India's First Gold

Hurray!!!!!!!

INDIA has won its first GOLD in the Bejing Olympics. This is India's first ever Olympic gold in any individual event and ninth in total. All thanks to one man ABHINAV BINDRA.





Atleast we have one GOLD now. Lets see if anyone else can do something.

Money Mistakes

How many of mistakes people commit in their life time? And what about money mistakes, Well there are a few even i regret, No i guess i should be more open about it there are a lot of Money mistakes that i regret. But i am learning from my experience now and hope to be even better as i learn along the way. I am listing down some of the common mistakes as below that even i have committed and i really believe everyone should avoid making them as much as possible.

1. Living beyond your means : There is a simple logic we can apply here, if your expenditure is more then your income then in all probability you will be in debt even before you know it. So avoid this at all times. I have done this mistake several times, like just buying a gift for someone close i get carried away and buy something beyond my means and end up in debt.

2. No Budgeting : I guess most of us just forget to Budget, if you don't know where your money is coming from or going to how will you control it. So Budget, it maybe just a simple excel file to do but it needs to be done. You need to know how your money is moving and then only can you plug unnecessary holes, you will have better control over money.

3. To Much Loan : I made a mistake once of taking a personal loan, and then one mistake that i just keep on doing is spending on a credit card. Its a pain now. You certainly cannot avoid taking a loan for the house but then i believe you should only take as much as you think you will be comfortable in repaying. Same goes for any other loan, you don't need to buy a costly car just because it comes with an easy finance option and you can use it to show off.Just be careful while taking a loan.

4. Not Saving Enough : Saving should be treated as any other expense that you incur during the month, if you are making a budget and writing in the expenses column your electricity expenses, your phone bills then also add a column for savings, it should be treated as any other expense and should be paid for every month. Start small and slowly try to increase.

5. Ignoring Disability Insurance : I am not the sole bread winner of my house but i am certainly the primary bread winner and if i were to get disabled due to any reason and which could effect my earning potential, so i got myself a disability insurance, i know it is not enough but i did get something so don't ignore it.

6. Don't Diversify : Have you diversified your portfolio, Diversification can actually spread your risk and help in minimizing it as well,, it can also optimize your returns. You can diversify by investing part of your money in equity through direct purchase, part of it into mutual funds, buy Gold, Buy Real estate and also Debt funds. You could even further diversify your portfolio by investing in different sector funds etc. But Diversification helps since no one can predict accurately how a certain sector of investment is going to perform over long periods.

7. Not taking professional Advice : No Matter how much you have read about financial planning and tax savings etc but you will be surprised by the nitty gritty that a professional can help you with. And its always helpful to take a professional advice whenever you really need it.

8. Not Having goals : Goals give you focus, they give you a benchmark, they help tell you that there is something you have set to achieve and have not done it yet. So go ahead and make goals for yourself. Otherwise you will never know the purpose your investments serve.

How to Select a Tax saving Fund?

Tax Saving Funds seem to be the flavor of the day now, with more and more funds coming up on a daily basis it becomes very difficult to select the most appropriate fund. How do you select a good tax saving fund. What are tax saving funds. They are basically Mutual funds through which you can save tax as well as save money(is it sounding right). Anyways its a good investment opportunity. I was looking around and one very premium site for personal finance puts it in five easy steps.

1. Before investing in such a tax saving fund ensure that it belongs to a fund house that has a well defined investment process.

2. Go for funds that have a broad investment mandate that permit them to invest across the market with any investment style(growth, value)

3. The tax saving fund must be well diversified across stocks and sectors

4. Keep in mind the NAV returns visavis the benchmark indexes over a long period of time.

5. A good tax saving fund would be one which has given a higher NAV return at lower volatility.

Downtrend in the Markets

With Markets going in for a free fall, it seems they are going to go so low that it might become very difficult for them to recover and for people like myself who have a significant part of there portfolio when the markets were climbing are already feeling the losses, What could you probably do and what not to do is now left all to speculation. I have decided to stick to my present portfolio and maybe do a little bit averaging by increasing my position in some of the stocks. This i might(MIGHT) be able to send some when the market's are in an uptrend and maybe be able to recover some of my losses.

I had some extra money this month and have been thinking of investing the same somewhere but have just been not able to decide yet and don't know if i will be keep that money in my account fo long now since i have to buy some gifts (like gold) for some upcoming occasion which is probably in the later part of the year but am thinking of buying it right now in order to avoid the high prices of gold at a later date. But then this too is a speculation and i really dont know what to do yet. So lets see.

Income tax forms

For all those who are looking for income tax forms for India, for filing returns i am giving a link to the official website of the Income tax department of India from where you can download the forms.
Remember there are separate forms for separate types of income, so be careful for filing income tax returns fill in the right form.

IT Department Website

Holidays and Money

I recently took a break from my work and went on for road trip. Well this is one time that i let go ans decided to enjoy, but thinking about the money aspect as well. Let me first tell you about my trip..

I went to Rishikesh via Haridwar from Delhi(Drove down ofcourse) and then from there on moved to Dehradun and then to Ponta Sahib(Its a Sikh Shrine in Uttartanchal). Drove all the way. Had great fun, went river rafting at Rishikesh(level 1 Ofcourse, this was my first time) and saw to aarti in the night, with all leaves floating in the water with fire on them. The water was damn cold, stayed in a hotel which had its own beach. Jumped into the water from the raft wearing my jeans and had a hell of a time coming out of the water with the wet jean's weight pulling me back.

Well now the money part, the hotel I stayed in was one of those upmarket(as one of the travel guides said) hotel, and had its own small beach. I could have got cheaper hotels but then what the hell, went with my family. Now when i am back and looking back at the expenses, 70% of the total expenditure came from room rent in the hotel. Petrol was also one major expenses. The hotel gave the breakfast as complimentary so saved a bit of money there, also had our lunch and dinner outside in a road side dhabha. And i actually went out looking for the rafting option although my hotel did provide the same but one thing was for sure that i knew was that i could get it cheaper outside, so went to shope asked around and got it for INR350/- as against the INR700/- being charged by the hotel. Then we didnt do any shopping there as mostly these tourist spots are costly and the stuff they sell unless its a speciality is avaiable anywhere, so didnt do shopping.

Also i found out that Petrol is cheaper in Delhi compared to the neighboring states, but i did a lot of saving there as i had a tank full when i left Delhi only had to buy a little extra fuel on the way back. So everyone enjoy in holidays, but also try to save wherever you can and there is no need to do shopping unless and until you really have to.

Buy or Sell Stocks

Its the right time to start buying stocks. With the markets touching a new low and falling, this is the time start buying stocks. I was reading in one website a comment given by an expert that "People give more importance to the right time to sell shares then to buy shares". So its time too get that money out of those fixed deposits that are paying you 8.5% interest and start buying shares in the market. With the pressure on buying, not only will you start getting a good return on your investment but also this a good opportunity to start building up your portfolio.

People normally have the tendency to panic when they see a fall in the market and just to sell along with the fall. But normally this should not be the case, any dips in the market is a good opportunity to buy and not sell. Buying today will probably give you a benefit in the future.

I have also set a aside some money and now am going to start buy from tomorrow morning so you do the same as well.

Good Luck..