate poor returns. You can avoid this by periodic review.

Equity Exposure in Overall Portfolio:

How much equity exposure you can give to your overall portfolio can change the amount of Mutual Fund SIP in equity and debt.

1. As the age goes up, your ability to take risk comes down. So you need to change your equity mutual fund SIP contribution periodically.
2. How close or distant you are to achieve your financial goals will also decide your equity exposure. If you have got long period to achieve your financial goal then you can have more equity exposure. When you have short period to achieve your financial goal, then you need to reduce your equity exposure.
3. Rebalancing your portfolio based on your predetermined asset allocation will also decide your equity exposure.

All this can change your Mutual Fund SIP amount in equity funds.

So committing a Mutual Fund SIP for long term looks good on paper. For practical reasons we need to commit for short term and renew it at the end of every short term till achieving our financial goals.

In this regard, instead of committing a Mutual Fund SIP just like that, having a long term financial plan and committing Mutual Fund SIP based on that plan will be really fruitful. This will make a solid difference in achieving 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.

10 Things To Do Before You Retire

2011-09-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

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

Don’t put off today what you can’t afford to do tomorrow. In spite of the world wide pension crisis and a growing acceptance that we must plan and save for our retirement, the harsh reality is we are actually not saving enough. Research reports reveal that only 15% of the individuals are saving sufficiently for their retired life. Here are a few tips on things to do before you retire so that your retired life is more comfortable and enjoyable.

Get Rid of All Your Debts:

If you are taking a housing loan, personal loan, car loan or any other loan make sure that you will be repaying them on or before your retirement. You need to choose the term of the loan in accordance with your retirement age. You can enjoy your retired life when you have 100% financial freedom, not when you have to repay your loans.

Protect Your Emergency fund:

Emergency expenses can happen any time. But the possibility goes up during the old age. So we need to enhance the emergency reserve year on year based on the inflation and change in your expense levels. Emergency fund will give you a sense of security and also you need not touch your other investments during emergency where you need to pay pre-closure penalty. Also don’t forget to refill the emergency fund once you met an expense out of emergency fund.

Establish a Retirement Budget:

You need to visualize your retired life well in advance and need to create a budget for your retirement. That is you will not be going to office. So the expenses on transport and clothes may come down. Also you will have more time to spend. You may need to spend more on leisure travel and health care.

Examine Your Cash Flow:

Take a close look at your cash inflow as well as outflow. Is there going to be any income after retirement? Like rent, royalty…. Would there be any unwanted outflow during retired life? Like paying life insurance, or SIP. At times during your beginning of the career , you could have taken a policy where you need to pay premium up to the age of 60. But now you may plan to retire at 55 itself. So you need to realign your existing policy and other investments in sync with your retirement age.

Grow Your Retirement Corpus:

Find out how much corpus you need to have when you retire so that you will be having complete financial freedom. A professional financial planner will of great assistance to you in this regard.

Develop a withdrawal strategy:

How are you planning to withdraw your cash outflow during retirement from the retirement corpus? Monthly, quarterly, half yearly or annually? Through Sytematic Withdrawal plan in mutual funds or by way of dividend or interest. All these will have a great impact on the corpus you need to accumulate. So you need to decide in advance.

Minimize taxes:

Your retirement corpus and retirement income need to be tax efficient. You need to pay taxes as and when the fixed deposits matures irrespective of that you withdraw interest or reinvest under a cumulative option. But you need to pay interest only when you withdraw from the mutual funds. Careful selection of investment vehicle can reduce your tax during the retired life.

Get Sufficient Mediclaim coverage:

The moment you retire, your employer will stop covering you under the group mediclaim. So you need to plan for your individual medical cover well in advance. At old age the medical expenses are inevitable. If you have not planned it properly the all your retirement plan will become a mess.

Consider Inflation adjusted annuities:

The monthly income you need when you retire is not going to be the same even after 5 years of your retirement. Inflation will increase your retirement expenses year after year. So year after year your retirement income needs to go up.

Oversee estate planning:

How your fixed assets and financial assets need to be distributed to your legal heirs? Create a WILL. You can avoid creating relationship problems to your next generation because of your left out wealth.

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.

All you wanted to know about Mutual fund ELSS

2011-09-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

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

There are so many tax saving investment options; how Mutual fund ELSS Schemes stand out from all other options?

A Mutual Fund ELSS is similar to diversified equity funds. That means the fund manager can invest in shares of various companies across various industries. The difference is ELSS has got the added tax benefit, something a diversified equity fund does not offer.

ELSS is part of the Section 80C instruments which are cumulatively eligible for a deduction from income up to Rs.1 Lakh. This gives the tax payers benefits from 10 per cent to 30 per cent (excluding the educational cess) based on their current tax slab.
The other tax saving investments like NSC, PPF will give only 8% return p.a whereas the Mutual Fund ELSS has got the potential to deliver more than 12% return p.a. Also the lock-in period in Mutual Fund ELSS is 3 years and with NSC it is 6 yrs lock-in and with PPF it is 15 years. Among the various tax saving investment option, Mutual fund ELSS has got the least lock-in period.

Ulips are also one of the tax saving investment options. But now everyone has realized that Ulips has got heavy front loaded charges. Moreover smart investors want to separate their insurance from their investments. They no longer see insurance as an investment; they see insurance as a protection plan. So the smart investors go only for pure term insurance and reject ulips.

This is how Mutual Fund ELSS stands out of the crowd.

Before deciding to go for Mutual fund ELSS, here are some points to ponder over. First check your overall portfolio. Does it need more equity exposure? If yes then you can go for ELSS; if no then you can go for PPF or NSC.

Second thing is to keep in mind, the equity investments are for long term, say 5 years or more. Though the lock-in period in ELSS is 3 years it is better to invest with a time horizon of 5 yrs or more.

Also investors need to keep in mind, SIP is the best form of investing in mutual funds and ELSS is not an exception. So doing an SIP in ELSS is a good strategy to be followed.

The poor performing ELSS has given around 10% annualized return in the last 5 years whereas the best performing ELSS has delivered around 25% annualized return in the last 5 years. So investors need to be careful in choosing the right ELSS scheme. Past performance, risk adjusted return, consistency are a few parameters to be evaluated in selecting a best performing ELSS scheme. Investors also can approach financial advisors for selecting the right scheme.

There are two groups of ELSS investors. Majority of investors belong to the first group. They will wake up late to these tax saving investments. For salaried individuals, it is typical that they will be informed by their accounts department somewhere around end of January to provide proof of tax saving investment immediately or else extra tax will be deducted from their February salary. At the neck of the moment, the choice ends up being guided by convenience alone. They tend to think about tax first and investments later. As long as something saves tax, its real benefits and features as an investment are paid less attention to. That means the investments will be chosen more for convenience than for suitability.

There is another group of investors. Though this group is a very small group, it is a very smart group. They will not rush for tax saving scheme at the last minute. They will plan in advance. That means they will have more time to choose the right product. They will save tax as well as choose a good investment option. They will also check whether this particular tax saving scheme will suit their overall portfolio or not; will this tax saving investment is going to fit into their comprehensive financial plan. That means they will consciously choose an investment which saves tax as well as helps them in achieving their financial goals like children’s higher education, buying a house, retirement plans.

So…now just check up which group you are in.

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.

How to move Gmail signature to top

2011-08-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

If you have created a signature in Gmail, while sending a Reply to a email or while forwarding an email, you might face this issue. Your Gmail Signature will come at the bottom of the mail you are Replying or forwarding.

If you want to move Gmail signature to top, follow the below steps. It's very easy.

Select the Options Icon at the Top Right Corner in your Gmail page
Then Click on Labs

Now Press "Ctrl + F" to Search for "Signature tweaks" in Labs
Enable it by clicking the Radio button against Enable

Now hit the Save button at bottom of the page.
Now go to the Signature Editor in Options -> Mail Settings.
Add email delimiter (--) to your signature as it will not be automatically added

here

Eight Simple Ways to Plan your Taxes

2011-08-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

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

You have got only a few more months to complete this financial year. Very soon you will get a call from your company to submit the proofs for tax saving investments. So why don’t you spend some time on organizing your tax plan?

