Category: Investors Behavior

6 credit card myths – which can kill your financial life someday !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

One of the most used financial products is the Credit card. We all spend so much time to get best credit card, but I have never seen someone, who has spend his time to fully understands the importance of the CVV number, One time password, Signatures on the back of credit card or how secure their credit card is overall ! .

There are so many credit card frauds going on, and yet  each of us thinks, that our credit cards are fully secure and it cant happen with us. However, this is really far from the truth, because of the 4 big myths people have about their credit cards and we will bust them today for you, so that you become a more powerful and informed investor!

Credit Card myths

Myth 1 – My Credit Card is secure, because no one knows my PIN/Password

When you make a transaction through a credit card in India, at the end of the transaction, you are asked to enter one more final PIN number, which makes your transaction more secure and gives you an additional layer of security. RBI had come up with this additional password requirement just last year. While you needed credit card number, expiry date and your CVV number to make a transaction earlier, now as an extra security layer, you need this additional PIN too.

However note that this is limited to online transactions on Indian websites only. When you make a transaction outside India, this additional step is not compulsory. This means that someone having every other detail of your credit card other than your PIN can also do transactions even if he does not know your PIN . You must have realized this yourself, if you have done any transaction outside India.

Myth 2 – No one knows my CVV number, so I am secure

One of the biggest myths about credit card is that, if no one knows your CVV number, its impossible to do the transaction. Take a small breath, while I tell you this.

“CVV is not always mandatory on all websites to make an online transaction.”

Yes, you heard right!. You can make a online transaction on few websites out of India with only the Credit Card number, the expiry date and obviously the name of the credit card holder. If you don’t believe me, here’s a small example.

Try to book a domain name at godaddy.com. I was almost numb, when I booked a domain name some time back, only to realize that the domain name was booked, but the site never asked me my credit card CVV number and I was like – “What ?! Seriously ?!” . I then found out, that asking for CVV number is just optional for credit card merchants. While some countries make it mandatory, others don’t. It’s just a choice!

So make sure you are safe, do this

  • Scratch your CVV number on the back of your credit/debit card
  • Always make sure the swiping happens in front of your eyes! , I know, it can be a little embarrassing for you, but its just an extra mile security, see if its possible for you
  • Better do not use Credit Card at all , use Debit card instead!

Myth 3 – My credit card can’ t be duplicated.

Yes, your credit card can be duplicated and it happens in India. A card (credit or debit) might be using something like EMV chips or Magnetic strips, and that’s where the problem is at. While EMV chips are more secure, the magnetic strips are not!. If your card has magnetic strips, it can be duplicated.

Here is how it works …

Your card has a lot of data inside it and it sits on the magnetic strip. When the card is swiped, all the data is extracted from it, for verification purposes. Now some expert hacker with bad intentions, can extract all this data from the swipe machine and make a new card using a technique called Cloning. There are machines called “skimmers” , which helps in extracting the data from the swiping machines to a new card. If you are still wondering if this all happens in India, here is a story excerpt from Hindu website

According to the police, the machines were used to swipe cloned cards by one Rahul. The cloned cards were arranged by Pankaj Deewan, Yogesh Mahajan and Yasin through their contacts. The amount transferred to Dheeraj alias Rohit’s account was shared by the machine holder and cloned cards holder at 40:60 ratio respectively.

Following this, the police launched a hunt and subsequently arrested Dheeraj, Pankaj, Yogesh and Yasin. They purportedly told the police that the domestic cards were cloned by one Kamal and international cards by Devender Chauhan of Agra with the help of a professional hacker. The cards were cloned by obtaining information of genuine customers and then copying the same on a plain card having a magnetic strip. According to the police, the accused used skimmer (a device used to copy data from credit/debit card) for the same.

And if you still don’t believe all this, here is a video you might want to spend time on

If you need more , read this incident on Credit Card cloning here

Myth 4 – The signature on the back on credit card does not matter much

One of the most misunderstood and unknown facts about credit cards is the signature on the back of the card. Let’s understand the rule today and lay this to matter to rest. If a credit card does not have a signature on the back, it’s an invalid card. As per the agreement between card issuer and merchant (the shops and hotels which give you the facility to swipe the cards), the merchant is supposed to check the signature on the back of card with the signature on the bill, and only if they match, the merchant should allow the card to be swiped.

However almost all the merchants avoid checking it, as if it does not matter at all. This is violation of terms and conditions and if you have lost a credit card which was SIGNED, and some transaction takes place, you are not suppose to be charged, because the merchant should have checked the signatures on card with the signature on the bill. What this means is that if there has been ever a fraud on your credit card, and you are asked to pay the money (Like this Incident) , just ask your card issuer to check the signature on the bill with your specimen signatures with them and if they do not match, they are not suppose to pay the merchant at all and let merchant take the loss for not doing their duty of checking the signatures.

Credit Card signature and CVV

This explains why you should sign your cards on the back and not leave them blank, because if someone steals your card and puts his signature on the back, then the transaction can be done successfully even if the merchant does his duty of checking the bill signature with the signature on card and in that case you are bound to pay the money to card issuer.

MYTH 5 – By paying minimum balance, I do not have to pay Interest

As you have used your credit card and now it’s time to pay your bills of Rs 15000. But you don’t have money to pay back the bill. You are in tension because if you don’t pay your bill you will be charged penalty. So to avoid penalty you pay minimum balance of Rs 3000 and now you will not be charged penalty. So now the left over bill amount is Rs 12000.

You must be happy that you will have to pay Rs 12000 only but let me tell you that you will have to pay Interest of 3 to 4% on this 12000. So even if you pay your minimum balance to avoid penalty but you cannot avoid the interest charged on the left over amount.

MYTH 6 – Too many credit card will improve my credit score

Many people think that if they opt for more than one credit card then there credit score will increase eventually. But this is other way round. If you opt for too many credit cards you won’t improve your credit score but you end up being more dependent on these credit cards, which is not a good sign. Managing too many credit card becomes burdensome.

Tips to Secure your Credit Card

I hope, now that these myths are busted, you are a more informed and powerful person who the rules of the game of credit cards . To summarize, lets put out some tips to secure your credit card

  • Do not share your one time credit card password (IVR) with anyone ever
  • Scratch your CVV number and remember it in your head !
  • While making any online transaction, make sure the website starts with https://
  • While making any transaction offline like on petrol pumps , hotels etc, make sure its swiped in front of you as far as possible.
  • Make sure the card is swiped on a machine which is issued by authorized banks and not some machine which looks suspicious , it can be a “Skimmer” machine which steals your data.
  • Put a signature on the back of your credit and debit card, so that unauthorized transactions are not done and you are protected a card holder
  • If possible, better use a credit card which has a small limit like 10k or 20k for shopping.
  • There are virtual credit cards these days, you can use them for online transactions

If you ever had any incident that was mentioned here, please share it with others and if you have some thing to teach others, please share it here with everyone.

Does Home Loan kills Enterpreunership ? May be YES

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Who doesn’t want to start some venture of their own? Majority of the people are in jobs and a big number of people do not like what they do. If they had a choice, they would really run away in this very moment. But our responsibilities in life and the situation we create for ourselves makes sure that we are stuck and can not get out of the rat race. We see so many people who want to work in start-ups, many people who really want to do something which they really love and enjoy even if it does not pay a lot but it’s not possible for lot of people to simply quit and start something of their own. Today we are discussing if home loans are a big killer of entrepreneurship which lot of Indian’s have in them?

Does home loan kill entrepreuneurship ?

We all know flipkart.com – One of the co-founder of the company, Binny Bansal made an interesting comment that – Home loan kills entrepreneurship.

India is definitely happening and there are a lot of opportunities in different fields. If you are thinking of starting up, this is the best time. But don’t take a home loan,that actually kills entrepreneurship. You can never get out of it. – Binny Bansal , co-founder flipkart.com (via)

Home loan is a big commitment, especially in a family where there is one earning member. People take jobs, get married, get a home loan, car loan etc, have kids in between and life becomes so “formula driven”. Income has to be earned and expenses have to be taken care. Risk of job loss, income loss due to medical emergencies and similar kind of risks are on the minds of a people who are paying for home loan – and this pressure kills the dreams of doing something of his own and the natural thinking then becomes – “Not an issue – Let me earn for next X years and once I retire, I will live all my dreams”. I am not sure if it really works at the end or not.

There can’t be a bigger liability than owning a house on Loan

Santosh Navlani of moneysights.com confirm’s in one of this comments, that saw same kind of thing while he was hiring people.

I am an entrepreneur & meet many people who at times are potential employees for my start-up venture. Now, most of these house-owners even if they are “excited & thrilled”, don’t join a start-up which would offer them great earning potential in the future because of the uncertainties that a start-up job brings to their income. Simply because they have a huge liability!

If one factors the cost of “forgoing” the pursuit dreams, I guess there can’t be a bigger liability than owning a house on loan. I have seen people getting stuck in wrong jobs where they sacrifice their long-term future by satisfying the urge of saving the rent. And yes, you don’t decide to pursue a dream of start-up or a job-switch by thinking extremely hard on it. It just happens that you are not able to take the job anymore. The last thing one wants then is fear of home-loan coming in way.

So what you do if you are young enough, unmarried and want to taste entrepreneurship? This is the right time to take the plunge and take the risk, so that you have that cushion to come back in the game if you fail. Once you take a home loan and are married, life is full of commitments and you will not be excited enough to start something on your own or join a more fun (low paying – at least in starting years) job. One of the friend who didn’t want to reveal his identity shared with me on facebook.

When I was 25, working as a software engineer at Hexaware Mumbai in 2002, earning Rs. 25,000 per month, I quit my job and went to Goa, following my dream and started a completely new career stream at an income of Rs 4,000 p.m. At that time, I was single, did not have any home loan or other commitments and that certainly helped otherwise I may not have been able to take that jump.

Interestingly, when I met a few ex-colleagues from software industry recently, to my surprise, I figured that not only I earn more or equal to them, but am also much happier because I am enjoying what I’m doing. They confessed to not enjoying their jobs and feel that as software professionals working late nights to meet client calls in US, long daily commute to office etc. they felt as though 10 years of their personal life was “sucked” by their jobs.

Conclusion

There is saying – “If there is a will, there is a way” and a lot of people I talked about on this topic, said that if a person has the guts, vision and passion, he can make it real, even if he has huge debt!. But we are talking about the masses here (majority of people) and for most of the people it’s really difficult to take that kind of risk, even thought they have huge passion and mindset- their situation just does not ALLOW IT. Do you really agree to it ?

