Skip to main content

Let’s share our financial mistakes This 2017



How many times have we taken an insurance policy because our uncle was the agent. Or how many times have we signed on a document without reading it fully just because the one taking our signatures was a close person. But sometimes sooner or later, we had to pay some price for our stupid financial decisions. This post is all about admitting our financial disasters and learning from them. I want all of us to start this 2017 by consciously agreeing to the wrong we did in the previous year and moving forward with a lesson learnt. Let’s begin with myself – Me despite being a Financial Planner myself, have done a couple of financial mistakes. The worst one being not saving during the initial years of my career. I didn’t start with a great six figure salary, it was nominal. Still, I could have saved with whatever I was earning, but I was so much into spending what I thought was mine with nobody to question me. And Yes, I proudly admit being a spendthrift to the level that I bought a Car with my first Bonus money. It was not needed, was a depreciating asset, and even if I wanted one I had a choice to buy pre-used car. But No, I wanted to spend what I had earned. My stupid without thinking spending stopped only when I saw my husband saving, and appreciating himself on his savings. And yes, then I did all the mathematics for my retirement needs, and after knowing the amount I need to save for my healthy retirement, I at least started saving that much.

Even our extravagant shopping comes under the Category of Mismanaged Money/Finance. With the advent of Online Shopping, everybody has turned into one shopaholic. We are buying things we don’t need or probably won’t use ever. Just because shopping has become so convenient, we feel that urge to buy at every occasion. So, our budgeting skills have already gone for a toss. As per PwC’s report by CII, headed as ‘e-commerce in India – A Game Changer for the Economy’, number of online shoppers will grow to 220 million by the year 2020 from 140 million in 2018, all due to ease of buying and our changing shopping habits.




(Source: http://italiaindia.com/images/uploads/pdf/april-2016-e-commerce-in-india.pdf)


As per S&P survey on financial literacy, over 76% Indians lack understanding in key financial concepts. Financial Literacy means that people have the knowledge to understand key finance concepts like inflation, risk diversification, compound interest, and numeracy.  Anyone who knew 3 out of these 4 concepts was termed as Financially Literate. It is hard to admit that 76% of us were not aware of fundamental financial concepts.

It is my sincere request to all of you who gets some time to read this, please share your financial mistakes so that all can learn about the possibilities of the mistakes when it comes to Personal Finance. And we can all save each other in a Country where there are no Health and Retirement Benefits available to majority of us. Only our Financial Prudence will enable us to live happily without worries of future.



Charu Hastir, CFPCM is founder of http://www.theriteplan.com/. Rite plan is an online financial planning portal created to achieve a single objective of providing easy and Do It Yourself Financial Planning to netizens. Rite Plan is wholly owned by Tikkun Olam Financial Planning Services LLP. Please visit: https://theriteplan.com/index.php?route=common/home/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why your Financial Plan is always Work in Progress?

Ever heard someone saying, this is my last month in the Gym, after that there is no need for me to workout ever again…I will stay fit for the rest of my life without any fitness regime. No one can retain the perfect physique forever without exercise. It is always a constant effort to stay at the desired level for almost anything that you think of. You cannot be a great chef without trying out new recipes, you cannot be a great marketer without adapting to new marketing strategies, you cannot be a great fashion designer without adapting your fashion sense towards the trending styles. Leave all of this, you even cannot even think of becoming a good parent if you don’t change from old tricks to new methods for upbringing this generation kids. If you have to upgrade your act with every other thing in life, then how your investments could be any different.
The Financial Planning Process has 6 broad steps with the last one focussing on the importance of monitoring and revision of the plan …
Post a Comment
Read more

Union Budget and Your Financial Plan?

Honorable Financial Minister Piyush Goyal presented this year’s Interim Budget on 1st February 2019. Every Year, on the day of the budget announcement, you can see almost every individual glued on to their Television or mobiles to check the budget updates with much excitement. Sometimes the Budget announcements cheer us and sometimes they make us sad as we think that there are not many benefits being offered for individuals in our tax slab.

Budget is also referred as Annual Financial Statement as it contains an extensive account of the Government’s finances i.e. Government’s revenue and expenditure for the fiscal year. How relevant is this budget when it comes to our personal financial savings? Should we wait for the Budget to be announced and then start our investments or should we do our investments without any relevance to the Budget? Let’s discuss this in detail.
Budget helps in Tax Planning

Budget surely helps in planning the taxes for the next financial year. Budget is presente…
Post a Comment
Read more

What to do when Stock Markets suddenly go up?

“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.” – Peter Lynch

This May we have seen BSE SENSEX moving from the levels of 39,031 on 30th April to 37,090 on 13th May and then back again to 39,352 on 20th May. Such volatility in such a short period makes us doubt our investment decisions and questions our long-term plan of staying invested in the equities. This Market volatility has the power to change our investment strategies and at times even question it. Sometimes we think that we have missed a golden investment opportunity and on other times we assume that we have invested at a very bad time. At the very best it keeps us confused on our next steps.
John Maynard Keynes has rightly said that "Markets can remain irrational for longer than you can remain solvent." But how should we treat our investments when we come across such turbulent times and what is the right course…
Post a Comment
Read more