1) Proper Allocation of Annual compensation:

Restructuring your salary with some additional components can reduce your tax liability. This restructuring doesn’t require any additional cash outflow. The following components can be efficiently used to reduce your income tax liability.

Transport allowance to the extend of Rs.800 is exempt
Medical expenses which are reimbursed by the employer are exempt to the tune of Rs.15000
Food coupons like sodexo or ticket restaurant are exempt from tax up to Rs.60000
Individuals who are all living in a rented accommodation can include House Rent Allowance ( HRA ) as a part of their salary
Leave Travel Allowance (LTA) can be part of your salary as this can be claimed twice in a block of 4 years.

2) Effective Utilization of Tax Exemption:

As far as possible utilize the maximum exemptions available under section 80 C, 80 CCF and 80 D. The maximum exemption available under section 80 C is Rs. 100000.

Under this section Rs.100000 investment or contribution can be made in PPF, NSC, Life insurance premium, 5 year FD with banks and Post offices, Mutual Fund ELSS, Principal Repayment of housing loan, and the tuition fees paid for children’s education.

Under Section 80 CCF, you can invest up to Rs.20000 in infrastructure bonds.

Under Sec 80 D, the premium paid towards the mediclaim policies are exempt. The maximum limit of exemption is Rs.15000 and for senior citizens the limit is Rs.20000 and for covering senior citizen parents there is an additional exemption to the extend of Rs.15000.

3) Properly Structure your Housing Loan:

The Principal repayment of a housing loan is eligible for a deduction up to Rs.100000. The interest paid on a housing loan is eligible for a deduction up to Rs.150000. If the housing loan is for a sizeable amount, then it is possible that the principal repayment and interest may exceed the specified tax exemption limit. To utilise the maximum tax benefit, an individual can consider going for a joint home loan with his/her spouse or parent or sibling. This will make sure that both the co-owners can claim tax deductions in the proportion of their holding in the loan.

4) Tax Plan in Sync with Overall Financial Plan:

You should not do your tax plan in isolation. You need to do it in sync with your overall financial plan. So a tax plan is not only to just save taxes and also it should assist you in achieving your other financial goals like children’s higher education, buying a home or retirement.

5) Avoid Last Minute Rush:

In fact the right time to do the tax plan is the beginning of the financial year. If you postpone your tax planning even now and do it in the last minute, then you will not be able to choose the right investment. In the last minute rush, you will be forced to choose a scheme which gives the proof immediately. Is the investment sound and profitable? Is there any other better options? You will not be able to choose the best scheme and you may settle with a mediocre one.

6) Invest Some Quality Time:

Before investing your money, you need to invest your time. You need to take some quality time to understand the various tax saving options and compare their benefits and limitations.

7) Check for Future Commitments:

Some tax saving options like NSC or ELSS need only onetime investment. Some other tax saving options like PPF, Ulips need periodical investments year after year. You need to be careful in choosing a tax saving scheme where you need to commit for periodical future payments. You need to check on a few things like; do you need such a future commitment? Will you be able to meet the future commitments at ease? The law may change and you may not get any tax exemption for your future payments. Would you consider the scheme irrespective of tax benefit for the future payments?

8) Changed Your Job; Redo your Tax Plan:

Did you switch your job in the middle of the financial year? Then you need to redo your tax plan with consolidating the income from both the companies. It is advisable to inform the new company about the income during the particular financial year from the old company. So that your new company will deduct the right amount of TDS. Otherwise you may need to pay extra tax at the end of the financial year.

Whenever you change your job, you need to have a sitting with your financial planner or tax advisor. So that the required changes in your tax plan can be done proactively.

With proper tax planning you can reduce your tax liability; save more; invest better and become wealthier.

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.

A Personal Finance Checklist for Newly weds

2011-08-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

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

Getting married is one of the most important events in your life. There is so much to consider—the flowers, the jewel, the dress, the venue, the photography—the list goes on. Once you are back from the honeymoon, the daily life of marriage begins and also begins the challenges of managing the finances of a new household with your spouse.

In recent studies, many couples ranked financial matters as one of the most essential factors when it comes to happiness in a marriage. It is one of the key factors causing marital stress.

Money Compatibility:

First thing to do is to check how compatible you and your spouse in money management. You may be conservative and your spouse may be aggressive. You may think that the best place to invest is stock market and your spouse may think bank FDs.

You should communicate your money management style to your spouse as well as you need to understand the money management style of your spouse. Both of you need to analyse the merits and demerits of money management style of each other and their own. Then you need to create a mutually agreed combined money management style.

This will be vital to you both throughout your married life to help minimize stress from disagreements about money.

Update Your Records:

• Change of Address: You could have shifted to your in law’s place or both of you could have shifted to a new place. So you need to make necessary change of address requests to your bank accounts, demat accounts, mutual fund accounts and so on.
• Change of Name: Generally the women change their initial or the last name after their marriage. This need to be updated in all the accounts.
• Change of Nominee/Beneficiary: You may like to change the nominee to your spouse for the investments, accounts, insurance policies which you have taken before marriage.
• Changes in Will: You also need to create a will if you have not created one so far. If you have already a will, then you need to revisit your will now.

Assign Financial Responsibilities:

You need to decide, who is going to take care of day to day money management i.e. paying bills, monitoring investments and the like.

Develop a Family Budget:

You need to create a workable budget for your family that gives extra money and life. This budget should take into account both of your income, the individual expenses and family expenses.

Create an Emergency Fund:

You need to accrue savings for some surprise situations like loss of job, break in job or sudden expenses like a major repair to your car or house. Generally the emergency fund needs to be in the range of 3 to 6 month of family expenses.

Insurance Coverage:

So far, you may not be having any dependents or less number of dependents. You could not have considered life insurance or take for a less coverage. This is the time to look at life insurance seriously. When I say life insurance, I am talking about only term insurance and not the ULIPs. Ulips have been rejected by the market for its heavy front loaded charges.

Debt Payoff Plan:

Suppose, if you are already on debt, you need to create a debt payoff plan. This plan will help you in getting out of debt and staying out of debt.

Spend Smarter and Save More:

Spending habits will be different from individual to individual. Both of you need to align your spending pattern and learn how to spend smarter and save more.

When both are working and not having kids yet is the stage you have more income, especially more disposable income. Couples need to be careful and avoid overspending and save as much as possible during this stage. This will ease you out when you have more expenses at the later stage of your life.

Set Combined Financial Goals:

Both of you need to spend some quality time discussing about the financial goals like buying a home, international vacation and the like. This is the right time to plan your retirement.

Chalk out a Financial Plan:

Once you have set the combined financial goals, then you need to chalk out a financial plan to achieve these goals. You need to take into account growth rate of your income, inflation on your expenses, time set to achieve various goals, rate of return expected from various investment options.

This is slightly a complicated procedure and this plan need to be reviewed periodically. That is why it is better to outsource it. You may seek assistance from a professional financial planner.

To financially succeed, it needs teamwork from both the partners. As a newly married couple, you have enough time and plenty of opportunity. I am sure that with this checklist and the guidance from financial planner, you will reach your life goals together.

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.

How Should you invest in stock market after your retirement

2011-08-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

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

How and Why Should you invest in Stock Markets Even After Your Retirement?

Inflation and Retirement:

Most Retirees feel great getting a bulk sum as provident fund and gratuity, and wish they knew a magician, who could spin their money 2 to 3 times in just 5 years, in addition to ensuring a regular return for their day to day expenses. It is true we all want it to keep up with the inflation rate in the market. I know of no such magicians, and it is practically not possible to multiply your money 2 to 3 times in just 5 years. But I definitely know of smart investment planning and investment advisors that could help you to beat inflation.