Would you like to share about your experience and thoughts on this topic ? Do you really think that home loan (or any such kind of huge responsibility) really kills entrepreneurs and stops people to explore low paying but hugely satisfying careers ? Really ?

Loan Settlement hurts Cibil Report & Score !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Did you do any loan settlement in past ? That will surely affect your CIBIL report and score ! . Before we look at that, look at this data – Over 88% of new home loan borrowers in 2011 had a CIBIL score of 750 and above. Do you have a score of 750+ or not ?

So now by default if your CIBIL Score is less than 750, you stand a very low chance of getting any kind of loan to be approved. Most probably your loan application will be rejected. However, today we are going to talk about “Loan Settlement” aspect of any Loan. Lets see more!

CIBIL has really made life worse for a lot of people. A lot of people have misused their credit cards or other kind of loans , on top of it outstanding loans piled up so much over time, that they could not pay it off completely. Banks suddenly told them- “Hey, Don’t worry if you can’t pay off your Rs 3 lac outstanding loan, just go for loan settlement and all you need to pay Rs 60,000. We will send you loan settlement letter or NOC letter after that”. Are you one of those who went for Loan settlement months or years back ?

Loan settlement impacts your credit report negatively

Settlement of Loan is not a solution

A lot of people feel that Settlement of their loan outstanding in case they cant pay it off is a permanent solution to their worries? However, for one and the last time, understand that SETTLEMENT of Loan is just a temporary solution. It’s just a short cut way to get rid of constant reminders from banks and credit recovery agents. Banks do this because they know you are a waste and mostly you will never be able to pay back your 100% dues, so they settle for whatever you can pay! . Atleast they will get something back from you.

This settlement of loan will NOT clear your name in CIBIL report. In fact its a negative sign. It shows that you took loan, happily used it, ballooned it with late charges/interest by not paying on time and finally bank in frustration said – “Fine… Let’s take whatever we can get out of this guy, if we don’t get some part right now, we will not get even a penny later”.

Mak was worried why his name is appearing on CIBIL report as “settled” and his loan application was rejected.

I want to remove my name from Cibil report, I Used to have 2 CC, from HDFC & another from citi bank, I do had personal loan from citi finance, which I settled long 2yrs back for which I have settlement letter as well. Recently when I applied for a Bajaj finance loan for home electronic, It got declined, reason given to me was as my name reflected as a defaulter of Cibil. Please advice me to clear of my name from Cibil.

What Mak has to understand is that Loan settlement is a negative thing, and banks will report this incident to CIBIL and mind you, your status will be marked as “Settled” for next 7 yrs. So forget about getting any kind of loan from any bank for next 7 yrs at least. Once 7 years passes, then the SETTLED status will be removed , however your credit score by that time will be so low , that you will not get any loan even after that point, unless you work on improving your credit score. Now if your score is low at that point, it will again be very difficult for you to get any kind of loan (because of low score). So ultimately, the final conclusion here is that once you settle your loan, it becomes very very negative thing for you and your future and over the years it will not let you get any kind of loan unless you pay off each and every paisa of your loan.

Loan Settlement is Tempting

Loan Settlement gives you instant gratification. It’s something you really want to go for? Obviously, it gives an impression that all your worries will be taken off by the bank, its shown to people as an “opportunity” by banks. And most of the people fall for it. Swetha is one of those people who is confused about the Settlement of her loan

I have a personal loan and i have defaulted , my loan completes in the month of april the collection guys asked me to settle the loan for half the price of the remaining loan amount which is rs 44000 and he said the NOC will be mailed to within 15-20 days and also can i get a loan again . Please guide should i go for the settlement or payoff the whole amount.

No doubt, once you settle the loan and pay the settlement amount, the banks will not bother you anymore by calling and asking you to pay. They will also send you an NOC that this guy has settled his loan of X amount by paying Y amount (Y<X). But please don’t be mistaken that bank will forget you and is so generous that it will show any mercy on you. Bank will make sure your life is hell after that point. You will not get any kind of loan from that bank plus, they will send this information to CIBIL that this guy was not capable of paying off his full amount and hence we showed mercy on him by settling his loan. Please mark him/her as “SETTLED”.

Unless you pay off each and every penny/paisa of your original loan outstanding, your CIBIL report will show status “Settled” and it’s a very bad sign. Finally let me tell you what CIBIL website has to say about “Written Off” or “Settled” status in CIBIL report.

Given that a CIBIL credit report helps a loan provider ascertain your ability to pay additional debt based on your past performance, a ‘’written off’ or ‘’settled’’ account implies that you have not been able to pay your past dues. Hence, Loan providers may view accounts that are reported as ”written off” or “settled” negatively and this may affect your chances of a future loan approvals. – from cibil website

Conclusion

If you have done any kind of loan settlement in past, first check your credit report and see what is your score. If its low (lower than 750) , you will seriously face getting any kind of loan in future, So the only solution is to pay off the loan outstanding. Talk to your bank and pay it off. This will still not improve your score immediately, over next 1-2 yrs , make sure you pay your existing loan/credit card on time and dont misuse your credit capability. Your score will improve over time. Can you share your Loan settlement Story with us ?

Why to save & invest money for future? Here are 10 simple reasons

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Are you saving for the future? NO or YES?

If you are, then you must be wondering what a stupid question that is, because it’s so obvious that one needs to save money for the future. We all do it anyways!

You are WRONG!

Trust me, in last 10 yrs – we have dealt with so many investors who are not as prudent and forward-looking as you are. Many investors are hand to mouth when it comes to saving money. They are just postponing their savings in future and relying on luck or maybe they are not giving putting enough energy to save money.

So today, I thought of writing about 10 simple reasons why one should save and invest their money for the future. I want these 10 points to act as a reminder to you. Note, when I say “Save” in this article, it means “Save and invest”!

Why to Invest for future? Here are 10 reasons discussed

Let’s start

Reason #1 – It will help you in bad times

We all know that life is dynamic and bad things can happen. One may lose a job and become jobless some day. Or one may need lots of money to admit a loved one in the hospital. You never know what the future has in store!

If you have enough savings with you, you will be able to handle the situation in a much better way and won’t have to run around to others for money. There are always phases in life when things are going bad and if you don’t have savings, it can trouble you!. So savings help you in bad times!

Reason #2 – One day you will stop earning

At times, I am surprised to see many people forgetting this simple point, that one day they will stop earning.

That’s called “Retirement”

I see many people in their 30’s and 40’s behaving as if they will keep getting salary in their bank account all their life. They don’t take enough efforts to save money. They keep delaying their plans to invest and one day they realise that they are now in danger zone!

Dont forget that after you start your job, the expenses will never stop after that, but your earning will come only till you are 55-60 yrs!.

Reason #3 – To have peace of mind

One always feels a sense of security and peace of mind, when you have enough wealth to fall back on.I am talking about the day to day feeling you go through when there is bad news coming in.

Imagine situations like

  • Talks of layoffs in your company
  • Thoughts of getting someone hospitalized in the family.
  • News of your children school raising the fees .. AGAIN!!

All these small things in life will subconsciously haunt you and you will not have peace of mind because you know deep down you have no savings or less wealth. If something happens to your job, how will you manage things?

If you are working for many years, you will agree at there are some tough days, when you feel like just running away from everything and just chill out and enjoy life. You feel tired of corporate life and this rat race and all you wonder is – “If only I had enough wealth in my bank account”! ..

This also leads to a lot of stress and you may feel left-out compared to peers. Hence it’s very important to start saving for the future!

Reason #4 – To Get Financially Free

We all want to reach a stage in life when we dont have to depend fully on our salaries. We all want to create a level of wealth so that its enough to generate some income for us to handle our basic expenses at least. I am talking about financial independence.

When you start working, you have no wealth and you have to rely 100% on your salary. But over time, your wealth basket needs to go up in value so that if required – you can take out money if needed.

If someone needs Rs 40,000 a month for his expenses and he has 4.8 lacs savings – they know deep down that they at least have 1 yr worth of money with them.

With 48 lacs – they can last for 8-10 yrs (not considering inflation here)

This way, you reach a point in your life when your wealth itself is enough to create a stream of income which handles your basic expenses at least if not a lavish lifestyle.

Recently I tweeted – “Investing money is nothing but an act of gifting yourself more Retirement days”

If you have started your wealth creation journey on time – you are moving towards your financial independence slowly and maybe somewhere in your 40’s or 50’s (dont confuse this with your retirement) you will have some level of financial independence

Reason #5 – So that you don’t get into the debt trap

Remember that people who are into debt trap today started small. They got into a small debt first, and then they continued it, didn’t manage it well and now after many years, they find themselves into a deep debt trap. Think why they even started with the small debt like credit card debt or a small personal loan of 2 lacs?

Its because they didn’t have enough money saved!!. The root cause of the debt trap is because people do not save for the future, and then slowly have to rely on debt to fund their needs and desires.

Reason #6 – Feeling of Progress in life

Sense of “progress” is very important in your financial life. You may have ZERO bank balance at the start of a career. But if after working for 8-10 yrs, you have very less to show – then its crushes you from inside.

It’s like running for hours, only to realise that you have not moved much. If you do not save on time, then over a period you may feel like a failure because you dont see any progress in your wealth.

I also said in one of my tweets that “If your Net worth if not going up, you are probably a RICH SLAVE” and nothing more than that. Think about it!

And its not too tough to create wealth over time. A small sum of money can also turn out to be a big sum over a long period of time.

Check out how much wealth can you create just with the monthly SIP of Rs 10,000 in 30 yrs

Wealth Creation using SIP in 30 yrs.

So if you have been late till now – START NOW!

Reason #7 – To handle major life events

A lot of major life events are going to come in your life.

  • Kids School fees (recurring)
  • Vacations (recurring)
  • Child Education Higher Education
  • Buying House
  • Upgrading of Car (recurring)
  • Home Renovation
  • Retirement

and lots and lots of small events which will demand money constantly!

What are you going to do – if you will not save enough for the future? Depend on Loans? Get into a Debt Trap?

Starting your wealth creation journey early in life increases the chances of you meeting these financial goals with less stress and on time without compromising on them!

Reason #8 – So that you can spend without guilt!

