New Income Tax exemption limit and tax slab for 2012-13

The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced the New Income Tax exemption limit and tax slab for financial year 2012-2013 in his recent budget speech.

Income Tax Slabs:
Up to 2 lakh rupees : NIL
Rs 2 - 5 lakh : 10%
Rs 5 - 10 lakh : 20%
Above Rs 10 lakh : 30%

9 Ways to Be Credit Card Smart

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

9 Ways to Be Credit Card Smart

Credit cards have turned into an integral part of modern living as they facilitating making purchases and paying bills without carrying cash. They make life easy and help maintain a record of our expenses and help us dispute charges for undelivered and defective things. In addition they enable us to earn reward points. However credit cards could make you overspend and get into debt. There are 9 ways that could help you to be credit card smart.

One can be very smart in playing a game only when he knows the rules of the game very well and follows the same diligently. Similarly to be smart with your credit card you need to know the rules of the credit card usage. Let me unbundle the same for you.

9 ways to be credit card smart:

1) Do not have many credit cards:

It is true that credit cards definitely help in emergencies and facilitate payments. But having too many credit cards could tempt us to overspend and get into credit card debt that could be difficult to recover from. In addition it is best to avail of reward points on one credit card, so that you could encash the points more quickly.

2) Cultivate and maintain an emergency fund:

Most of us believe that credit cards can definitely help in medical and unexpected emergencies, but it is unwise to consider it as a general rule. A much better alternative would be regular setting aside money as an emergency fund for such unexpected emergencies. This will prevent getting into credit card debt.

3) Repayment capacity should determine credit card spending:

It is right that using credit cards in place of cash helps. But this applies to purchases that we can afford only and also repay immediately. Spending more than what you can repay is highly undesirable and could get you into credit card debt.

4) Avoid cash advance withdrawals:

It is best to live within your means and avoid making cash advance withdrawals even in emergencies. This is the worst thing you can do with a credit card. Having a smart spending plan will help you in not falling this trap

5) Avoid bank transfers without valid reasons:

Being credit card smart requires avoiding making balance transfers from one credit card to the other. This will avoid payment of balance transfer fees and getting into further credit card debt that could turn vicious. However transfer of bank transfers like taking advantage of lower interest rates could prove fruitful.

6) Make full payments in time:

Being credit card smart requires you arranging for payment within a month or next billing date. Delay in repayment and minimum payment could affect your credit standing and make you also liable to pay high rates of interest that you could not afford. Not carrying any balance forward would relieve you of stress of getting into credit card debt.

7) Understand the credit card agreement fully:

Being credit card smart requires understanding fully the agreement and other terms and conditions for use of the credit card. This includes understanding transaction fees levied, interest rates, and when increased rates for credit would be charged. This would help take precautions to avoid getting into increased debt on credit cards.

8) Recognize the signs of credit card debt:

Many consider a credit card a boon and fail to realize that they are getting into credit card debt. It is best to understand and recognize signs like skipping a credit bill to pay another, avoiding credit card payment statements, and charging more than your repayment capacity by purchasing luxuries. Failing to cultivate and maintain an emergency fund could also be a cause. Once you recognize these signs you can turn credit card smart.

9) Never lend your credit card:

Being credit smart requires not trusting others with your credit card even if they promise to pay back in time. It is unwise because you will be responsible for the debt and charges. It is quite possible that credit card companies did not allot them a credit card because of certain adverse circumstances.

The last word:

I am sure you will agree that credit cards can be a boon only when you are credit card smart.

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.

8 Investment Myths To Be Avoided

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

8 Investment Myths To Be Avoided:

Today I am going to debunk a few investment myths. You will know ‘why individual investors are failing miserably and how you can avoid being one of them’.

1. I am too young to plan for retirement

Have you started planning for your retirement? You may be saying ‘who me? I am too young to be thinking about retirement”. It is not so! Rethink. You should have started thinking about it yesterday. Because time flies quickly.

If you were smart, and planned for retirement when you are young, your retirement years will be really those “Golden years”. If not you need to compromise and you need to work longer and retire later than others.

2. East or west FDs are safe and best

Nothing wrong in investing in FDs. FDs are really safe and it gives us fixed return. But there is no meaning in investing all your money in FD. The post tax return of an FD will hardly beat inflation. If your investments are not beating inflation, then your money is losing its purchasing power. FDs are safe but not always the best option.

3. I can never be as good as Warren Buffet or Rakesh Jhunjhunwala so why try?

In the words of Warren Buffet “Success in investing doesn’t correlate with IQ once you’re above the level of 125. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.” You don’t need a super brain for making investment decisions. You only need common sense and discipline. If you don’t have enough time and expertise, then you can get assistance from professional financial planners.

4. Stock markets can earn me quick bucks

This is a common myth among investors. Stock market will reward the long term investors. Stock market is a system which transfers money from investors who are fearful and greedy to the investors who are balanced and rational.

You need to be calm, patient, disciplined, and rational. You don’t have to be smarter than the rest; you have to be more disciplined than the rest.