A step by step look at your considerations to come out with smart calculated investment decisions:

• Post-retirement, you know that you would no longer earn a regular income and would have to stay on your savings, provident fund, gratuity, and other benefits that have been given to you. You would definitely want more good returns on your investments, but your appetite for risk is low, for you would not want to lose your precious savings. So you would prefer to shift your portfolio of investment from risky ones to safer ones like fixed deposits in banks and good rated companies.

• However, your need for more income, capital gains to keep up with inflation, and rates of interest on fixed deposits decreasing each year may make you puzzled about coping up with the increased financial needs. You, as a senior citizen are lucky to be getting additional interest, however taxes leave you with not much more. However you are not prepared to subject your savings to the volatile bullish and bearish trends of the share market of over-confidence and pessimism.

• You retire at 60, considering 5% is the rate of inflation annually, with life span as 85, and spending Rs.20000 per month, you would require a retirement corpus of Rs.42,00,000 if the return rate was 8%, while you would require Rs.47,00,000 if the return rate was only 7%. I am sure you would invest smart, reducing your retirement corpus by 10.5% by just investing for 1% more return.

• It is true that stocks and shares gave an annual compounded return of 17 to 18% in the last 15 years, with long term stocks giving a compounded returns of about 15 to 18% annually. However, you have not appetite for risky and volatile investments, and may want to play safe with low or moderate risk to capital and in not putting all your eggs in one basket or to divide your risk.

• After your retirement you would do best to follow the advice of financial experts and invest no more than 10 to 20% of your retirement corpus in shares and stocks. A novice to the share market, or lack of time, inclination or shrewdness may not prove right to deal in the share market, and most financial advisors advice senior citizens to invest in mutual funds. These companies have experienced fund managers and researchers with in-depth knowledge of various industries and valuation principles and also offer diversified investment options in shares in companies, debt instruments and government securities.

• The choice of retirees should be to invest in big cap funds, funds investing in huge paid-up capital companies, while mid cap funds suit those who do not mind medium risk-taking. However small cap funds, invested mostly in start-up companies are to be avoided, being highly volatile in nature.

• Time plays a vital role in investment in mutual funds, and a good investment advisor would advice you appropriately. The best option for senior citizens would be to first invest a lump sum in a debt based funds that promise good, safe and regular return. This could be followed up by a systematic investment/transfer plan of investing or transferring through ECS regularly a fixed amount for units of a mutual fund. This definitely proves beneficial to take advantage of the volatility of the market, as buying different number of units each month helps to spread the risk also.

A Final Thought:

However your smart calculated investment choice of mutual funds requires evaluating every 3 to 6 months. This would help switching between mutual funds at the right time. My last but most important advice again especially to senior citizens is never go in for stock trading in a big way without proper knowledge and inclination and lose due to volatility of stock and share market.

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.

What is Phising Scam? Stay away and stay safe from such scams.

2011-08-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

What is Phising Scam?

Phishing is a technique used by fraudulent individuals or groups by which they try to collect sensitive personal information from unsuspecting users by employing social engineering techniques. They send emails that appears exactly same as an email from a genuine Bank, or Income tax dept etc and the mail contains a link that points to the Phishing site which looks very similar to the Bank or IT Dept website.

Then they will ask the user to fill the personal information like User name, password, transaction password, pin etc. Once they get all these information, they will save these info in their database and use it to access your Bank account or Credit Card account and will go away with all your money.

Don't fall Pray to such Phishing Scams:

Why people fall pray to such Phishing scams?
Because the Phishing emails entice them saying that they can get some money by clicking the link provided. The text is very similar to message from a bank, credit card or Income Tax dept. But, if you are not expecting any money, why should you click such fraudulent links? No bank or credit card or Income Tax dept will send you money if you are not eligible for a refund. In case of refund, you must be aware of it well ahead.

Precautions to take while using internet to stay safe from Phishing scams

Here are few tips provided by HDFC bank. Folow these tips and stay away from such Phishing scams.

In case of doubt, do not click on any link provided in the e-mail.
Do not give any confidential information such as password, customer id, Credit/Debit Card number or PIN,CVV,DOB to any e-mail request, even if the request is from government authorities like Income Tax department or any Card Association company like VISA or Master Card.
Do not open unexpected e-mail attachments or instant message download links.
Always check the web address carefully before sharing any sensitive information.
For logging in, always type the website address on your web browser. For example if you want to login to HDFC bank website, type www.hdfcbank.com.
Ensure that you have installed the latest anti-virus/ anti-spyware/ personal firewall/ security patches on your computer or high end mobile phones.
Use non-admin user ID for daily work on your computer.
Do not access NetBanking or make payments using your Credit/ Debit Card from shared or unprotected computers in public places, like cyber cafe or hotel rooms.
Do not call and leave any personal or account details on any telephone system, voice message, e-mail or an SMS.
Do not transfer funds to or share your account details with, unknown/ non-validated source, luring you with commission, attractive offers.

Hope this information will be useful to you and will help you stay away from Phishing Scams and stay safe online.

Real life example of Phishing Scams:

Recently one of my friend who is a Software Engineer in a Big MNC was about to fell in the Phishing scam. He almost filled all sensitive information like net banking login id, password, etc. But luckily he noticed the website link to be different and then closed the website thinking that it's a Scam website.

It's a big shock to know that people with good technical knowledge and well acquainted with internet fall pray to Phishing Scams. Apply your common sense. No body will give you money without any genuine reason.

Share with your friends and family members to stay safe online. Don't ignore. Let's make internet a safe place. Post your valuable comments.

How to share a file publicly

2011-08-13T12:14:00.001-07:00

How to share a file publicly with your friends, or team mates or blog readers?

There are many ways to share a file publicly. But there are many restrictions, or inconvenience while sharing. Even the users also face many difficulty in downloading the file you shared.

I found DropBox to be very useful tool if you want to share a file of any type, i.e. text, spread sheet, power point, executable, picture, image, audio or video.

How to share a file publicly through Dropbox:

1. Log in to your DropBox account. Open the Public folder.
2. Add the file to Public folder.
3. Right-click/control-click this file, then choose "Copy Public Link". This copies the Internet link to your file so that you can use the link address to share.

[Click on the image to enlarge]

Hope it is useful.

Personal finance and Investment Tips

2011-07-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2011-07-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

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.

How to white list an email address

2011-07-24T00:31:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-24T00:16:00.000-07:00

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

Mutual Funds Mythbuster

2011-07-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Cool links to learn Arts n Crafts

2011-07-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2011-07-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

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.

Fear and Greed - Avoid them to Become a successful Investor

2011-07-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

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.

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

2011-07-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

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/

Mental Accounting: Get Richer by avoiding this Money Mistake

2011-07-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

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.

What is PIN Code or Postal Index Number?

2011-06-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

The PIN Code or Postal Index Number Code system was introduced on 15-August-1972 in India. The purpose of PIN Code system is for identifying different places uniquely and easily that will help in transmission of Mails, letters, couriers timely and accurately. Through PIN Code, the confusion of name duplication of different places is solved.

The Indian Post and all Courier Companies use PIN codes to deliver mails to various places. If the PIN code is mentioned properly and the address is not 100% accurate(contains minor spelling mistake), the mail can reach the appropriate person most of the time. Hence, never forget to put PIN code in all your mails/couriers/letters.

Details of the PIN Code number:
Postal Index Number (PIN) is a 6 digit code.
There are 8 PIN regions in India.
The first digit indicates one of the regions.
The first 2 digits together indicate the sub-region or one of the postal circles.
The first 3 digits together indicate a sorting / revenue district.
The last 3 digits refer to the delivery Post Office.

5 Signs when you should sell your mutual funds

2011-06-23T18:59:00.000-07:00

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

When To Sell A Mutual Fund?