I have seen enough families who do not take enough vacations or spend properly on themselves enough. They keep cutting corners and often try to show that they are simple people and they dont believe in wasting money. But deep down the reasons is that they just don’t have wealth!

This means that on each occasion, they often feel guilty for spending money. They feel as if they are doing something wrong. They deprive themselves today so that they don’t have to deprive their future-self!

It doesn’t only impact them but their spouse, kids, parents and everyone around them at some level. A good financial life is not about just saving money, but spending money sensibly!

So start your saving today to that in future, when you have to spend money on things you love, you can do it with free mind without any guilt feeling!

Reason #9 – To explore an alternate career

A lot of people are not happy with their jobs. They feel stuck and they want to do something about it. But once you take a home loan and don’t possess any other skill, it becomes a permanent job for you.

You cant quit and explore other career choices because you have no backup plan. Forget switching career, ask yourself if you can even take a 2-3 yrs break from the job? Do you have enough wealth to support that?

If you save enough today, there will be a time when you will feel more comfortable to take that kind of tough decision. Having wealth on your side – gives you enough power to tell your boss that he sucks and that you are not coming from the next day!

You will be able to take calculated risks in life and try out many things .. so start saving now!

Reason #10 – Do that you can leave a legacy

I have many friends who have got enough legacy from their parents. Their money issues are partially solved. Imagine someone in a big city (Bangalore or Mumbai) whose parents are going to leave them a house or a big portfolio/business.

Only a person is burdened with a big EMI and no future inheritance can understand what I am speaking about.

One of my close friends has a Rs 10 crore net worth today (he is just 35 yrs age) all created by his grandfather. He has his own home, other properties and few income sources. Imagine how it would be for you if you were to acquire a lot of wealth from your ancestors!. What would be your mental state?

I am not saying that this itself will solve all your life issues, but you have one big less thing to worry about in life. You just build upon that!

You don’t get legacy because your parents messed up their retirement and didn’t do enough wealth creation. You can choose to not do that your next generation. I know that its a subjective thing and not everyone is excited or agree with the idea of leaving an inheritance.

Why we don’t save enough money when it’s so obvious?

Below is an excellent video from Shlomo Benartzi on why we don’t save enough and a framework to solve that issue. Listen to it!

A simple financial plan for you to invest your money

So here is a very generic roadmap on what you can do to invest your money

  • First, take enough term plan and health insurance early in life
  • Make sure you have 12 months’ worth of expenses invested in an ultra-short-term bond fund. This will give you good liquidity and decent returns at the same time!
  • Invest 20% – 40% of your take-home income into equities (as you already have debt portion covered by EPF). The options can be a mutual fund, Index funds, direct stocks if you understand it
  • Over time, as you grow older you may also have investments into debt mutual funds to lower the volatility of your portfolio
  • If you wish to, you can also have some fixed deposits – but preferably very less of it
  • If you are investing in NPS already, you have some equity exposure!
  • Stay away from an endowment and money-back insurance policies
  • You can open a PPF account, but don’t over-invest in it at a young age!

The above suggestions are all generic in nature. If you are interested in wealth creation in a more focused and structured manner, you may want to look at our investments services brochure

Let me know if you liked the article and share your comments

11 Health Insurance Myths which you thought were True

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Health Insurance sector is such a new thing in India that a lot of people have dozens of health insurance myths regarding various things and because of that they feel that this whole thing is so complicated. Today I will burst some of your long-term medical insurance myths which will help you choose right products and also build right expectations from health insurance policies.

 24 hours Hospitalization is necessary for making a Health Insurance Claim.

This clause always reminds me of an incident. A little over a year ago, we were having our weekly meetings, when a doctor friend who owns a hospital in Mumbai frantically called us. A woman was making a ruckus in this friend’s hospital, insisting doctors continue hospitalization of her son and discharge only after 24 hours, as her “advisor” had informed her that they would get the claim only if the hospitalization is over 24 hours. This incident brought to light the magnitude and the level of fallacies customers have about Health Insurance. Advisors, Representatives, Telemarketers, and even hospitals and customers have frazzled their throats out on the 24 hours clause, while explaining or even using the product.

Though, the policy does mention this as one of the clauses, the 24 number in real world of claims holds lesser importance. The clause, in spirit, requires the hospitalization to be “necessary” more than it to exceed “24 hours”. This was purely from the general understanding that most hospitalizations less than 24 hours are treated under “Out-patient” (treatment at the Doctor’s Dispensary) not covered under a Standard Mediclaim. Hospitalizations (like Cataract), though required 2-3 days earlier, which are now possible due to advancement in medical science in less than 24 hours are covered, while, hospitalization by an insured for more than 24 hours for getting his routine diagnostic tests done, while no active treatments are being carried out, would not be payable under Mediclaim.

Conclusion

The thumb rule of a whether a claim is payable is not 24 hrs hospitalization but whether the hospitalization was medically “necessary” or not?

You must compare Pre-existing waiting period, always.

This is a clause that most people looking for a Mediclaim are confused about (17 Most asked questions in Health Insurance). I speak to many customers whose requirement with mediclaim is that they do not want a waiting period for pre-existing ailments. This, in spite of their entire family being completely fit, without any ailment, whatsoever. Somehow, the clause again being so popular has brought in its own confusions for customers. In reality, the 4 year Pre-existing exclusion on ailments is applicable to ailments existing at the time of applying for the policy, and not any other ailments. If you do not have any ailments or conditions, you have no pre-existing waiting period.

Conclusion

When applying for a Mediclaim, if you are completely healthy, the Pre-existing exclusion clause is not applicable to you

Cashless is an on-call Emergency Service.

Ever since it was introduced as a value addition to Mediclaim, Cashless has remained a buzz word. To a level, that for a lot of people, Cashless became a prefix, or, even synonymous to Mediclaim. The reason for the cashless concept getting popular was obvious; it was a great value add, which helped customers tide away the burden of large payments on their bank account, documentation and of course, the stress of waiting for the claim cheque. Yes, Cashless can do all this, but expecting it to work when there are emergency funds required for Hospitalization is asking for too much.

You should understand the Cashless mechanism as a concept to know why it cannot be depended on at the time of emergencies. Cashless is an arrangement between the Health Insurance Company/TPA and the Hospital where, the Hospital agrees, under contract, to grant credit facility to the Insurance Company/TPA against authorized claims. Such an arrangement is only for authorized Claims, and not for all claims. TPAs/Insurance Companies, hence, need to assess every claim received, against the policy terms and conditions, to authorize payment. Such an authorization could require additional information as well as documents and hence can take anywhere for 4 hours to 2 days of time. In their role, the TPA or the Claims Team at the Insurance Company would have to do its job of evaluation of the claim, irrespective of how urgent the medical admission or treatment is. Cashless will help you save the burden of processing a reimbursement claim, but it cannot provide you the convenience of on-call emergency funds.

Moreover, one should also note, unlike the hospital cashier, Insurance Desks in hospitals (which coordinate for cashless claims) have fixed work-hours from 10.00 AM to 7.00 PM. Cashless process and approvals after 07.00 PM are processed by the Hospital the next day. Hence, though the TPA provides 24/7 service, the cashless process may not move, once the Hospital stops working on it.

Conclusion

Expecting Cashless to work as an on-call Emergency Service is foolish. You should plan your emergency medical fund, as well as ensure you have good unutilized credit card limits, always.

You must compare no. of Day Care Procedures covered

Most Insurance Companies (specially the Private ones) flaunt a large list of more than 100 Day Care Procedures being covered under their policy. In fact, it is a highlight of their product pitch. The truth is comparison of such numbers can be very misleading. One company could list every procedure, while another could list macro-level treatments, including the listed procedures of the former. For instance, a person who compares Apollo Munich’s Easy Health Insurance which covers 140 Day Care procedures, with an Oriental Happy Family Floater which covers only 26 procedures would feel that Apollo has wider cover on Day Care Procedures. Believe me, but it could actually be the reverse. How? Oriental promises to cover Eye Surgery (a broader definition) in its daycare list, compared to say an Apollo which lists 15 specific eye treatments, which results in a larger number. Now, if the treatment being carried out is an eye surgery, which is day care but not a part of the 15 specific treatments, Apollo or many other Private players may not pay, whereas, in the case of Oriental it would get paid in the broad definition of eye surgery. By providing a specific list of surgeries instead of a macro area of treatment, the coverage under Apollo may actually be more restrictive in the long run than Oriental’s wide area of treatment wise list.

Conclusion

A short list of procedures could be wider than a long one. Do not compare the no. of Day Care Procedures.

You should check the list of Network Hospitals.

Many customers, we have interacted with demand Hospital network lists. They select the mediclaim product depending on whether their preferred hospitals are part of that Insurance Company’s list. What they fail to realize is that a Hospital Network is ever-changing. Insurance Companies regularly blacklist defaulting Hospitals. Hospitals blacklist or refuse cashless of certain Insurance Companies/TPAs for delayed payments. What is clear from this is that there is no fixed or contracted list of hospitals between your Insurance Company and you – which means there is no assurance that the hospital name in the list, which you are depending when you buy the policy, would exist in the network when you have a claim, say 4 years down time.

Conclusion

Network List of Hospitals are not fixed or contracted through policy terms. Do not depend on the network hospital list to decide a suitable product for your family. The list could change even tomorrow, in fact it could change any moment.

Capping on Room Rent is bad:

Public Sector (PSU) Mediclaim products and their current terms and conditions are evolved from experiencing and analysing millions of claims spread over more than 20-25 years. Hospital Rooms are classified into various categories like General, Shared, Private and Deluxe Rooms. Earlier without the room rent limits, for the same treatment, a person with a sum insured of 1 Lakh paying a measly premium of say Rs. 2000, would have access to the same category of room, as a person who pays 5 times the premium, and takes a Rs. 5 Lakhs cover for himself. The 1% and 2% Room Rent Limits in Mediclaim brought a clear sync between the kind of premium one pays and the eligibility of room. With such cappings, an individual who pays a high premium gets a better room, than one who pays a smaller premium, for the same treatment, which is fair. It’s like any other product with categories, like Indian Railways, providing you better facilities/services, as you move from 2nd Class to 3rd AC to 2nd AC and so on. In my opinion, sooner or later, Insurance Companies would either have to hike premium for lower sum insured or bring in a capping of some kind. For instance, the newest health insurance company – Max Bupa, has a restriction on the type of room according to the sum insured selected, instead of a “no capping on room rent” feature.

