How to plan your new financial year, new goals, and new money!
I’m assuming everyone’s made their investments in the last financial year, and I’m hoping you guys saved as much tax as you could.
If you couldn’t, you can read the article here that talks about how to save your taxes.
This article is a quick read with tips on how you can manage your money in the new financial year. While there are a hundred things to talk about, I’ll give just 5 tips that you can read and implement to manage your finances better (We need to do this under 5 minutes, remember?)
Here you go!
TAX, TAX, TAX! Yes, this may sound repetitive and borderline annoying, but the first thing you should do is plan your tax smartly. Why do you want to pay money to the government, when the government itself is giving you a provision to save tax? If you smartly invest in ELSS funds, you’re not just saving tax on your investment, but also getting returns on it. Win-Goddamn-Win.
Utilize your 80C fully. Don’t leave a single penny out of the 1.5 lakhs.
Mediclaim + Emergency fund: I’ve personally had a hard time recently due to a medical emergency at home, and I can vouch for the fact that a health insurance and an emergency fund will ALWAYS help. Had I not had these two, I’d be in a totally different world right now, running around to borrow and repay money. If you want to know why this is important, read the articles here and here.
PLAN: This is the most important step for achieving your financial goals. Set goals for your investments, and plan your inflows and outflows. Use the 50-30-20 rule. If you earn Rs. 100, spend Rs. 50 on necessities (NEEDS) like food, shelter, clothing (not high-end luxury clothing, before you ask). Then, spend at the most Rs. 30 on luxury (WANTS) like eating out, that fancy phone, JBL headphones etc. And SAVE a minimum of Rs. 20. If you’re young, save most of the 20 bucks in equity and only a fraction of it in other instruments. If you need help with any of this, you can get in touch with me here.
SIPs: Even a small amount of Rs. 5,000 when compounded over the years will give you more than Rs. 2 crores (depending on your current age) at the time of retirement. It’s the most disciplined way to start investing money, and doesn’t take more than 5 minutes to set up an SIP. You can contact me here if you want some help on investing in SIPs. But don’t overthink this. Just start. TODAY.
Keep a long-term mindset: Whenever you’re investing, especially in equity, do not think of how you can make money overnight. No instrument can guarantee overnight returns. Think of it as a minimum 3 to 5 year commitment. If done in the right instruments, your SIP investments will grow enough to help you achieve your goals.
That’s about it. Keeping this short (as always) so that you guys don’t get bored. You may write to me at ankurajhaveri[at]gmail[dot]com or contact me on WhatsApp on the links given above in case you have questions.
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