Start making the decision:

It is vital for an investor, to have long-term investment plans. But he needs to constantly verify if these funds are helping him to achieve his financial objectives. You, as an investor need to keep track of how your investments in mutual funds are growing. Also you need to make sure that you do not suffer huge losses due to non-performance.

As an investor you need to learn not only when to buy but also when to sell a mutual fund. Learning the principles of when to sell a mutual fund helps weed off investment in unprofitable mutual funds and build up a desirable and profitable portfolio of mutual fund investments.

Look at situations to sell mutual funds:

1. Chronic Under-performer:

Investor should stay invested for long tern in a risky asset class like equity. You should wait patiently for a minimum period of 5 years to watch your investments grow. Making comparisons between similar funds proves futile.

However you should make a note if your fund is continuously under performing. Comparing each of your funds with the respective fund benchmark index for various periods like 2 years, 3years and 5 years helps. You may need to move out of a continuous under performer and move in to a continuous performer.

2. Changes in objectives of your mutual fund:

Next, an investor like you, investing with definite financial objectives with allocation to different sectors and market capitalization may feel uneasy and suspicious with the change in the fund’s objectives that exposed you to greater risk or risk in other sectors also.

Fund takeovers, change of ownership and mergers change the level of risk in a mutual fund portfolio. So you as an investor may find your need, not met and may want to sell the fund. This was the reason why many investors, who invested in UTI Mastergrowth Fund, sold their funds when it changed to UTI Top 100 Fund.

3. Repositioning of a fund:

Though the fund has got an investment objective to invest in various market caps, so far the fund may be investing only in midcaps and positioned in the market as a large cap fund. But later, the fund may reposition the same fund as a multi cap fund and start investing in large cap stocks also. This change may not be a suitable one for an aggressive investor.

So as an investor, you need to be careful in watching the funds after investing. That too when a fund changes its positioning, you need to keep a close track of the same to prevent your investments from any adverse effect.

4. Appreciation in investment attained:

It is quite possible that your investment could have been shrewd and calculated and achieved the targeted appreciation ahead of time. I congratulate you, but would like to tell you that greediness may also make you lose on that foresighted gain. Selling off your fund in full or part and investing in safer avenues like debt funds, fixed maturity plans and fixed deposits of companies and in banks would safeguard your money yet give you some small return.

Say you wanted to accumulate Rs.10 lacs for the higher education of your daughter/son in 5 years time. Your investments have appreciated to 10 lacs at the end of 4 year itself. It is better to change it immediately to safe and non-risky investments. If you leave the investments in the same fund, it may come down in value because of the subsequent market fall.

So when the goal value has been reached, one needs to protect the appreciation by moving out from the existing risky investments and moving in to a safer investment.

5. Rebalancing based on the asset allocation:

As an investor you need to maintain an overall asset allocation ratio and you need to stick to it to gain more. Sometimes your investments have appreciated and this has increased the percentage of your portfolio in equity and maybe reduced the percentage on debt and other safe avenues.

You need to realize this means that you are exposing more of your investment to the volatile equity market that was risky. This could surely be remedied with rebalancing. That is selling a portion of the over appreciated asset and reinvesting the same in the lesser appreciated asset.

Selling funds to Achieve:

I am sure you would have understood these principles of when to sell a mutual fund. This will assist you in taking better investment decisions and achieving 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.

When is Father's day?

2011-06-19T18:42:00.001-07:00

June 19th is the Father's Day. This day is celebrated in most countries in the world like USA, UK etc as a day of celebration for all the fathers who takes care of you, who shows you the right path, who is always there for you as a mountain to help and support you, who love and cares for you all the time.

In India father's day is not celebrated with much hype. But, it's a very important day. Do not forget to wish your father today.

Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a DADDY!

Happy Father's Day to all the Daddys in the World!!

BCECE 2011 result

2011-06-12T03:27:00.000-07:00

Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination (BCECE) is conducted by Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination Board (BCECEB) for admission into engineering and medical colleges in Bihar. Based on merit/rank, the studends get admission into various Government and Private colleges.

BCECE 2011 Result

Refer BCECE Board website for all board announcements.

8 Family Budgeting Misconceptions demystified

2011-06-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

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

Let’s put on our thinking cap:

Depositing our pay cheques in bank and using the credit and ATM card for spending seems easy. However keeping the track of your income and expenses, to get full value for your money is possible only with budgeting. Budgeting helps most of us to keep track of our income and spending and not overspend.

In practice 8 budgeting myths retard the savings of a lifetime. They are:

1) I earn a lot and need not budget:

This requires a change of perspective. Michel Jackson lived like a king but died awash in $400 million debt. Budgeting by watching your spending pattern helps trace unnecessary expenses on clothes or eating out, and help you save for a future or for a much wanted dream holiday. So how much you earn has got less relevance. What is more important is budgeting. Proper budgeting can make a low income earner to retire richer and overspending can make a high income earner a pauper.

2) I hold a secure job and see no reason to save:

This does not hold well today with large corporations going in for labor layoff to save costs during recession. Small corporations also put you at a risk with the death of the owner or the company going into losses.

This insecurity demands caution to save for spending during such periods when you are caught unaware, with an emergency fund coming handy.

3) I am poor in calculations and cannot budget:

With useful tools like spreadsheet that help account for expenses and income earned make the budgeting much easier. A look at the spending helps avoid unnecessary expenses to budget and save in future. If you are interested one can easily learn budgeting. So if you say ‘I don’t know how to make a budget’, it shows your level of interest and willingness to save for a secured future.

4) I am lucky; I will never be short of money:

However your ability in meeting high bills and other unpredictable expensive events like life threatening accidents, or a major surgery without experiencing shortage of money may not be always true.

So better save and be prepared to face unpredicted contingencies and then use the savings for something else that you may consider desirable.

5) I pay my bills promptly and do not need budgeting:

Congratulations I appreciate your credit worthiness, but going into negative balance is also quite easy. You may be self disciplined. It doesn’t mean that you need not make a budget. Preparing a budget makes you much more disciplined and spend consciously. So budgeting with saving helps avoid going into negative balance or overdraft.

6) Budgeting could lead to deprivation:

Budgeting is not frugal living and foregoing all pleasures like a movie a month and an eat out once a week, but it just not allowing your earnings to be not overtaken by your expense. Everyone is planning to save, planning to invest, but do we have a well thought out plan for spending. A smart spending plan only can lead you to save more.

There is no need to feel deprived with budgeting; it just means saving a percentage of your income spent unnecessarily to have a secured future.

7) I have small wants and find no need to save:

This need not be a stable attitude in human nature, with you wanting to take advantage of certain financial trends in the market like buying house or land at cheaper rates, or investing at higher rates towards building a bigger retirement corpus. Hence budgeting helps to save when you do not want money for a time when you could profitably use it.

Your wants may be small but basic needs like food, shelter, and clothing are becoming costlier with inflation. Also you need to take into account your health care needs of the future.

8) I get rises, bonus and tax refunds and find no need to budget:

I think you have been lucky all these years, however these benefits are highly unpredictable and placing ones hopes fully on them is futile. It is better to budget and save than depend on unpredictable benefits like bonus, raise and tax refunds. The recent recession has taught us a lesson to all of us which we should not forget easily.

Budgeting and your future:

Take charge of your future now. Budgeting is the first step towards controlling your financial destiny. Don’t let your unconscious spending habits decide your financial destiny.

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.

Oriya font not displayed in Bhulekh.ori.nic.in

2011-06-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

Many of my friends complain that they cannot see the Odia text in http://bhulekh.ori.nic.in/. This site is the Odisha Govt site which deals with land records and many other useful information and utilities.

Even though the site is very useful, but it's not so easy to use. I will recommend few tips to use the site so that you will see the Odia font properly.