Conclusion

Cappings are good for Health Insurance as a community fund. Cappings could actually be helpful to customers in the long run.

Health Insurance Plans sold by Life Insurers are the same

The highly advertised Health Plans from LIC are Defined Benefit Health Insurance Plans, sold as “hassle free” alternatives with guaranteed payments. These plans should not be considered as a substitute to Standard Health Insurance plans sold by General Insurance Companies. These plans provide fixed benefits against no. of days of hospitalization and/or surgeries. These plans do not take care of healthcare inflation. For instance, with 18-25% healthcare inflation, a fixed benefit for Angioplasty at say, Rs. 1,50,000/- would miserably fall short in 10 years. Defined Benefit products are actually supplementary plans which provide a cover over allied costs of hospitalization including loss of earnings, if any, but such products surely cannot be a substitute to the good ol’ traditional mediclaim. Read more about the difference here.

Conclusion

Beware of what you buy. A Traditional Mediclaim should be the first product you buy to cover the financial risk of healthcare expenses of the future. Defined Benefit Products are supplementary and not substitute to Traditional Health Insurance.

Health Insurance is a Tax Saving Tool:

A large Healthcare expenditure can severely affect your financial planning for the future. The goal when you buy Health Insurance should be to financially insure your family against such large scale healthcare expenditure. Buying a health insurance product blindly, for the 80D tax benefits, is a wide-spread fallacy, which has left a large no. of people underinsured or insured with products which are not suitable. The worst part is most of them are unaware of this.

Conclusion

Health Insurance at its core is not a Tax Saving Instrument. It could save you much more than your tax, if you invest wisely.

There will be no changes in the terms of the Mediclaim I bought:

Expect changes in your product, terms. Don’t be surprised. The Health Insurance companies and other stakeholders in India are going through a mindset change. Losses in Health Insurance are no longer acceptable by key stakeholders at Insurance Companies. A lot of streamlining and normalizing in premium, terms, benefits and procedures, which have already begun, is expected in the next 5 years. Group products would turn expensive, and restrictive. Parents would be out of most Sponsored Employee Mediclaim Covers. Large and small tweaks are expected in Retail/Individual products and processes, especially from new and private players who are till experimenting and understanding how to make a long term sustainable (read profitable) product for the Indian market.

For instance, last year, PSU Insurance companies tightened the procedure of intimation and submission of reimbursement claims. Customers who were not aware of such a change faced harsh action of denial of claims, and lost good money. 

Conclusion

Ensure you are updated with changes in the terms and procedures of your Mediclaim Product. Ensure you have recruited a good advisor who keeps you posted on such changes.

I can destroy Mediclaim Policies once they have expired.

Don’t know how many of you have observed at the time of renewals, but PSU companies and their divisions are infamous in the industry for changing their TPAs year over year. With TPAs being the custodian of claims, change in TPAs could result in scattered claims information amongst various TPAs across years of continuous renewals. Hence, when there is a claim, the TPA in all probability won’t have information regarding how long you are continuously covered, an essential data point to approve claims, especially, and those treatments which had a waiting period at entry into the policy. TPAs for evaluation of continuity may demand policy copies of past 3 to 4 years. Hence, destroying policy copies records have cost many customers lot of stress in proving continuity of cover. Yes, we know that it is ridiculous for the Insurance Company or its representative to ask for their own record from the customers, but then this is how it is. A good health insurance advisor knowingly would keep a repository of all policy copies, to ensure such queries do not create roadblocks in a smooth claim settlement.

Conclusion

In addition to the current one, keep copies of at least 3 previous year policy copies. Ensure your advisor also records them.

My Friend, My Health Insurance Advisor

No offence to agents, but in our interaction with Customers, we have noticed time and again, that most customers, who were found with a wrong health insurance product, bought these either from a friend, a friend’s relative, or a relative, or a relative’s friend. Most of these customers did not spend enough time in selecting an advisor, and relied on pure reference. Most of these agents selected were Life Insurance agents, who did not have a detailed understanding of mediclaim products, neither were they providing any real expert assistance (beyond picking of forms, and providing the TPA’s no.) at the time of claims. The advisor selected should have the capability and the intention to provide unbiased advice, the advisor should forever own the product they sold you, and provide services across the Health Insurance service cycle, including Purchase Assistance, Records management, Claims Assistance and Renewals. A good advisor would be able to hand hold you through the dynamic transformation that the Health Insurance industry in India, is witnessing and will continue to witness for the next 2-3 years.

Conclusion on Health Insurance Myths

Select an advisor on merits and the services he demonstrated, and just not merely on reference.

 

What was the biggest and most valuable learning for you out of this article ? How many of your health insurance myths were really broken ? Please share it on comments section .

Are you suffering from Mental Accounting ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Do you know that majority of the problems in your financial life are purely because of psychological reasons? We are all humans and are prone to think irrationally at times, due to which, a lot many wrong decisions are taken in our personal finance. Behavioural Finance is the area of finance that combines psychology and finance together and gives you an insight as to how a common man makes mistakes in his decisions. Today, I am going to talk about on its concept called ‘Mental Accounting’.

Mental Accounting

Lets imagine a scenario, which will give you a brief idea on mental accounting .

Scenario 1 : You and your wife visit an electronics showroom with the intention to buy a Laptop. After browsing various products you finalize a nice laptop with the price tag of Rs. 40,000. Just when you were to swipe your credit card, the couple behind you mentioned that another showroom about 3 blocks away (15 min drive max) is selling the same laptop for Rs. 39,800. Will you consider driving 15 mins to save Rs.200? Majority of us will not do so!

Scenario 2 : You and your wife visit the same electronics showroom to buy 4 GB Pendrive costing Rs.400. However, you come to know that this product is available for Rs.200 at another showroom which is 15 mins drive. So will you now choose to drive another 15 mins to buy this Pendrive? Most of us will happily choose to drive 15 mins to the second showroom.

If you look at both the scenarios, you will notice that both scenario 1 and scenario 2 are exactly the same, they both will save you Rs. 200 and both requires you to drive 15 min. Exactly same, no difference. But most of the people will choose the first showroom only in scenario 1 and will choose second showroom in scenario 2.

Why does this happen ?

Truly speaking, this happens because of Mental Accounting which makes Rs. 200 saved on laptop not a significant amount because its just 0.5% of the original price. Whereas, Rs. 200 saved on Pendrive looks attractive and substantial bargain because its 50% of the original cost.

What is Mental Accounting ?

Mental Accounting is very simple to understand. What makes is a crucial aspect to understand is the different ways we treat money depending on situation and its source. We often concentrate on the situation and the source of money in terms of the amount of hard work we put to get that money and all these points makes us human to fall prey to treat same amount of money in different ways. But coming back to the facts, Money is Money and it doesn’t matter where it comes from!

So, if you earn Rs. 100 from 3 different sources- Lottery, Salary or Tax Refund, all of them should mean the same as they all have the same purchasing power. Forget how you got it; all of that Rs.100 is valuable equally!

Personal Experience of Mental Accouting

Let me share on how I myself was a victim of Mental Accounting. Some 2 years back, when I did my first stock market trade in F&O. I made Rs. 2000 as profit on an investment of Rs. 6000 in the matter of 2 hours (options trading). This increase of Rs. 2000 actually increased my overall wealth, but to me it was ‘Cheap Money’. Naturally, I had made plans to spend this money and I had no 2nd thoughts on NOT spending. The decision to spend money was not at all rational, but it was fast money which came from stock market and it came without any hard work. Mental Accounting was doing its job in my mind!! Carefully evaluating the situation, all what happened here was that my networth went up by Rs. 2000 and I took out Rs. 2000 and SPENT it!

 

6 Examples of how our personal finance decisions are based on Mental Accouting

1. Treating some money as “Free-Money” or “Loose-money”

Most of us label money based on where it comes from, by doing so the value of that money appears to be less. E.g. if you get food coupons from your company, you will not consider it as cash! At the last company I worked at, it was amazing to see that people didn’t mind paying up to Rs.50 for Food Coupons for friends, but if the same person had to spend Rs. 10 hard cash, he will not be willing to do so. Food coupons have same purchasing power (at least in limited environment) as cash, so one should be treating it in the same way and not being bias just because it’s not in the form of currency. What I really want to know is that what will happen if companies start providing cash equivalent of these food coupons???

Another example can be with the money that we get from tax refunds, cash gifts on events etc…etc… We all in our heads label these as ‘Cash, but not as valuable’. Imagine that you got Rs. 2000 as your tax refund and you are more likely to be spending this money rather than the willingness you would have to spend from your salary. Also imagine that some friend gave you Rs. 1000 as gift voucher, will you even bother researching on what products can this voucher buy??? In the same way, if you earn yourself a bonus of Rs. 50,000; you will be more inclined to spend it on a holiday or for buying some item for the house. Would you do the same thing with the money from your salary??

So the message is clear, don’t label money as ‘salary money’, ‘tax refund money’, ‘bonus money’ or ‘Gift money’. It’s just MONEY!

2. Holding Stocks and Mutual funds with Loss

Mental Accounting is visible in buying and selling of equity products like stocks and mutual funds. Consider a person who bought shares at Rs. 100 each and the current price drops to Rs. 80. He does not consider this as loss until he books it, loss is not existent for him, and it’s just a possibility. But in real terms, that person is actually suffering loss already. The person in this case labels the loss as ‘potential’ and not ‘real’. On the other hand, if the same stock went up from Rs. 100 to Rs. 120, he will be happy and will be telling everybody that how he is in ‘profit’ even though he has not booked as yet. Profits have already happened according to this person’s thinking and this is exactly why many people fail in stock investments.

3. Size of the decision/money involved

A lot of times the size of the transaction also influences our thinking. Imagine that you went to buy a Plasma TV which costs Rs 20,000. You bargain with the vendor and successfully get a discount of Rs 500; it makes you happy and you feel as if you saved something. But do you put any big effort to find out how you can save much on groceries or vegetables? As the transaction size is bigger and bigger money is involved in case of Plasma TV, it clicks your mind that you should try to bargain the price and save as much as you can, but this thinking is not the same in case of small purchases. Even if we are able to save Rs 5 on small transactions, it would amount to Rs 1700 (approx) in saving in whole year and that would be bigger than Rs 500 saved in case of Plasma TV.

While there can be repetitive headache involved in saving that small amount, the whole idea is to communicate that we tend to think differently when there is a big decision and very different when in smaller ones.

