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Budget alone must not decide your investments

It is often a practice to start deciding on our investments for tax deductions at the time when investment declarations have to be submitted or at the fag end of the financial year. Our investments generally follow a similar pattern of deductions available to us. So, if tax deduction limit for an investment increases, we try to increase our investments in that scheme. For example, 80 CCF infra bonds have created quite a ripple in the market by giving extra tax benefits over and above the `1,00,000 deductions and there is a mad rush of people wanting to invest the additional amount. 

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Media

Why you need to revisit your financial plan

Goal-based financial plans are in vogue. However, getting a goal-based financial plan
prepared by a planner or an advisor alone won’t guarantee achieving all your financial
goals. “A financial plan is like an itinerary given by a travel agent to you. You have to
take care of some operational issues to ensure a great holiday for you,” says Lovaii
Navlakhi, managing director & chief financial planner, International Money Matters.
For example, you have to get a visa on time or the air-ticket at the right price if you want
to make the most of your holiday. A financial plan also needs such fine-tuning from your
side. Most financial planners list people’s failure to get their goals right and
implementation and review of the plan as the main reasons why most plans fail to deliver
the goals.

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Media

Story of average Joe: Here’s how you can plan your finance

It was a Tuesday afternoon when Mr Joe (name changed) walked into my office. He was an extremely confident individual and was bubbling with optimism. Mr Joe is 37 years old, is married and has one child (8 year old). He currently has no liabilities and his total net worth as of today is Rs. 2 crores (excluding his self occupied property). The present was not as much as a surprise as the past. Joe hailed from a middle class family with not much of surplus money. The very fact that he could just about make ends meet was by itself an achievement.

One fine day about 20 years back Joe lost his parents, he was 17 years old then and the financial situation worsened. There were times where even buying basic food provisions for home was a very difficult task. He started working , doing odd jobs like delivering milk packets, newspapers or even working as a waiter in a hotel while completing his studies. If this was a situation 20 years back and today Joe is in a better financial situation than many 37 year old with fancier degrees ,what is the reason. What are the things he did right which probably many of us are not doing ?. I probed him further to find out and the secrets started unraveling slowly.

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