Steps to display Odia font in Bhulekh website:

1. This site works properly in Internet Explorer only. So, always open it in Internet Explorer.
2. If the State and District information are not displayed properly, if it shows garbage text (See image below), you will have to install an Odia font to resolve this.
3. Click the link "Download Odia Font"(Refer below Images)
If you have difficulty in downloading the font, you may use this alternate link to download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/22112406/Download%20Odia%20Font%20for%20Bhulekh/ORBWMK3N.TTF
4. Open and Install the font. You are done.
5. Now close all Internet Explorer window and open the Bhulekh site in a new Internet Explorer browser.

Hope, you will be able to browse Bhulekh without any problem now.

How to Link to different sections in an html page

2011-05-29T02:16:00.000-07:00

If you want to link to different sections in your HTML webpage, or point to different headers in a HTML document, here is how you can do it.

How to add a link to a section in an HTML page:

<a name="OldPapers">Old Papers Section</a>

We can access the section directly by using below URL:
http://www.websitename.com#OldPapers

Even we can add link to sections by providing ID attribute with a tag.
<h3 id="HeadingSection">Heading Section</h3>
We can access the section directly by using below URL:
http://www.websitename.com#HeadingSection

Here is an example. All bank Exam Blog
All bank Exam Blog Old Papers Section

The Code for second one is <a href="http://allbankexam.blogspot.com/#OldPapers">All bank Exam Blog Old Papers Section</a>

Read more at http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html

How to save more by spending smarter?

2011-05-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

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

The willingness and the ability to save money is the secret of building wealth. So as to save money, you need to spend less than you actually earn. Though it looks very simple when you say, it is really difficult to implement. There are plenty of ways to help you start saving money even on the very tight budget. Saving money or spending less is all about the personality, belief system, values of a family.

Spending less and saving more are lifelong living skills that need time to develop. Unless and otherwise, you have a written financial goals, you will lose your focus and go after consumerism and materialism.

To save more, obviously you need to spend smarter. To spend smarter, you need to understand your own spending patterns. Consciously you need to track all your expenses on a daily or weekly basis. So that you will be able to find out what influences your spending pattern.

Spending money has got so many influencing factors. But all these influencers can be classified into five broad spending influencers.

1) Emotions:

Your emotions play an important role in your spending pattern. The positive feelings like happy, fun, joy can influence you to spend more on entertainments and gifts. The negative feelings like envy, jealous, shame, stress, depression, frustration can influence you to spend more on smoking, drinking, buying things you actually don’t need, relaxation and healthcare.

2) Traditional Thought:

This is because of your belief system and your thought process. I need to buy a silk saree every year for my wedding anniversary. I have to burst crackers for diwali. These are all the classic examples of how your traditional thoughts will influence your spending pattern.

3) Society:

Society in which you live will have more influence on your spending. You have to buy a car as all your colleagues are coming to office in their own car. On the occasion of your kid’s birthday, you need to arrange gifts for all the classmates of your kid. You should be watching this movie, on a first day first show.

This influencer is caused by friends, colleagues, neighbours, relatives, and club members. Even at times, the advertisements and promotional offers like a discount sale can make you to spend more.

4) Habits:

Habits formed when you are growing up can make us spend impulsively. Generally this will be for our sensual pleasures. Spending on movies, music, eating out, smoking, drinking are the best examples for this influencer.

5) Commitments:

This includes paying off your debts and loans, commitments towards family like school fees, buying groceries and other provisions, paying rent, paying for medical insurance. You are committed to pay these expenses earlier.

By tracking and analyzing your each and every expense, you will be able to identify the influencers which made you to spend. Here are some strategies to overcome these influencers and spend smarter:

Control Your Emotions:

Instead of spending money, you can control your emotions by doing something else like doing yoga or meditation, watching comedy shows on TV, going to temple or beach. You need to solve the root of the emotion. You have to do introspection and need to keep a balanced mind always. Balanced mind is a key for spending smarter.

Self Talk:

You need to consciously change your thought patterns to come out of traditional thinking. “I don’t really need a saree for every wedding anniversary”. “I am not a kid; so I need not burst crackers on diwali”. These kinds of auto suggestions will change your thought process and you will be able to really prioritize things on which you spend.

You are unique:

You were born original. Please don’t die a copy. There is no need to feel bad if you don’t get to spend or buy things like your friends or people around you. You are unique and special in your own way. You need to discuss with your family and friends about “How to live happily by achieving compromised spending patterns?”

Learn and unlearn Habits:

The unwanted habits which make you spend more can be unlearned. Good habits which make you spend smarter can be learned. Habits can be learned and unlearned. But you need to know it is not a quick fix. It involves a process and a commitment.

A habit is an intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge is ‘what to do and the why’. That is we need to spend less to save more and become richer. Skill is ‘How to do’. That is ‘how we spend less and what are all the strategies to be applied for spending less’. Desire is the motivation, the want to do. What are we trying to achieve by spending less? How that is more important to us than spending more. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.

Unwanted Commitments:

You can’t avoid certain commitments like groceries, schools fees. But definitely you can discontinue unwanted commitments like the club membership in which you are not actively participating and not getting any actual use out of it; the chits impulsively you have enrolled with a jewelry shop.

Money not spent is saved. These above strategies will only work if you truly have a desire for future financial success. You need to be disciplined and persistent in the course of implementing these strategies. The more you practice smart spending, wealthier you become.

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.

What is Origami

2011-05-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

The word Origami originates from ori meaning "folding", and kami meaning "paper". Hence, Origami means Paper folding crafts. You can create many things like Animals, birds, flowers etc by folding paper into different shapes.

Origami is a modern art form. The goal of this art is to transform a flat sheet of material into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques, and as such the use of cuts or glue are not considered to be origami.

The number of basic origami folds is small, but they can be combined in a variety of ways to make intricate designs. The best known origami model is probably the Japanese paper crane.

You can learn Origami by watching wonderful video collection at http://origamicollections.blogspot.com

11 ways to get out of debt and stay out of debt

2011-05-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

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

How to Get out and Stay out of Debt?

11 ways to get out of debt and stay out of debt

In spite of steady, regular income there are so many individuals who live paycheque to paycheque, carry their credit card outstanding, and fail to save anything for retirement. If you are one of them, now is the right time to take action to come out of debt and stay out of debt. It is not only possible; it is unbelievably achievable.

1. List down all your debts

You need to take stock of all your loans. It could be credit card due, personal loan, car loan, housing loan, education loan, loan from FD, loan from insurance policies, loan from your employer, hand loan and so on. For each and every loan you need to note down how much you owe, the present interest rate, EMI, Number of months to be paid.

2. Negotiate for lower interest rates

If you could negotiate the interest rate and bring it down then you can come out of debt faster. Most of the credit card companies come forward for negotiation if you really show interest in repaying. They need not run after you to collect the debt. It will reduce their expenses. So they will be happy to negotiate. Balance transfer offers from credit cards are also a way to reduce your interest rate.

3. Refinancing and consolidation

Replacing a loan with another is known as Refinancing. By doing a refinance it should reduce your interest rate and it should bring down the time you are in debt. But most often people go for refinance that provide them lower EMI but increasing the time they stay in debt.

4. Categorise your debt

Housing loan can increase your net worth over a period of time. Housing loan gives you tax benefit also. For a business man car loan provides some tax benefit. Based on these factors a debt needs to be categorized. This will help us in comparing different loans.

5. Prioritize your debts

After sorting out various loans, now we can comfortably prioritize the loans. Obviously this will be based on the interest rates and tax benefits. At times paying off a small loan first can give you a lot of motivation to get out of debt.

6. Creating and Executing a Debt payoff plan

You need to create a debt pay off plan with different scenarios. So that you can find out how some more savings or a different repayment order will help you to get out of debt faster. When creating a plan, you need to choose one which is comfortable to your attitude. Otherwise, you may not execute it properly.

7. Refrain yourselves from applying for fresh loans

You need to make a vow that you will not be adding any fresh loans, till you come out of all your debts completely. Think for a moment, how you will feel when you become debt free. This will give you a lot of positive energy to come out and stay out of debt.