5. Timing the market is important

Investors often spend a lot of their time in trying to identify when the market is very low or high, and timing the purchase and sale of investments accordingly.
In other words, they want to time their exit when the market has reached its top and to time their entry when the market has reached a bottom. This not a practical idea because there are so many influencing factors to the stock market. Predicting all the factors and making investments is practically not possible. Instead of that stagger your investments through SIP, STP and stay invested for long term.

6. There is no such thing as too much diversification

Diversification is needed. A well diversified portfolio can be created with 10 stocks or 3 mutual funds. Having more than 20 stocks or 6 mutual funds can dilute your returns. The reason is you are not only investing in best stocks and funds, you are investing in above average and average stocks and funds. So your returns will come down. Instead of over diversification, you need to concentrate on a few stocks. It is possible to achieve the required diversification with a few stocks or funds.

7. The best way to make money is investing in what is hot

If you are investing in what is hot, then you are following the crowd. If you follow the crowd, you will get what others are getting. You will not get anything more. You need to be fearful when others are greedy and you need to be greedy when others are fearful. So don’t go by the market trend or the hot pick of the month. Think like a contrarian and follow value investing.

8. Saving tax is the only objective for me to Invest

Which group you are in? There is a group of people who invest just to save taxes. They will not bother to invest anything more than that. They will meet their objective of saving tax. There is another group which invests to save tax as well as to save for their other life goals like retirement, children’s future. They will meet the objective of saving tax and achieving other life goals. Kindly check you belong to which group.

You can be an assured successful investor if you could avoid these investment myths.

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.

Smart way to achieve Financial Goals

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

Where will you be FINANCIALLY five years from today?

The financial secret of moving from where you are and where you want to be?

Would you like to know the financial secret behind moving from where you are and where you want to be? Try to answer this question. “Where will you be financially five years from now? 10 years from now…? 20 years from now…?”

You may get answers like “I will be financially stronger”, “I want to be financially better”. Are these answers specific? If you don’t know where you want to go exactly, there is no focus. When there is no focus; there will be lot of distraction. Distraction either leads to mediocrity or destruction.

How to refrain yourself heading towards mediocrity or destruction? You need to set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound Financial Goals. That is S.M.A.R.T. Financial goals.

Let me take you through step by step to set SMART Financial goals.

1) List down Financial Goals:

Write down all your financial goals like buying a house, kid’s education, Vacation, Retirement and so on. You may wonder why this mechanical act of writing financial goals is so important. You can be thinking something without actually realizing what that something is. It is intangible and so it is not clearly defined in your mind.

When you start putting that thought into words and you try expressing it, an amazing thing begins to happen. By creating it in words, that abstract thought now takes on body, shape, form, substance. It is no longer just a thought. It becomes something which motivates you, or creates a gut feeling inside.

Your dream becomes a goal the moment you write it down. Say one of your dreams is to buy a house. You dream about it a lot. But the moment you started writing it down, your mind will ask yourself “when, where, how many square feet, how many bedrooms?” This writing gives clarity to your goal and it forces your mind to find out the ways and means to achieve the goal.

2) Categorize and Prioritize:

You need to categorise your financial goals based on the time frame. Generally the financial goals less than 3 years are short term financial goals. The goals to be achieved in the next 4 to 7 years are medium term goals and the financial goals to be achieved after 7 years are long term goals. This categorization will help you in building a road map to achieve your goals and also in selecting the right investment products.

Your daughter’s wedding would be more important to you than the international vacation. Buying a house is more important than buying a farm house. This prioritization will help you in creating a better financial plan. Suppose if you are in deficit, you know which financial goal need to be compromised and which are all the financial goals you want o achieve irrespective of the deficit.

3) Fixing a target date:

Fixing a target date for your financial goals may look like a dump idea. How do I know in advance the date of buying my house, the date of my daughter’s wedding? But if you are not fixing it, then you will not be financially prepared for that. If you are financially prepared and the goal event is not taking place at that time and getting postponed for some reasons, you will not have any financial worries. You will be financially ready from thereafter with on enough money to meet that goal.

Fixing a target date will psychologically influence your thought process to work on that goal. Also the moment you fix the target date your mind starts running a countdown. Only when you know that after how many years from now you want to achieve the goal, you will be able to make a financial plan.

4) Estimating the cost:

First you need to estimate the cost as of today. If you are planning to save for your daughter’s wedding which is expected to take place after 10 years, first you need to calculate the cost of the wedding in today’s prices. Then you need to adjust it for inflation of 10 years. Now you will have the future value of your target.

5) How much to save?

Once you have found out the future value of the goal, you can easily decide on how much you need to invest in order to reach the targeted future value. Initially you may only be able to contribute less. But year after year you can increase this contribution based on your increment/promotion/income growth.

So you need to take into account the expected growth rate on your salary or business/professional income in calculating how much to save towards each and every financial goal.