4. Earn less interest and pay more interest

Many investors do the common mistake of earning less interest on their FD’s, PPF or Cash in their Savings account, but pay huge interest on their personal loan or credit card interests. For investors, money in FD’s and PPF is ‘safe’ and not to be touched, but in true sense you are earning less on a part of your portfolio and from that same portfolio you are paying huge interest for loans. If you see your whole portfolio as one and single element without labelling parts of it, your perspective will change. Ideally  one should clear a liability whose interest rates are higher than the part of portfolio earning lesser interest . But due to mental accounting , this idea does not look fine to many people .

5. Labeling money into safe money and risky money , loosing any money is just loosing

Ajay has Rs 1,00,000 in Bank FD, Rs 2,00,000 in his PPF account and 5 lacs in Balanced Mutual funds. All these investments are for his daughter’s education down the line and he has mentally labelled it as ‘safe’. However Ajay has also separated out Rs 50,000 to try out stock trading which is his passion and what he loves to do. He has mentally labelled this Rs 50,000 as ‘Risky’. You can see his total worth is 8.5 lacs.

Case A: Now imagine he is in loss of Rs 25,000 in his stock trading. This will not hurt him so much as he had accepted from start that it’s for stock trading and loss was a possibility. He is fine with this loss, as nothing has happened to his ‘safe’ investments.

Case B: Suppose market is down and he faces a loss of Rs 25,000 on his mutual funds. As the loss has happened in his mutual funds which was initially labelled as ‘safe’ and “for-his-daughter’s-education”, the level of disappointment and worry would be much bigger than Case A.

Even though the reaction of Ajay was different in both case A and case B, it’s purely because of mental accounting and the way he had unconsciously labelled both investments of his portfolio, but in both the cases the reality is that his total net worth went down from 8.5 lacs to 8.3 lacs, It’s as simple as that.

6. Paying for Financial advice

We recently encountered a very funny situation, one of the readers contacted us for our Financial Coaching service, he was very clear that he needs it (For readers who are not aware about financial coaching, it’s a paid program where we coach people in their financial life just like Garry Kirsten coaches Indian cricket team and transformed their performance). He was very much interested in being coached on his finances and what MONEY means to him, but was very uncomfortable paying the fee out of his wealth, as for him there were other important things in life; he said he would get back to us once he makes the decision. But he didn’t communicate for weeks, then just last week he told us that now he is ready for Financial Coaching. After we started his work, we asked him, what had happened in his life which motivated him to take our service. To our surprise, he had sold his old car and got price way beyond he expected, and he was fine to use that extra money to improve his financial life.

If you look at this incident closely, even the money which he got by selling his old car become the part of his overall wealth, the moment he sold it, in fact it was always part of his wealth even when he didn’t sold it. You must be thinking what was our first   coaching lesson for him? Yes, it was the way he looks at different aspects of his financial life and not fall prey to these kinds of behavioural patterns.

7. Treating unexpected money in a different way

There are lot of unexpected money at times coming in our life , It can be money in form of Bonus from your company , It can be money recieved from an old friend who took it from you ,didnt give back to you and you also forgot about it. It can be some money you find in old book which you had secretley kept long back . All these are examples of “unexpected” money and hence there is no mental accout for it , that money looks more of pocket money to you and you tend to spend it without thinking much .. However money is money , no matter from where it came . Its just different in your mind .

Please share your real life incidents where you fell prey to mental accounting . Do you think mental accounting is not applicable in real life and is more of a “time pass” concept or do you think its really something one has to understand and apply in their financial life ? Share your views

 

Will your children marriage be simple or grand ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Marriages are made in heaven! But what about families who have to fund the marriages by taking loans? Those, who sell their assets and properties for these, at the most, 1-2 day events? Does it make sense at all?

You, as parents have goals for your children education sometime in future. Despite the pressure you undergo today to spend a lot on money for your children marriages sometime in future, will it be relevant to spend so much on that goal?

This is the second series of articles which sees how social and economical changes in our country will have impact on our financial goals in future, so that we can take decisions for saving for those goals today ! (Read first article of the series about Child Education here).

source

When we coach our clients in their financial lives, we see that one of the main goals in their life is “Children’s Marriage.” For most, the present cost of this goal is around Rs 10,00,000, and by the time their children will be marrying, it definitely would cost a bomb!

These investors keep investing money for that goal for several years and work hard all their life at it.

But the question is –

After 20-25 years when the time comes, will it be worth spending so much on this goal? Can’t you lower the target of that goal and instead use the money on something else which would add more value to your life? What about buying a better house? How about living a 20% better retirement than you have planned? Or best, why don’t you just fund the education of say 2 kids from the streets? That to me, is more inspiring, more satisfying and a much better act to boot !

What happens today?

Now a days, marriages have become more of an event where the whole focus has deviated from the main goal of the rituals, the gathering of friends & loved ones, spending quality time and shifted to show-bazzi, razz–matazz, DJs, expensive decorations, partying, showcasing 100 types of food, and functions which last long hours !

And the biggest problem, if it can be called that, is that all this is done for people who actually don’t matter most of the time! I personally come from Uttar Pradesh and I have seen marriages there, If you want to compete with our state in Show-bazzi and non-sense extravagance, I give you an open challenge !

We all know, what is the goal of marriage. It’s bringing together two individuals and their families. They enjoy the event, get to know each other and perform rituals which really contribute to marriage. For people who don’t know, the Arya Samaj rituals which is the simplest and purest form of Hindu marriage, takes only an hour to complete the marriage !

And it has all the rituals from Hindu vidhi! Even with regular marriages it does not take much time to complete the marriage. It’s normally, a balancing acts between parents who push for making sure the “rituals” are there and the current generation who look for speed and simplicity.

As per an Indian study, as close as 15% of all grains and vegetables in India are wasted through “extravagant and luxurious functions”.

Parents and society pressure

Most of the people who are pissed off by the idea of useless spending still have to pass through this trauma because of the parents. Parents have attended all the marriages till date in their “circle” and it was all nice and full of events and 3 days long. Now it’s their turn to show off or at least give back !

No matter how much logic you can throw at parents in doing a simple marriage with less people and a low budget, it still does not help!

Even though we are in the 21st century, the majority of parents still start saving for their daughters marriage from day 1.  I say daughter’s marriage because its considered as the bigger headache and there is this ‘rule’ in our society that girls side bear the main expenses. What a cheap mentality is this !

If its going on from years, we have to change it, but lots of guys family still show as if they are bound by some imaginary forces to follow it !  Shame ! .  A lot of families go into debt because of this “happy event” in their daughters life. They sell their land, houses at times, & even mortgage their assets to fund marriages.

Is this a happy event or a sad one?

Why do people spend in weddings in the first place? There is enormous pressure in the conservative society for marriage spending. These are costly social get-together’s, in this country of more than 900 million middle class and poor people. In the marriage celebrations, the hosts have to feed couple of meals to some 500 to 1000 guests.

They have to give gifts to some 50 to 100 relatives and wedding guests. The cost of lighting, flowers, decoration, booze, music, dresses and gifts to bride and groom, and travel expenses often hits the economic foundation of most families.

I personally know families, in which a man loses almost all his retirement benefits to get two of his daughters married, even when there is no dowry involved. For a middle class person, even the simplest wedding can cost rupees 5 lakhs (half a million rupees).

Does society or culture coerce people directly or indirectly to bear huge expenses during marriage of their children? Yes. People are coerced or forced by the culture to spend money to prove themselves in front of friends, relatives and neighbors. It is a social expectation imposed on people, which tramples their freedom and choice to lead a dignified life.  – by Desicritics

How our Indian marriages and our customs took their shape !

Lets flashback few centuries back and understand how the procedure of marriages got to where it is today. In earlier times, it was parents who decided who the life partner would be. In most cases, the girl and boy would not have even seen each other!

Marriage was then, actually an event of getting every one familiar with each other – all the relatives, neighbors, friends, everyone came with purpose of getting along, and knowing each other. And it was an event which was “opportunity to meet!”  People lived far apart, and communication & travel wasn’t as easy as it is today.

Marriages were therefore long events with series of ceremonies and rituals . A strong reason for this was that girl can spend more and more time with their future family members and get familiar with her “new” life & family. With the passage of time, the real meanings have been lost and only the rituals remain.

What do people think about Indian Marriages ?

I conducted a survey few days back and there was a great response . I came to know what urban Indian (mostly metro’s) thinks about Indian marriages and some interesting results came out . See the survey report which I have created out of it .

Most of the people participating in the survey said that they feel marriages should be simple and fast, which indirectly tells that there should be less spending on marriages. However still a quarter of the participants said that it should be a grand event as its once in a lifetime event and hence deserving of expenditure!

There was also a interesting pattern seen on what people think about who should be part of a marriage. There were equal number of people who opted for “close family and friends” as well as “All the family, relatives and all kind of friends.”

Some even went ahead to say that they would like to call everyone who can embarrass them later saying “Arre yaar, tumne bulaya nahi” .. Believe me whoever says that kind of sentence never actually comes anyway! You can safely request him to come and then forget about him/her 😉 .

This clearly shows that while most of the people would like to spend less on their marriages, they still feel the pressure of society and therefore would would like to invite people. This is very obvious, given the way our society is shaped.

While a person attends many marriages in a year, only 1-2 of those marriages are the one which he actually cares about. Most of the others are just a formality. Imagine, while just inviting others is a headache, even the person whom you invite, also gets a headache of attending it!

Attending marriage is also becoming like actually getting organizing a marriage! No one wants to do it, but everyone has to do it!

As many as 58% of the survey participants said that if they attend a marriage, it has to be fast and simple as its just another formality for them, 12% even went ahead and declared those events to be a headache for them. Only 30% participants said that they would love to attend marriages which are grand, after all they are guest ! .

All ceremonies are driven by “Looking Good” factor

We live an ordinary life but our eyes would like to capture things in movies or television shows which are larger than life. Most Indian weddings shown in Indian movies and television shows are larger than life. They are shown as if our entire life is about spending on weddings and nothing else.

While watching movies we forget that everything is fake, it is not a real wedding happening on screen. The scene is created where everything shown is picture perfect. ‘Everything is created so that it LOOKS GOOD’.

When we have a family function each person wants to look good or wants to avoid looking bad in the eyes of relatives. They want the event to be the best, they want it to be different, they want people to say “kya kharcha kiya hai, kya baaat hai”.