8. Postpone buying major assets

Buying a property or any other assets need to be postponed till you get out of debt. With your new ownership comes the new, probably large and unpredictable expense. This can make you deviate from your debt pay off plans and at times the consequences could be uncontrollable.

9. You stop using your credit card

There are two groups. One group of people uses the credit cards responsibly. That is they will repay the credit card dues in full when they receive the bill. The other group will pay the minimum amount due and carry forward the balance amount due. If you belong to the second group, you need to stop using credit cards temporarily. Take out and keep your credit cards in the locker. Once your financial situation and buying habits improve, then you can start using your credit cards again.

10. Change your spending habits.

Being in debt obviously means that you have been living beyond your means. The solution is very simple. Spend less than you earn and you will get out of debt soon. You need to change your spending habits. Then only this simple solution will be achievable. If you buy things you don't need, you’ll soon sell things you need. Don't save what is left after spending; spend what is left after saving.

11. Involve all your family members

You need to inform all your family members and dependents about your debt status. Then you will be able to take decisions with much more clarity. Moreover, if your family members know about your debt, they will also change their spending habits and support you in getting out of debt faster.

Consider the postage stamp: Its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. Similarly, you need to stick to your debt pay off plan till you get out of it.

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.

Risk of delaying financial decision

2011-05-07T02:20:00.000-07:00

Is lack of time making you go crazy in your attempt to plan your finance?

Does your busy professional schedule offer you time to monitor your personal finance?

Balaji is working for an MNC. Today he has got a deadline for a particular assignment. His day is fully packed. First thing in the morning, he receives a mail from his HR Dept stating that today is the last date for producing proofs for tax saving investments; otherwise a huge amount will be deducted from his salary as tax. He wanted to do some tax saving investments urgently and submit the proof on or before end of the day.

Mahesh is an NRI, working for a software company in US. He has got a couple of crores in his overseas fixed deposits giving a return of 1.50% p.a. Returns are taxable. At times, he thinks that the return what he getting is very low. He wanted to check up with a professional financial planner in India. He thinks he will contact as soon as his present project gets completed. Like this he has not contacted any financial consultant for the last 3years because of some reason or the other.

Most of the investment decisions are either taken because of some compulsion or urgency or postponed because of compulsion or urgency in some other area of life. This is because we want to complete the urgent thing first not the most important thing. Many important things that contribute to our overall financial objectives and give richness don’t tend to give any pressure on us. Though they may not be urgent, they are the things that we must give importance and carry out immediately.

We act upon things like pressing problems, deadline-driven projects, and official meetings. We don’t give importance to
• prepare for a meeting with a financial planner; appraising a financial planner before making investments
• planning activities like budgeting, children’s future planning, retirement planning;
• protective activities like taking a term insurance, house holder policy, health insurance;
• empowering ourselves by upgrading our knowledge with reference to investments
Why we are not able spend time on important things and spend most of our time on urgent things? Because, we are following a way that focuses on how fast or efficiently we are getting things done. We are not following a way that focuses on why we are doing things.

Take the case of Mr.Balaji. Why didn’t he do his tax planning during the beginning of the financial year itself? Why is he chasing at the last minute? Balaji is much worried about his deadline for assignment than tax planning. As he is making investment urgently, it is difficult for him to choose the right financial advisor and also difficult to judge which one would be the best tax saving option for him. He will be investing with an advisor who can get the investment proof on the same day.

Is this the basis on which we select an investment advisor? Will the relationship of Mahesh and this advisor be a long term one? Will this investment is going to be of any help to Balaji in meeting the higher education expenses of his son after 15 years?

Coming to the case of Mr. Mahesh, he had couple of crores at 1.5% pre-tax return. He could have tripled his returns by investing in an Indian liquid fund which is very safe. There are far better investment options available for him to choose. But he has settled for 1.5%.

If he could have spent a day or two in carefully choosing the right financial advisor and investment product he could have earned more. The earning opportunity which he missed with his investments might equal to his 6 months or 1 year salary.

He could have generated that passive income equivalent to 6 month or 1 year salary without any pressure from the top management; without meeting any deadlines by just spending a day or two.
We are all working hard for money. Is our hard earned money is working for us or lying in our SB a/c or really growing?

We find a ladder and see there are so many people trying to reach the top of the ladder faster. Then we also follow the group, deadlines to be met in each and every step; focusing more on reaching the top and finally reached the top. Only after reaching the top, we realize that we have come to a very wrong place or a place which is not worth missing so many things and opportunities in life. This is how the today’s world is.

Nothing wrong in working harder or focusing more on completing the assignment or spending more time on finishing the project on deadline. These are all good thing to do. But always remember, there are better and best things to do. We keep too many good things ahead of a few best things.

Setting up financial goals; working out a plan for achieving those goals; and implementing those plans are all best things to do in life. You know in advance where you want to reach exactly, by doing this exercise. As we progress, we enjoy the journey. As we reach the place, we really feel happy and we have not missed any important thing on the way.

Procrastination and not giving priority to financial goals and investment plans are costliest mistake one can take. So let us stop procrastinating and give priority to our financial goal setting and investment planning. Then life will be really so beautiful.

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

What is URL Shortener? How to shorten long URLs?

2011-05-07T02:06:00.000-07:00

What is URL Shortener?

URL Shortener is a tool used to shorten the lengthy URLs while sharing the URL in the internet. This shortened URL will redirect to the actual website.

How to shorten long URLs?

There are numerous websites that provide the URL shortening service. They also give a tracking of these shortened URLs. Here is a list of most popular URL shortening services.

1. http://goo.gl/
Google URL Shortener

2. http://bit.ly/

3. http://tinyurl.com

4. http://su.pr/
URL Shortener by Stumbleupon

Example of URL Shortening:

I have a blog on Extremely Funny Videos. Here is an URL from that blog.
http://xtreme-funny-videos.blogspot.com/2010/04/funny-baby-video-happy-or-angry.html

I can shorten this big URL using any of the URL Shortener. It will look like as below:
http://goo.gl/1HITH
or
http://bit.ly/ltUTXQ
or
http://tinyurl.com/4x2dqdx

Write in your own handwriting in the web and share with friends

2011-05-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

Fontself Creator (2′25") from Fontself on Vimeo.

President Obama speech on Death of Osama bin Laden

2011-05-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

President Obama speech at White House on Death of most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden, the leader of terrorist group Al-Qaeda, was the mastermind of Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon. After almost 10 years of the attack, the terrorist Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. in Pakistan.

Osama bin Laden Killed in Pakistan

2011-05-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

U.S. has killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (the most wanted terrorist) after 10 years of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon.

Version Control Tools commonly used

2011-05-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of most commonly used Version Control Tools:

1. VSS (Visual SourceSafe - From Microsoft)
2. StarTeam (by Borland)
3. CCCHarvest (Now name changed to CA Software Change Manager)
4. TFS (Team Foundation Server - from Microsoft)
5. ClearCase (by IBM)
5. Subversion (Open Source)

Crowd at the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton Photos

2011-04-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Royal Couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton

Guests at Royal Wedding

Kate Middleton Prince William Royal Wedding

People watching Kate Middleton Prince William Royal Wedding

British people watching Kate Middleton Prince William Royal Wedding

Crowd gathering at Kate Middleton Prince William Royal Wedding

Huge Crowd at Kate Middleton Prince William Royal Wedding

Royal Wedding Pictures - Prince William and Kate Middleton Wedding

2011-04-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Catherine Middleton with her father Michael Middleton at Westminster Abbey for her wedding to Prince William

Prince William placed a Welsh gold wedding ring onto Catherine Middleton's Finger

The Royal Couple Prince William and Catherine Middleton after saying their Vows

Guests at Royal wedding

Prince Harry and maid of honour Philippa Middleton at a lighter moment

Royal Couple walking down the aisle

Royal Wedding Ceremony Picture

William and Catherine heading to Buckingham Palace

Royal Wedding Kiss Kate Middleton and Prince William - The Balcony Kiss

Prince William with Beautiful Kate

Royal Couple return to Buckingham Palace Video

2011-04-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Royal Couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton return to Buckingham Palace.