6) Budget the savings:

As you know by now exactly how much to save towards each and every goal, you need to accommodate these savings in your budget. If you do this year after year, then you can see all your financial goals becoming reality.

The difference between a goal and a dream is the written word. I am confident that you will come to find that financial goal setting works and that it will soon become a way of life for you.
Start setting your financial goals today.

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.

5 Blunders To Avoid With Stock Market Fall And Viable Solutions

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

Let’s Start Having A Look:

The present share market dip accompanied by a climate of pessimism in the share market calls for not just shrewdness in share dealing, but also for avoiding the 5 common blunders that I find most long term investors make during a share market fall. It is true that your precious savings needs to be protected and to grow, that makes me quote Ayn Rand, "Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think", so let us think and avoid those 5 common blunders.

Unveiling the 5 common blunders to avoid in stock market fall:

Being influenced with short term share market losses:

I have always advised young investors investing for long term capital gains to not panic if the value of their shares came down rapidly in just a year. It is not advisable to sell them to avoid further dips. A strong unchangable fact about the share market is that it is subject to ups and downs. The price of the shares would rise all of a sudden, and selling would only make it difficult to recoup your portfolio to meet your long term financial goals. The share market is like a voting machine in the short run and weighing machine in the long run, hence long term capital creation requires buying shares in an advantageous share market.

Short selling to make profits:

Short selling shares at a higher price, in the hopes to replace them by buying at a lower price proved risky for many investors. They all have soon realized that it was always better to have a cotton shirt on their back rather than aspire and fail in getting a silk shirt and have no shirt at all.

People believe that investment experts and large stock broking houses will be able to predict the market. If we watch and follow them we will be able to make quick bucks in short selling and F&O trading. Is that so? If there are investment experts who will be able to correctly predict the market they will not be writing or giving interviews about it in the media. They will be silently investing and making money without revealing their secret.
Most of the big names in the stock broking sector were opening more new branches in the upcountry side during the second half of 2007 (when the market was moving closer to 20,000 levels), expecting the market to go up further and hence their businesses will grow. But within six months, market had collapsed.
In the second half of the 2008 these companies decided to wind up their newer branches in the upcountry as they were expecting further downside. But again within next six months market started their recovery.

Never enter into shorting deals during a share market fall, but to hold on and invest more if you can make good returns in future.

Buying Penny Stocks of unknown companies in place of shares of reputed companies:

Market has fallen. You can invest now. Many investors fall prey for the idea of investing in penny stocks. You may think that you will get more number of shares when you buy penny stocks. Because you will get a very few stocks for the same amount if you choose to invest in large or midcap companies.

It is a universal advice that investing in thriving longstanding companies rather than, a less known company would guarantee you a good return in the long run. You should avoid investing a large sum in unknown penny stocks. It is always advisable to take calculated risks and not blind risks. By investing in a penny stock you are taking a blind risk which all successful investors avoid consciously.

Waiting for shares prices to fall further before buying:

When the market falls, that is a perfect time to start investing. Don’t wait for the markets to bottom out. It is difficult to identify the bottom and invest. By the time you recognize, that is the bottom level, the market could have bounced back.

Share market commentaries in the media always confuse us. When the market was at 20000 levels during Dec 2007, everyone in the media is predicting and analyzing the possibility of the market reaching 30,000 levels. But markets crashed subsequently. When they came down to 8600 level during Nov 2008 , everyone in the media is predicting analyzing the possibility of market going down further to 3,000 levels. But markets bounced back.

The prudent and smart investors understood this and started investing when the markets started falling. They have staggered their investments over a period of time. They followed simple strategies like systematic investment plan and systematic transfer plan.

I wanted high returns, but cannot see my capital fluctuating:

Some young and middle aged investors invest in high return portfolios with a lot of midcap exposure, and realize that their portfolios have fallen 15 to 20% with a share market fall in just 3 to 4 months. Their panic and decision to sell their shares for reinvesting the same in fixed return investments like Bank deposits or company deposits is wrong, and I would have advised them to just wait. Their present loss and reinvesting in fixed deposits would take them longer to recoup the capital and make sizable returns. The solution lies in sticking on to the share portfolio and be intelligent to buy more shares for long term wealth creation.

The final word:

My final word of advice for long term investors is to never allow emotions or short term fluctuations to alter their investment decision, and to always buy in a falling share market. I am sure a rational decision accompanied by safe dealings can make your long term financial goals a reality.

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 About Investing & Not Investing In The Stock Market

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.

How to control unnecessary spending?

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.

Instruction Manual for Investing

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.

The 10 Financial Doctrines of Wise Retirement Planning

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.

ALL you wanted to know about Company Deposits

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.

Mutual Fund SIP: for Short term or Long term?

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

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

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.

Eight Simple Ways to Plan your Taxes

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why it is so important?

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

1) In case of Emergency:

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

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

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

2) Real Workable Budget:

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

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

3) Combined Financial Goals:

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

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

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

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

Overcoming the barriers:

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

1) No Time:

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

2) Not interested:

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

3) Doesn’t know:

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

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

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