This is what it’s LOOKING GOOD, nothing else.

The spirit of celebration is quietly taken over by the looking good factor. Most people don’t know this, they are not present to how the looking good factor is running their financial life. They simply want to look good and inside of that they over shoot budget, invite more people to the event and will try his level best to impress the guests.

Looking good element is not only present in the Host , please don’t be mistaken. It is fully present in the guests who are invited. When we receive an invitation to attend any marriage or function we attend the event just to look good.

We go to the functions thinking “Nahi gaye toh aache nahi lagega”. Even the gifts we give on each wedding or occasion is decided by the looking good factor inside us. (Think about it). By the way where is all this coming from.

It is either to look good or you want to avoid looking bad when it comes to attending functions, giving gifts, organizing events. Some say it is my first son getting married so I will spend, some say it is my last son getting married so I will spend.

NO BOSS it is simply the looking good factor running the financial show of your life.

The point is you can go beyond “The looking good factor” you can get in touch with your true self-expression and focus on celebration rather than burning your hard earned money just to look good.

We have served dozens of our clients and almost all of them have been victim of this “Looking good” and messed up their financial life. however we have been successful in coaching them on how they should come out of this “looking good” and concentrate on a bigger goal in life , which is attaining financial freedom. I am sharing this with you, because I don’t want you to be one more victim of looking good factor. If you can get this lesson, you can design and live a simple yet extraordinary financial life.

But marriage is a one time event and to be remembered !

I agree !

Who’s stopping you from making it memorable and enjoyable? Life is to make each moment memorable and marriage is an event which has to be memorable. However do it in your capacity, thinking past and future and what impact it can have on you , not others.

If you want to spend 20 lacs on marriage, and you can afford it, then damn it all & just go do it! But shower it all on your family and people who matter, do it on people for whom you will be happy with, do it for everyone whom you will miss if they are not part of the marriage.

Instead of wasting it all on 750 people, of whom 600 are just weird acquaintances, better spend all 20 lacs on just 150 who are close to you and you would not regret spending it all on them. I would suggest, spend 15 lacs on marriage and go for a amazing honeymoon with those 5 Lacs!

Your spouse will love you for at least next 2 years for sure! Guaranteed! 😉

However if you spend 20 lacs on those 750 bums and are irritated at each moment, and then complain that real estate prices are high, paisa nahi hai, kaisa karenge, and all, then God help you! You choose your path and boy, please work on your emotional quotient! 🙂

Marriage’s in future

Now coming back to the point, If this is the condition today, in 2011, you can only imagine the scenario after 20-30 years. In this new India, more and more people are travelling to other parts of country, settling in other states, mingling with other communities and end up marrying with other castes.

This will only rise in future , not come down. Which means marriages will have to be more simpler. People will have much lesser time than today for “external” events .

With everyone busy in the rat race of life, and with new breed of individuals who will be “us”,everyone who will be part of your children marriage would be your friends and relatives who are almost of same age, and hopefully think alike and will be wise enough to accept that “uske ghar ki shaadi bade sidhe sade tarike se who rahi hai”.

We would not mind attending faster and simpler marriages.

So I want to give you no suggestions today; just food for thought. If you have a goal of your children marriage, discuss with yourself, rethink stuff…

It might happen that in future you might not have to spend so much money on marriages because the situation and those environment might not demand it. It may be they don’t even care for it! You might be losing on some other goal or some sleep over night on these points!

Experiences of Readers about Indian marriages

You can skip this part now if you wish to, I am just sharing some of the experiences of readers who have taken the survey and shared their personal views on Indian marriages .

Reader 1

Today people spend so lavishly on their son/daughter’s wedding like never before, even when they have to take personal loan for it. I really don’t understand the reason behind all this, I guess this is to do with their social/personal image.

Who dont want their daughter to be happy and not to face any taunt from future in-laws because uski baap ne uski shaadi acche se ni ki?? Maybe this fear makes them spend so much..!! For these people, I have a question, does spending so lavishly on their son/daughter’s wedding boost their social image and stop the taunt from in-laws family (PRACTICALLY)?

Did they work hard and save whole life to spend like this? Why not spend it on their own vacation, son/daughter’s honeymoon, things they desire most in their life etc? Why not buy a home they desire for (if they don’t have one), why not plan for retirement?

Why not use the money they want to spend to fund poor & needy child’s education than to spend on decoration & food at the marriage on rich & well settled family and friends (read everyone) who can say “arrey yaar, tumne bulaya nahin!”..

I am sure, the marriage can happen in small banquet hall (lawn) with only close friends and relatives invited, sharing the happiness immensely than to manage large crowds seeing your hard earned money flowing like daru from the bottle forming the ocean.. Shadi 3 crore ki can become shadi 3-5 lakh ki with happiness multiplied many times!

 

Reader 2

Today’s marriages are more of a show – “my cousin had a grand wedding, I will show them what a ‘grand’ wedding is next month when my son gets married.” It’s more like the Onida advertisement – neighbours envy sort of thing.

One who has attended a relatives wedding feels he can do a better show of it , like ‘people will forget that wedding, they will remember my wedding for a long time to come.  All show. I say go feed or look after some really needy people in that money spent on the lavishes of the wedding. Keep the wedding simple with minimum rites as required.

 

Reader 3

Few thoughts on the way today’s marriages are conducted these days in our country ( I may be little over the top being a bania 🙂  . First about the marriage ceremony itself – they are all the same.

A large glittering hall with a huge gathering of unrecognized people and a very few close friends / relatives. What’s the point of such expense ?

I’d think couple may be better off performing a simple marriage ceremony & utilize the money saved for themselves – expense on close friends / Honeymoon / Car purchase / House purchase etc.

Second, the marriage invitations have become much more transactional than an emotional invite. Your option of “Anyone who can say tumne bulaya nahin” captures that (wonder how many people will select it 🙂 ).

People invite everyone they can remotely relate to (it’s high fixed cost anyways as per grand arrangements – adding few people doesn’t matter).

If the ceremony were to be conducted in simpler manner, a much better & thoughtful function / reception party can be arranged for fewer people with lots of personal attention & hospitality that makes the event memorable for all rather than “aaj phir ek shaddi mein jana hai…dinner karke zaldi aa jayenge” 🙂 .

Ofcourse our parents generation for whom shaddi is an event to call upon the whole society would disagree. It ‘ll be nothing less than a crime not to call upon all and spend it all on a marriage.

I ‘d think as the current generation takes over the role of parents and arranging for child’s marriages (hopefully they will let us :P), we might move towards simpler marriages and grand functions for a lesser number of people.

 

Reader 4

Marriage used to be a divine affair, 2 people getting together and taking oath to live together until death, through thick and thin. Today some of the marriages I visit are more of wealth show and ego pumping affair for the couple and their parents.

Sure, those with hidden black money would want to spend it all here (visit a marriage of a real estate developers son/daughter, you will know).

I am a South Indian, and had visited a north Indian friends marriage in UP. It was an high expenditure marriage, with great food and gifts to all attendees.

Everybody enjoyed the food and drinks, and by the time the mooharat, started (midnight), there were hardly a handful of close relatives left to witness the rituals. It made me realize how fake and shallow Indian marriages have become.

Importance of your Child’s Education plan in coming times !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

So, what’s your biggest financial goal in life? Your Child’s education?  Their marriages? Planning your own retirement? What is the strategy you’ll follow to reach these goals? What if I tell you that in the coming times, your way of looking at these goals needs to change?

You can’t look at goals the same way as your parents did! The lives & times of our parents, ourselves and our children will have lots of differences; difference arising because of the way our society and economy changes from year to year, decade to decade.

Let’s question the beliefs we have about some financial goals in our lives, how we should change our way of looking at them and planning for them. I believe this is really important; important enough to cover this over a series of articles. This is the first of a 3 part series and we will cover Child Education in this series.

Child's education

 

Let me start from basics. Here’s how typical financial planning works in India. A financial planner captures your situation, helps you define your goals and then he plans for how those financial goals should be achieved. Take any financial plan and topmost goals are

For years, traditional financial planning has been going on like this, & no one questions the way we plan for these goals and how much importance we give to these goals in our life. Note that these goals take up a good amount of your monthly investments and you end up with less money each month!

How will you feel if after 2-3 decades you realize that you shouldn’t have worked so hard on these goals?

How is Child’s Education Planning done in India?

Right now, almost every average India plans for their child’s education in an unstructured way. They just put some random amount in some generic financial product, without understanding how much would they require at the end, when the goal actually arrives.

The amount of investment done is guided by the potential of a person or some whole number like 5,000 per month or 10,0000 per month.

Normally Financial Planners will take a better and more structured approach to plan for your child’s education. They would first take the amount required for funding education in today’s world (this is often given by you).

They then, take the target date of the goal (for example, 25 years), assume an “education Inflation” to figure roughly how much education could cost in the future, plug-in other important factors like “regular inflation”, “Your earning potential”, “Increase in your investments each year”, “you risk appetite” and some more factors to figure out the amount of money you need to invest monthly or yearly to reach that goal.

There can be many variations to plan, but this is how most of the financial planners plan for the child’s education goal.

Watch this video to know the best investment for newborn child’s education:

What’s the problem in child education planning?

The problem is that we have taken into consideration changes like inflation, costs, etc., but not considered other factors like how these goals will look like in the future. Whose responsibilities will be it seen as? Who will be responsible for taking care of funding the education costs?

Will it be the parents, the child, or both – the parents and the child?

Planning for child education is not just dependent on the numbers, rather it’s a combination of a number of factors; social, personal beliefs, religious, your way of approaching & looking at life…

In the image given below, you will see the steps of a child’s education planning:

Steps of child's education planning

If you are a person who has seen enough hardships in life and have taken care of yourself right from the beginning, you may believe that your duty as a parent is to provide minimum support to your child, up to a certain basic level and they should become independent, sooner or later and that their life is their headache, not yours.

As far as our society goes, earlier providing a great education to children was seen as a passport to a good retirement, because you do your duty of providing support to your child, and in turn, he completes his responsibility of taking care of you in your old age.

But friends, the times are a-changing! Gone are those days and people and relations are going farther and farther. Even in Health Insurance, family means immediate family (spouse and children), not parents.

We are entering (or have already entered) an era where parents will provide for their child all the necessities up to the age of 18, then consider him or her, “self-dependent” , and then expect him/her to make their own path in life.