Royal Wedding Kiss Video

2011-04-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

Prince William and Kate Kiss after the Royal Wedding - The Balcony Kiss

The Balcony Kiss Video - Royal Wedding Will and Kate

2011-04-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

How to Retire Early? Retire sooner and richer

2011-04-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

How to Retire Early? Retire sooner and richer:

The mindset of today’s young professionals is changing radically. They would like to have a semi-retired life in their late forties or early fifties by taking up a hobby instead of a regular job.

Somewhere within all of us, there is a dream to reach a point in life where we have enough wealth to be able to choose the work we would like to do and the pace at which we would like to work, if at all we feel like working; a point also referred to as financial freedom. Financial Freedom is also interpreted as being able to spend whatever amount you like, on whatever things you like, month after month.

Here is a step by step guide to Retire Early.

How long you expect to live?

First of all, you need to decide on “How long you expect to live?” This is going to be the starting point for your retirement plan. This you can decide by your health history and your family health history.

Will you run out of money?

You need to accumulate enough money required to live up to that age. You need to calculate the corpus amount required for retirement based on when do you want to retire?, how much you need to spend every month after retiring?, Inflation, tax, investment returns and the like.

There are two things which can make you run out of money in between. One is inflation and the other one is medical expenses at the old age. So you need to be very careful in assuming inflation when planning for retirement. Also you need to be adequately covered with right health insurance policies.

Retirement corpus Break up:

You need to divide your retirement corpus into two portions. One portion of it is the corpus required to retire at the regular age. It could be 58 or 60. The other portion is the corpus required to live between the early retirement and the regular retirement. Say if you want to retire at 50, what would be the corpus required to live between the age of 50 and the regular retirement age of 58 or 60.

First you need to accumulate money for your regular retirement. Then you need to proceed to accumulate for your early retirement. This way you break your targets and it psychologically gives you a lot of comfort in achieving early retirement.

Don't fall for get-rich-quick schemes:

To retire early, definitely you need a sizable corpus. Don’t look for any short cuts and get-rich-quick schemes. Only with the increased risk comes the increased return. If any scheme assures low risk and high return, then it is going to be another scam. So stay away from those schemes.

Don't fear stocks:

You need to consider investing in a well diversified portfolio for long-term. Diversified Equity mutual fund schemes are better. By investing in a diversified equity portfolio you will be taking calculated risk and not blind risk. Equities will beat all other asset classes in the long run. So it is an important option for those who want to retire early.
Reduce your annual cash requirements for when you retire by working out a careful budget
The monthly income required after retirement is going to be an important criteria for deciding the retirement corpus. If you are comfortable with lesser income you can retire sooner. So you need to be careful in drawing a budget for cash requirement post retirement.

Investigate a better return on your savings:

Better return on your investment portfolio will help you retiring early. So maximize the return on your portfolio as far as possible.

Cut your current spending so you can save more:

Money spent is money saved. Spend less; save more; invest smarter and retire sooner. There are more number of ways to spend smarter to save more.

Earn more now:

Time is money. Don’t waste your time. Invest your time in revenue generating activities. Apart from your regular income source, there are other opportunities which you can exploit. You can create blogs; you can be a freelance writer; you can do internet marketing. There will be numerous opportunities based on your knowledge and skills if you take time to think and implement.

Take advantage of tax-deferred opportunities:

Tax deferment is an important tool for early retirement. Tax deferment means less tax now. If you pay less tax and you will have more money to save. You need to pay tax on FDs on maturity even if you renew them. Income funds and MIPs could be a better alternative to this. You need to pay tax only when you actually redeem.

Find out some ways to have an income:

Even after retirement you can have an income by way of a hobby or interest. You need not work on a regular schedule. Say you can be a trainer, you can be a blogger, you can be a consultant, or you can be an advisor in your chosen field. It generates money as well as it keeps you engaged after retirement. One of my clients has written a book and he is able to generate income from the copyright of that book year on year. If you are able to generate this kind of income, then you can retire early.

Retiring early is possible for each and everybody. You need to start planning for it little earlier. Professional assistance from financial planners will be of definitely useful to you, if you desire to retire sooner and retire richer.

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

Top Ten Tips For Long Term Investors

2011-04-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

Long-term investors wishing for capital gains have to follow a few principles and learn the 10 great tips for long-term investment to safeguarded against heavy losses.

10 Great Tips For Long Term Investors

Decide your investment strategy and stick to it:

You know what is best for you and this applies to deciding with foresight the ideal investment strategy for you. Once the strategy is set, do not fluctuate in your decision each time you decide to invest. This would only mean losses instead of profits. However in certain cases when you realize a certain sector is doing badly, you may have to revise your investment strategy.

Conduct your own research on stocks:

It is not advisable to just depend on hear say and decisions of your neighbor, friend, or relative and invest in stocks. It may seem easy but could amount to gamble. Being an informed investor investing your hard-earned money needs you to ensure if the investment would meet your financial goal. This could be done through research from various sources.

Learn to overlook short term fluctuations:

A long-term investor like you need to understand that it is futile to be affected by short-term fluctuations of the stock market. Investing in good and reputed portfolio ensures good quality of your investment and capital appreciation in the long run. The short-term volatility of the share market has got nothing to do with this financial goal.

Resist investing in penny stocks:

Some investors have a common misconception that it is better to invest in penny stock than in high value stocks. This is wrong as whether you buy stock at Rs.5 a unit or Rs100 a unit you will lose all your money in case of losses. However a company with higher net asset value stock would prove less risk considering the regulations put on it.

Discard the losers and pamper the winners:

There is a tendency for long-term investors to sell off appreciated stock and to hold on to depreciated stock in the hope that it would rise. It is wrong, as it is possible that big value stock could appreciate further and you could become a high net value person and small value stocks could fall further and you could make losses. It is better to acknowledge you went wrong, swallow your pride and discard the loser stocks and lessen your losses. Your decision lies in deciding to suffer a one-time loss for future long-term gains.

Never emphasize overly the price earnings (PE) ratio:

Investors have a tendency to place excess importance on the price earnings ratio. However this could be misleading, and it is better to take other ratios and analytical processes to decide on long-term investments.

Adopt an open-minded investment strategy:

It may be advisable to consider investing in good companies, however it is wrong to overlook the point that small start-up companies would make losses. Even such companies with good strategies and growth plans could contribute to long-term capital appreciation.

Base your investment strategy on the future:

Investment decisions based on past happenings may not always be right. It is better to consider the happenings, but give more importance to the present and future prospects of the investment. An informed decision based on the fundamentals and mission of the company helps in long-term wealth creation.

Consider tax friendly investments:

Making investment decisions based on tax considerations may prove counter-productive. You would have poor long-term capital appreciation. However minimizing taxes and maximizing returns after taxation would help.

Adopt a long-term perspective:

Adopting a long term prospective is advisable for a long-term investor. Only stock traders with time, financial resources and specialized skills like education and expertise could benefit from volatility of the stock market.

Which of these tips do you think are absolutely critical to succeed as a long term investor? Do you think there are more tips a long-term investor should follow, do share with us.

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.
Website: www.holisticinvestment.in

Hit Counter for your Blog or website

2011-04-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

Hit Counter is a Tool that counts all the page visits to your Blog or Website. Hit Counter is a nice tool to have a track on the page visits in your Blog or website. Below is a sample Hit Counter image. But, you can customize the image from a range of choices.

You can have below features in any Hit Counter that you use:
1. The style you want (you can choose one style out of many choices)
2. The starting count (anything you want)
3. What to count (unique visitors or page views)
4. How many digits you want to show
5. Whether or not you want visitors to see your statistics.

There are many websites that provide a free service (Ad-supported) for using Hit Counter.

