What happens when you accidentally transfer money to wrong bank account ?

Posted on January 1, 2015July 23, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

Have you ever wondered what will happen if you accidently transfer money online to some strangers bank account ? If you are thinking thats its a rare event, you are wrong. There are thousands of real life cases where a person transferred the money to someone account and then realised that one digit in account number has changed by mistake .

Do you get the money back ?

What are the rules from the bank side and what are your rights as a customer? We will look at this topic today, so that you know what you need to be careful about !

Before we go ahead, I would like to show you some real life examples and complains people have given

Real Life Example 1 – How Rajni transferred Rs 30,000 to strangers account

I did online transaction of transferring Rs 30,000 with ICICI Bank on September 30th,2008.By mistake I transferred money to wrong account number which I did not intend to .I wanted to transfer money to Adarsh Kumar A/C – 000501518633 but by mistake i transferred it to someone by name Virender Asati A/C 000501518366.I gave written letter to ICICI bank ,GT Road ,Jalandhar branch on Oct 4th which they are not able to trace and then I gave one more written letter to ICICI,Dwarka Branch ,Sector 5 ,New Delhi where I am holding the account in November and also sent several emails to them through net banking but ICICI back says that they can not transfer the money without Account holder’s permission . (Source)

Real Life Example 2 – How Vipin by mistake sent Rs 1,00,000 to strangers bank account

I am writing to you for a payment of 1 lac rupees through NEFT transfer on 2nd April 2012 to my sister Meena A/C . But due to a very high level technical mistake by HDFC my payment didn’t receive to my sister a/c whereas it had gone to other person account in some where. After few days when I enquired about that same we came to know that you have filled a starting digit incorrect that’s why your payment had gone to other person accounts. Here my question is to hdfc if anybody fill any information inaccurate, account will not be added as i know but in my case my all entries was correct except one digit error as you are telling us. It’s a universal awareness that there are so many mandatory requisite information criteria; when they not simultaneously completed transaction becomes failed like unmatched IFSC Code , unmatched city and even error of gender.

From that date I called so many times to customer care and visited the respective branch but I am not getting any proper answer from them and not knowing that what action is taken from your side. This is very sad to me that your are not taking any action and not giving me any assurance of my money. (Source)

Only “Account number” matters for online transfer

Let me give you shock of your life now.

Do you also think that if you transfer money to someone by adding their name, accounts number and IFSC code and if one of those does not match the transaction should fail and you should get back your money in your account. Right ?

But its far from reality ! . As per RBI guidelines, at the end of the day only bank account number should matter and name of the account holder and IFSC code are additional information which should be ideally checked by bank on their end, but there is no rule like that.

If you mess up with the account number, the transaction can go through you the money will be transferred. Its totally a bank choice and a “suggestion” from RBI to banks that they should ideally match Name and IFSC code before the transaction, but its not mandatory.

Below is the RBI notification for you to read, which clearly states this. I suggest you read it fully to understand how the banking world thinks and works.

Responsibility lies with the remitter and not beneficiary

As per RBI directions, the final and sole responsibility of cross checking the account number, Name of the account holder, amount and every other detail lies with the remitter (the person who is sending money) and not the beneficiary (who is getting the money) . You can check numerous times before clicking the final button and after that no one else is responsible for your loss or transaction.

You as customer can not blame the bank to not check details at their end. There are thousands of cases where while typing the account number, one last digit got interchanged with another digit and the person did not realise this and their money is then at stake and in most of the cases , they never got it back. (You can learn more about NEFT and RTGS here)

If the account number does not exist, then surely the money will come back to you, because there is no valid destination to send the money. But if the account number exists and its active, then there are high chances that the transaction will go through .

What you should do if you have accidentally transferred money to wrong bank account ?

If you have made a mistake of transferring the money to a strangers account, then you should follow these steps mentioned below

The first step is to make sure you inform your bank the moment you realise that unintended money transfer has taken from from your end. The bank will then contact the beneficiary account holder and try to explain the situation to them. They will ask the account holder to give them permission to reverse back the transaction. In most of the cases, I have read on internet that the recipient of the money have agreed for the reversal (We have good people in this world, despite widespread belief that world is evil) . Below is a real life incident where the person sent back the money.

In some cases, where the other party is greedy (when amounts are quite big) , the other person might not revert back at all or just delay the whole thing and withdraw the money or just don’t take any action . In which case you really are in a fix and it becomes almost impossible to get back your money.

You should then meet the branch manager of your bank, who can go one step further and talk to the destination bank and if they can help in this or in communication with the beneficiary.