So the question which we are trying to answer here is, Is “Child Education” so important in today’s life? Or more, will it be so important after 2-3 decades? I don’t think so.

Change in social trend and our thinking

For years, it has been the parent’s responsibility to save money for their child’s education. His grandfather saved for his father, his father saved for him and now he saves for his children.

But will this chain of “responsibility” be the same always? Will, it always be the sole responsibility of the parent to save for his child’s education and in case he fails, is he or she a bad parent?

In 70s and 80s , it would be a really, deadly shock for a child if his parents told him, “Listen, we as Indian parents know that we should help you with your education, but sorry old chap! We can’t! We would rather prefer to keep the money we saved, for our retirement. You go right ahead please, & find some alternatives to fund your education. You can live in this house till you find another one.”

The child would have gone straight into a coma after hearing this! You would also be shunned by friends, relatives & society at large and labeled as an unsupportive and bad parent because you didn’t do your duty!

Education Loan is the new tool for self-funding

In the new India, it’s not a big thing to hear that someone is doing his studies with the help of an education loan. The trend is not really new, but it has started gaining popularity only recently in the last 10 years or so. SBI was the first bank to start giving Education loans in 1995, but it was not really sought after much in those times.

Only now, do we see increased awareness and a shift in parents’ mindset that “It’s fine to take education loan.”

Even so, taking an “Education Loan” is the last option for most people, rather than the default choice of parents and children. Parents do everything they can do to fund education and only if they fail, do they opt for a loan. It’s still not seen as the best option to fund education by the majority of the population. (though this is changing)

More and more people are opting for higher education after a first job, It’s not uncommon to hear people pay back an education loan EMI while they’re working, so you can see the trend emerging now. It’s only going to grow bigger and bigger and take a big shape.

Some Stats

There is a steadily growing market for education loans and govt is also encouraging and setting better targets. Banks had given Rs. 35,000 crore in education loans last year. The government has set a target to increase the amount in education loans to Rs122,838 crores in 2017 and Rs1,66,541 crores in 2020.

This would help increase the enrolment ratio from the present 12% to 30% by 2020. (source) .

Here is the chart which shows you the relative size of education loan disbursed by banks and you will be able to see the fast growth. Given the number of youth our country has, there is a huge demand as well as supply for loans.

eduation loan in india

As per a survey, 81% students would like to go for education loans if they are eligible for it. Only 2-3% of Indians apply for education loans compared to 85% in the UK and 50% in the US (2005 data).

Don’t stress a lot on Child Education

The motive of this article is to give you some idea about future and how child education will look like. This article is not discouraging you to save for your child education. The only point is that you can take some of your tension away from it, atleast partially. In the coming times, there can be more important goals in life, which needs more priority.

If you are an earning member of your family and feeling the pressure of creating a corpus of several lacs for your child after 20-25 yrs, I would suggest lower your tension! 🙂

While you can still save and plan for that goal to fulfil your “kartavya” as Indian parent, I say, don’t worry so much. Your target amount might be correct,  but don’t worry, the India of 2040 will not ask you to fund 100% of your child’s education. If you even save for 50% of what you have planned, rest would be funded by education loan.

Don’t become slaves to numbers! Understand and be with the changing India! Focus on some things more important in your life! We will talk about these in the last article of this series.

Please share your thoughts about this topic? How much do you agree with this way of thinking about a Child’s education?

Disclaimer : All the thoughts are purely authors opinion and does not reflect the opinion
of financial planners.

What is mean by Instant Gratification? And how does it affects your Financial Life?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Do you understand the meaning of Instant gratification and its affect on your financial life ? We will learn that today. How did we become a generation that “wants things now!” no matter what?

Think about this – both, our parents generation and ours, save , invest and spend. What then, is the difference between them and us? It’s mainly that they used to first earn money, save & invest that money and then spend it on things they needed.

They got ‘delayed gratification’; this quality of waiting before they are able to buy. However, we have reversed the equation. We first buy, and then pay for it later; without having a clue if we will be able to earn that money in the future or not!

And that’s is where the problem lies — Once we buy something, the deal is done! Then we have to live with it because we can’t change our minds about it later.

Instant Gratification in Personal Finance

We love ‘the thing!’ &  We need ‘the thing!’ . Our life is not complete / not possible without ‘the thing!’ . ‘The thing!’ can be a home (debate on buying ve renting), a car, some household item, the latest gadget  or 3 pairs of jeans from the big Sale!

I’m not talking about the planned and carefully thought out spending we do in life, rather I’m referring to the spending which ‘just happens’, the spending that does not add much value to our lives. Even if it adds any value, it’s mostly short-lived and makes us feel happy for just a while.

This ultimately, weakens our financial life, since we do not concentrate on our major and important financial goals, chasing the smaller and futile wants in life. A lot of this phenomena is result of the impulse called “Instant gratification!” which is what, we will look at in this article.

It’s important to realize, that the more we give in to Instant Gratification, the more we sink into the dal-dal of debt & misery. Sooner or later we’re in upto our neck and it gets too late to fix things. The biggest example of this was the recent sub-prime crisis in the US. “BUY NOW! Pay later” was the attitude!

Let me tell you a short story to give you an idea of what I am talking about.

Two small children Anita and Ramesh, lived in a small village with their parents. Their father gave Rs 5 to each of them to eat a watermelon. Both of them visited a  farm and asked the farm owner for a large watermelon.

“A big one will cost Rs 20 and a small one would cost Rs 5”, said the farm owner pointing to the watermelons in the field. With the irresistible urge of having the sweet and juicy fruit, Ramesh bought the smaller watermelon and started eating it. Anita however, wanted the big watermelon.

“OK, I too will buy a smaller watermelon”, she told the owner. “But can you please leave my watermelon in the field itself, I will be back in a month and take it at that time!” The little girl knew that her patience would be rewarded. By waiting one month, she could have a big, ripe watermelon for the price of a little green one. She got the bigger fruit, because she controlled her “Instant gratification” and waited patiently!

What is Instant Gratification ?

instant gratification

Instant Gratification is the habit, of always wanting to enjoy now, and not having the patience to wait for future benefits (an experiment). Anything which gives us temporary happiness or excitement, but is not actually a good thing for your life, can be put in this category.

For example…

  • When you sleep till late in morning and do not take pain of getting up and exercising.
  • You eat those unlimited sweets in your office cafeteria.
  • When you eat that burger with EXTRA cheese !

These were some examples to just give you an idea about what Instant Gratification is, – mainly concentrating on the immediate result and not thinking about its outcome in future or how it will affect us later in life.

If you can control yourself and concentrate on “delayed gratification” , your life can change! like anything , But we just are not bothered about it and do not have motivation.  Do you know why this is? Let me be straight & blunt! The challenge is that most of us do not have to face life or death situations, or seek food and shelter and defend our territory everyday anymore ! (like these people)

The result, is that we can’t see the impact of our spending in the future. Think about a poor person who struggles daily for food. If he has to spend Rs 100 on something, how will he think? If you offer him a burger, he will instead ask for the same amount in cash, because he knows that the money will help him get food for next 3 days.

He’s not focused on taste in this case.

We however, are privileged, blessed even. If something bad happens once in a while, our next meal or next place to sleep isn’t in danger. Hence some of us have just lost that attitude of looking at things without instant gratification . If you have seen bad times in your life financially, you will know, what I am talking about.

6 Examples of How Instant Gratification affects our Financial Life

Many a time, what we do in our financial life makes our future, dismal and weak, and we have no idea about it. We aren’t even aware!

#1 Not surrendering Endowment/ULIPs

This one is my favorite. “What should I do with my Policy? Should I Surrender it or make it Paid up?”  is one of the top most queries I come across. It feels bad, accepting and acknowledging that you’ve made a mistake, and it hurts psychologically when you lose by not continuing the policy. But what is the effect, long-term?

You still continue paying huge premiums and it earns you very, very little.

So you don’t take any decision on your junk policies, ergo you do not have to face a tough situation! It’s Instant gratification in a way! But for your own good though, you should take action and take that loss now because right now it’s a whole lot smaller than if you stick with the policy and try to quit later!

#2 Keep losing Shares and selling your winners

Have you ever bought a share which gave you instant profits? What was your reaction? Most of the people want to sell it off and take that profit right now, otherwise the profits can vanish! But what happens in most of the cases?

The same stock or portfolio gives huge returns in future if it was left untouched and that feeling of instant happiness is so powerful sometimes that so many can’t control it. It also happens, if one does not have proper understanding of how equity works.

Many people who understand also fall for instant gratification though!

In the same way, you might be holding some stocks which is not performing well, but instead of getting rid of it and investing in better stocks, we keep on holding on to the loser in the hope that some day it will go up! (Read 5 mistakes I did in my first stock investment).

It’s another case of instant gratification as you seek temporary comfort. You  don’t taking the tough decision of selling the loser, because the moment you sell it, it gives you a feeling of loss, but if you just keep it as it is, it’s a case of “I still have some hope !” Don’t do it!

3# Getting into wrong products for Tax saving

When we talk to lot of our paid clients on why they bought the Endowment/Moneyback policies or even ULIPs, the only reason turns out to be “Tax Saving”. Millions of people, get into the wrong products which they don’t need, & don’t understand, has no power to meet their financial goals in future, just to save tax!

I some times feel how much tax saving one does! If one invests with a premium of Rs 50,000 in a ULIP for instance, and if that person is in the 30% tax bracket, he will save 15,000 in tax. But if that was a ULIP with 50% premium allocation charges (as so often happens), 25,000 is lost the moment you sign the documents!

So you save 15k and lose 25k as charges! And yet,these are the same people who say “20k for a financial planner—too costly!” 🙂

#4 Not Paying a Financial Planner or a counselor

Now you know what stops you from paying for advice? Do you immediately get any instant results from advice which you can see? Does your portfolio return suddenly become higher than earlier? Do you immediately see the results which you wanted in your financial life ? No !

And that’s the reason most of the people are not excited about it . But now you would realize that, if years before you had paid some adviser and taken right advice, you could have saved a lot by not getting into wrong products , you might have got better results or same results with lesser risk than what you have got at without right advice!

The benefits of financial planning are always “delayed” as the planning will show the results years later.

We get a lot of inquiries for our paid services from readers who want more personalized service and paid guidance from us. We talk to them and they are very excited when they hear how their financial lives will get transformed working with us, however when we talk about the fee part, some of them just don’t come back!