Here are few useful sites you can use as Hit Counter.

http://www.imghostsrc.com

http://www.hitcounterstats.com

http://superfreecounter.com

http://www.freecountercode.com

Opera Browser - Best for Slow Internet Connection

2011-04-16T13:05:00.000-07:00

If you have a slow internet connection, it is very frustrating as the webpages load very slowly. Sometimes, we close the Browser out of frustration. But, here is a solution for Slow Internet Connection.

Opera Browser:

Opera is another Web Browser similar to Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox, in case you don't know what Opera is. Opera browser includes the unique Opera Turbo mode that can load webpages up to five times faster than other browsers.

How Opera manages to enhance Speed in Slow Internet Connection:

When Opera Turbo is enabled, webpages are compressed via Opera's servers so that they use much less data than the originals. This means that there is less to download, so you can see your webpages more quickly.

How to enable Opera Turbo:

Enabling Opera Turbo is as simple as clicking the Opera Turbo icon at the bottom-left of the Opera browser window. When you are on a fast connection again and Opera Turbo is not needed, the Opera browser will automatically disable it.

Get Started:

Now, experience yourself with the great feature from Opera. Download Opera 11.10, install and use.

Credit Card

2011-04-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

A Credit Card is a plastic Card with a magnetic tape that contains electronic information about the Credit Card holders authentication and about the Credit Card issuing Bank / Company.

How Credit card works?

Credit Card Approval:

The Credit card is issued to the Customer/user by the Bank or Credit Union after proper verification and with documentation. If someone holds a decent regular job, the approval process is very simple. For others, verification and documentation depends on the customer's existing reputation with the bank. Again, for all the applicants, Credit History check is a must. A good Credit History is an advantage for fast approval of a Credit card.

Credit card usage:

Once the Credit card is issued to the customer, they can use it in various ways.
1. Credit card can be used to shop at various merchant shops, eat food at hotels, book ticket at railway counters, pay tuition fees in training institutes etc. (It doesn't mean that Credit card are acceptable at all merchants or hotels etc)
2. A lot of internet Websites accept Credit card for online shopping or e-ticket booking. A customer can use the Credit card to purchase goods or services online. For online shopping, Credit card is a great tool.

Payment Back to the Credit card issuer:

Credit card payment works in a cycle. Generally Credit card issuers give a free credit for certain days. It varies issuer to issuer. Approximately 50 to 52 days. The customer has to pay the entire amount billed for their Credit card within this period.
Also, there is a Partial payment option for Credit card. But, it is not advisable as the entire amount will be charged with interest in case of partial payment.
Non-payment will attract late payment fee as well as interest.
The interest rates are too high for Credit card. But again it varies from issuer to issuer and from plan to plan.

Credit card Types:

1. Cash back Credit card
2. Rewards Credit card
3. Travel Credit card
4. Business Credit card
5. Other Credit card

Credit card Issuers:

Here is a list of few major Credit card issuers in India:
1. State bank of India
2. ICICI Bank
3. HSBC Bank
4. HDFC Bank
5. Citibank
6. Standard Chartered Bank
7. ABN Amro
8. American Express
9. Axis Bank
10. Bank of Baroda
11. Deutsche Bank
12. Barclays Bank
13. Canara Bank
14. Amex
15. Kotak Mahindra
etc

Compare auto insurance in India

2011-04-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

If you are planning to take an Insurance for your vehicle, you must Compare auto insurance from all Auto Insurance providers available in India.

Here is a list of some of the Insurance Companies in India to Compare auto insurance:

HSBC India - AutoSecure
Bajaj Allianz - Bajaj Allianz's Motor Insurance
ICICI Lombard - Motor Plans
United India Insurance Co. - Motor Package and Liability Only Policies
The New India Assurance Co. - Motor Policy

Now, you can Compare auto insurance in all the above website of the Insurance companies to find the best deal for you.

Home Insurance in India

India wins ICC World Cup 2011 Final - Celebration photos

2011-04-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

The World Champions - Indian Cricket Team

World Cup 2011 Final moment

Dhoni and Tendulkar - Moment of Joy

Yuvraj Singh celebrates win over Srilanka in World Cup 2011 final at Wankhede Stadium

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 funny moments

Yuvraj with Gary Kirsten, coach of India

Sachin Tendulkar is chaired on a lap of honor after India's victory over Sri Lanka in the ICC World Cup 2011 Final

Team India celebrates World Cup 2011 win

Funny IPL Ad

Zaheer Khan with World Cup Trophy

Sachin with Son Arjun and Daughter sara

Sachin and Gambhir with World Cup Trophy

Coach of India, Gary Kirsten in air

Sachin with fan

Funny missed run-out video in IPL 2009

World cup 2011 India team

World cup final 2011 pictures

World cup final 2011 India team picture

World Cup Final India vs Sri Lanka. MS Dhoni guides the historical chase

ICC World Cup Final match - Best moments photos

Expert Answers to all your querries

Disk Partition management using Partition Wizard from MiniTool

Problem Faced while extending C Drive:

Problem fixed using Partition Wizard from MiniTool:

Steps to use Partition Wizard from MiniTool:

Assign GoDaddy Domain Name to IXWebhosting Hosting Provider

1. Add domain on IXWebHosting control panel:

2. Set the IXWebHosting nameservers at Godaddy:

GIF Image not showing properly in my Blog

Resolution:

Uploaded the same GIF image through PhotoBucket:

Protection from Bank Cheque Fraud

Here are a few things from Citibank that you can do to protect yourself from Cheque Fraud:

Pictures of DC Avanti at Delhi Auto Expo 2012

Read more about India's First Super Car - DC Avanti

India's First Super Car - DC Avanti - at Delhi Auto Expo 2012

All About Investing & Not Investing In The Stock Market

Do’s and Don’ts in the Stock Market:

Let’s introduce do’s and don’ts of investing:

The do’s and don’ts in the stock market are:

Slow, steady, and boring wins the race:

Don’t give any weight to market forecasts. All opinion pro and con is already built into the price of equities today:

Do make your own analysis of the stocks, shares and mutual funds:

Don’t think you can successfully engage in short-term market timing:

Don’t assume that if anyone were genius enough to devise a market-beating strategy he would be stupid enough to share it with anyone:

The final advice:

What's a Leap Year? Leap Year Calculator

Leap Year Definition:

The Next Leap Year:

Leap Year Algorithm:

Leap Year Calculator:

How to track Google Adsense Check Delivery?

Steps to track your Google Adsense Check:

How to control unnecessary spending?

Are you up for these 3 Financial Challenges?

A Day Away from spending:

A Week Away from Credit Cards:

A Month Away from Eating Out:

A Final Note:

Online Electricity bill payment in Odisha

Steps to Pay Electricity bill Online in Odisha:

Instruction Manual for Investing

Let’s open the manual:

Don’t Fly Blind: Have a Financial Plan:

Do control what you can:

Do pay as little attention as possible to the financial media:

Don’t fall into "Invest and Ignore":

Don’t fall into "HNI Trap":

A final thought:

Ultra Low cost tablet AAKASH is now available online for purchase

The 10 Financial Doctrines of Wise Retirement Planning

Let’s begin on planning finance for retirement:

A look at the 10 doctrines to wise retirement planning:

1) Provide for contingenciesh:

2) Think that you will live long:

3) Plan that you will retire early:

4) Beat the inflation before it beats you:

5) Provision for increased medical expenses after retirement:

6) Provide for your spouse and dependents who may outlive you:

7) Realize you need to be vigilant about sources of retirement income:

8) Educate yourself about retirement savings plan management:

9) Plan for an income for life:

10) Take professional investment advice that works:

Ads in WordPress Blog

What are the top performing ad units in Google Adsense

1. 336x280 Unit:

2. 300x250 Unit:

3. 728x90 Unit:

4. 160x600 Unit:

KBC 5 Jackpot Question for Today -27-10-2011

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How to check that my number is on DND