Price is not a barrier for them as they are well earning, but the problem lies somewhere else which even they are not aware of, and that’s Instant gratification!. They can’t see the immediate results from it and hence they choose to live with their messed up financial lives instead of getting out of it.

I am sure they will lose 10 times more than what they tried to save in fees by not have proper advice over the next couple of years. What do you think ?

#5 Shopping for things you don’t need

How many times, have you bought things which you don’t need? But you still buy it, because it feels good! For example, you might buy another jazzy mobile phone even though your current phone is working well. You buy a nice new shirt – It was on display, which can be your 24th shirt but you actually don’t need it.

Women know very well what I am talking about here and if you are married, even you know what I am saying 🙂

Most of the instant gratification happens at “Sale”. Resist Sales. Sales tend to our minds into buying more than we need. We start justifying to ourselves, that we really do. If the “Sale” decides what you need in your life, then there is a problem!

6# Spending due to Peer Pressure

Suppose there was no one in this world except you and your family, would your life still be same ? I am sure not! People around us affect our mind and make us feel that we are lagging behind. If they buy House or car , we start feeling the need for it. Peer pressure is one of the top reasons why people spend a lot of money.

You are persuaded to join or pay for an activity that your friends are participating in. Whether you are interested or not, you go with the flow because they tell you to. There are occasions where you have to join them and you should!

But not always, and not in everything.

Develop a “Need Mentality” to save your self from Instant Gratification

Here are 3 solutions which can help you reduce or avoid instant gratification in your financial life.

Do your Financial Planning :

You should do your financial planning and have a full plan on how you will invest your money for your future financial goals. Once your Insurance, child related goals and retirement are planned, you will have to commit the investment for these goals which are more important in life than other things which come along the way .

You will be more responsible and think twice before you spend on other unimportant things.

Slow down :

Don’t be impulsive, whenever you have to spend your money on anything, call some family member and tell them 4-5 reasons why it’s a good investment and is worth buying for, tell them enough reasons why it makes sense to buy it. If you are able to pass this process, then you can buy it else, reconsider.

What happens when you do this, is that you slow down and take a logical approach in deciding if you really want to want something. Let me give you a personal example. I recently did this for myself, when I wanted to buy a high-end Nokia phone.

I started counted the reasons why I should buy it and how it will add value to my life, I was very convinced that it’s an important and a valid expense for me.

Try to pay cash for your purchases :

When we don’t feel bad about paying, we tend to buy unimportant things and credit card is the main culprit here.  You buy and you swipe your card, you don’t see the cash going out, so at the end you just make a single payment. It don’t hurt much.

Try paying with cash, and when every time you see those cash notes go out, you become more concerned and more logical in thinking about your expenses.

Instant Gratification in Personal Finance

Other area’s in Life which where Instant Gratification affects us

Some other areas in life which we mess up are Education , Marriage and Career .

Education:

If you have seen “3 idiots” and “Tare Zameen Par”, you will understand better what I want to say here.  Lot of people do not carefully plan their education. There are many people who have pursued something which looked easier to complete or seems to be paying well without understanding, if it aligns with their liking or not and thereafter suffer all life.

Marriage :

Marriage is another thing where people mess-up due to instant gratification. There are many couples, who are not happy after few years of marriage, because the whole situation didn’t turn out the way they imagined.

A lot of times people judge their partners within hours or few days of meeting them, where they like them a lot because they are handsome of beautiful , have lot of wealth, things which impress them at first. I am in no way saying that only love marriages are successful because they are NOT !

It’s the same case some times with love marriages too . The only point I am making is that even in marriages , their is this thing called Instant gratification which creates issues for many people.

Career :

Career is directly linked to Education, so if you mess up your education, you’ll certainly botch your career. But even after people do their education correctly, many mess up while choosing their jobs.

When I completed post graduation, many of my friends went for companies while showed the highest CTC, were the best known companies in IT, but they are shedding tears of blood now as they can’t see any growth for themselves after a point or it’s not something they really wanted to do in their jobs.

However some people who controlled their emotions and planned to choose their companies considering the work they will do there are very happy and excelling now. So don’t just see what makes you happy right now, see what will make you happy all life.

Conclusion

The whole point here, is that we don’t think much about long-term aspects of our spending and hence make bad investments and mess up our financial lives.  Instead, we should use Instant gratification in our favor. One way we can do it is start SIP’s for your Financial goals now, and take action. Get a financial Planner and pay him to give you best advice and transform your financial life.

As 2010 is about to end now, dont let this year go waste as you learned a lot of stuff this year . Start your new year with some commitments and resolutions for 2011 which you will honor and not just write down !.

Share your comments if you’re a victim of “Instant gratification” at any point in your life? Also share how we can use this Instant gratification in our favor ?

At the end wishing you all Happy New Year .

The EMI Disease

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

“A dog held a juicy bone in his jaws, as he crossed a bridge over a brook. When he looked down into the water he saw another dog below with what appeared to be a bigger juicier bone. He jumped into the brook to snatch the bigger bone, letting go, of his own bone. He quickly learned, of course, that the bigger bone was just a reflection, and so he ended up with nothing!”

What do we learn from this short story?

Some thing, really similar to this story is happening in our lives – where the bridge which we are cross is our lives, the bone is our home,(or car or any thing we own) and the “other dog” is none other, than the people around us, our friends at work, neighbors, relatives, etc., who might have a bigger home than us, a better car or a more expensive LCD.

Does that mean that we also need to run towards that bigger bone? Yes? No? There is no harm in fulfilling our needs. As our families grow, and our need for comfort increases, we are bound to buy bigger homes, better cars (read more expensive) et al… And while we are at it, why not buy that much bigger LCD or enjoy that international holiday with the family? The EMI system changes our “wants” into “needs”.

Is Installment system of payment bad?

Definitely NOT! It’s a very convenient way of buying things, but the problem is that the EMI way of buying, gives a lot of people the feeling that they can afford anything which comes their way. And there lies the problem! A sizable chunk of people believe, that they need a bigger bone (when they actually don’t) and the easy availability of everything, in EMIs plays a large role in said belief. The EMI is such a beautiful concept, that even a person with a salary of 30k can buy a helicopter!

Why not? Just 9999 per month, for the next 200 years! Does he need it? Who cares? He can afford it! The problem is not the EMI concept in itself. The problem is us – losing our control on our spending and extending our affordability horizon to such great lengths, that we have everything in our life; but most of it is under debt.

Our home and our car are the two classic examples of this. Let’s talk about home. I don’t have much data, but my instinct says that most of the people who have taken a home loan are living in a much bigger home than they need. As per an in-house study, (through a poll,) I found out that as much as 67% of the readers on this blog or urban net-savvy people are paying at least 1 EMI, which would mostly be a house or car loan EMI. It was astonishing to see that 11% of readers here pay more than 3 EMIs! That’s too much!. Make sure that your EMIs are not more than 50% of your total, in hand (net), salary.

Number of EMI's paid

Affordability of  EMI vs affordability of Loan

If you tell a person, the EMI of a product, chances are that they will believe that he/she can afford it, as compared to when you tell them the actual price of the product. The problem lies in the numbers. The lower the number, the more affordable it becomes! However, this is not true! Actually, the more you reduce the EMI figure, the longer the tenure, and hence the total cost for you over a long period of time increases drastically!

Let’s take some products –

Home Loan

A classic example is the Home Loan. When a person plans for a loan, he makes sure that the EMI figure is affordable to him and does not concentrate much on the final value. For example, consider a person earning 50k per month. The EMI for a home worth 30 lacs @10% will be Rs 39,645. This may look unaffordable to him, so he increases the tenure to 20 yrs instead of 10, and brings down the EMI to 28,951/- Magically, this same home starts looking affordable to him!

What they concentrate upon, is the initial years, and not the big picture. They might not be considering some important points… like what if interest rates increase to 14%? In which case, the EMI will go up to 37000/-! These are young, recently married individuals, who have no idea of where they will be working in next 5 yrs. Will they be in the same job or same Industry? What will be their liabilities then? A close look at Real Estate Returns in India

I am not sure if a 3 BHK is the right choice for a recently married couple who has no one else with them, to live with. The justification can be that in future they may require it, however, if that’s going to happen in the next 15-20 years, a 1 BHK or 2 BHK is a better choice. It’s better to live in a 1 BHK and breathe easy, rather than a 3 BHK and suffocate every day from the burden of the heavy EMI. Here’s a good article on Home Loan EMI calculation.

Calculate your EMI

Car Loan

A lot of people buy a car before a home, as the EMI is affordable and the car adds to their comfort. I know a lot of people who can easily manage their life with a bike or without a vehicle, but have bought a car for reasons only known to them. There are just 2 people in the family, both have company transport, aren’t really outgoing, but they have a car. Not sure why!

A car is a depreciating asset. This means, that when you buy a car on loan, you are paying more money for something, whose value is coming down day by day, unlike your home. So buy a car, only when it’s really important or your comfort gets bigger than your simplicity when commuting is a problem.

The main problem again, is people buy cars that are much bigger and costlier than what they can afford and need. If you are in the starting phase of your career and have no more than 4 people in the family, why take anything beyond a Santro or Zen? You can always buy that dream car when you are more stable in your career and the other important things in life are taken care of.  My views may be biased because I am not a car or vehicle lover, so all car experts might disagree with me here 🙂

Holiday/LCD/Camera/Air Tickets

IRCTC has started giving air tickets on 6 equal EMIs! There is no catch! You can buy a ticket worth 3k today and pay 500 a month over 6 months. The only catch, is that this makes many people feel that they can afford it now. A student who was earlier traveling second class in train or at most, 3rd AC will not just be tempted but will believe that he can afford air travel now, which he couldn’t if he had to shell out 3k in one go.

Just because it’s a smaller chunk, we tend to buy things that we don’t need and can’t afford. The holidays are a perfect example! We Indians, are earning very well in this new decade, thanks to the opening up of our economy and IT sector especially. Our future earnings are more predictable now, compared to the past and this is the reason why most of the products are available on EMI; which makes us buy today and then pay for it for the next couple of years.

Conclusion

There is nothing wrong with buying things on EMI, as long as you know what you are doing, and then only if you really need it. Don’t run after everything you can get on EMI, and don’t drown yourself in so much debt, that it gets tough to come out. Save a good amount for the down payment and take debt only when buying something becomes inevitable. An early Start in Saving today will make your wealth overtime.