One important point to note here is that bank cannot reverse the transaction from their side without the customer approval, because its a breach of agreement and is not the right thing. You never know what exactly is the whole story and who is saying truth (I can pay you and then just say, it happened by mistake)

3 Precautions you should always take while transferring money Online ?

Precaution is better than cure, I personally believe that we are ourself responsible for any money transfer done online. Nothing stops us from taking extra precautions while transferring money online.

Lets see few things you can do ..

Trick #1 – Use CTRL-F to verify your account number

Most of the times, we are typing an account number which we have got in our emails, we look at the number (few digits at times) and then type it in other window when we are adding the beneficiary. What I personally do is once I have typed the account number (you cant copy paste the account numbers in all the bank website, as its disabled) . In that case you can just copy your account number from email, and type CTRL-F and paste the number there and you can visually see if it matches with what you just typed. Below is a screenshot I created for you to understand what I am talking about..

Trick #2 – Transfer Rs 1 first and test the transaction incase of big amounts

If you are transferring a big amount to someone, you can go one step ahead and first transfer Rs 1 and then confirm with the beneficiary if they have got it, and then on confirmation, you can trasfer the full amount. But I suggest to use it only in extreme situations when you really want to make sure if the account is genuine or not. At times, you might come across someone who gives you their account number and you are aware that they are careless by nature, and might have made some mistake while sharing account number, In that case you can take this extreme precautionary step ! .

Trick #3 – Verify the account number from right to left

Generally we are programmed to read left to right and we also match the account number that way, truly speaking, it might happen that we sometimes get fooled by our own confidence (4 zero , might look like 5 zero) .. So its better to also cross check the account number digit by digit from right to left. I personally cross check an account number digit by digit 2-3 times because I transfer any money online. I have never faced any issue of wrongly sending money to strangers account or sending excess money by mistake (One excess Zero in 10,000 and it becomes 1 lac) ..

Spend 1 extra minute to save your self big trouble

I hope you are clear by now that its your mistake if you transfer money to someone else account and you cant held someone else responsible for your mistake. Hence its always better to add the beneficiary account with precaution. Always cross check the account number 2-3 times.

I would be happy to know if you benefitted by this article and if there are any real life incidents around this area. Also please share anything related to this topic in comments section.

When exactly does PPF account mature ? Answer is not 15 yrs !

Posted on December 20, 2014July 23, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

When does a PPF account mature ? If you thought that its 15 yrs from the date you started your PPF account, then you are wrong ? Yes – there is a myth around this topic and most of the people do not know how does it actually work.

Its extremely simple to find out when exactly your PPF account matures, and let me show you how to calculate it!

How is PPF maturity date calculated for PPF account ?

The maturity period for PPF account is 15 years from the close of the financial year in which the initial subscription was made. Its that simple. So if you open your PPF account on 4th Nov 2014, this date lies in the financial year 2014-2015 , then the financial year ends on 31st Mar, 2015 .

So the 15 yrs will be calculated from this date (31st Mar, 2015) and the lock in year would be 2015+15 = 2030 . So the exact date would be 1st Apr, 2030 in this case.

ppf maturity calculation

Note that PPF maturity always happens on 1st Apr , and not any random date of a year. Most of the people just add 15 yrs to the date of opening of PPF account to find out the maturity date.

Below you can see a short video which will explain PPF maturity calculation to you. Have a look at it.

So technically your PPF account can mature in 16 yrs in best case, suppose you open your PPF account in the first week of Apr, then your 15 yrs will be calculated from the next year (financial year ends on 31st Mar of the next year).

13 awesome ideas to make extra income other than your regular job [part 5/5]

Posted on November 20, 2014July 23, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

Do you want to make extra income on a consistent basis apart from your regular job ? In this 5th article under “increasing income” series, we are going to look at some of the ways you can make some extra money other than your salary. I will be discussing 13 ideas, out which which most of the things can be instantly tried out by most of you.

Note that, here were are not talking about creating passive income which requires huge investment. We are mostly going to talk about ideas which can be implemented without requirement of huge capital, but only some time and dedication.

Lets look at these ideas one by one..

1. Consulting in your domain

If you are expert in some area, you can always give your consultancy service to smaller businesses who cant hire big companies. When we were brainstorming with a client of ours to generate second line of income, he identified that he has some great knowledge in the area of terrace gardening. He could see that he can help families with large enough terrace to setup their own balcony garden and earn some fees over weekends or extra time.

Look back at what all you know and have learned over these years, and you will realise that you have some really deep knowledge in some field, and surely there are many who are looking for someone like you, who will guide them well for a lesser fees (compared to professional fulltime companies)

2. Referral Business

Connecting two entities is another great way to make extra money by spending less energy. So can always have an agreement with some business entity to give clients on referral basis and earn a commission. I recently hired a designer for some work and I asked him if he knows someone who can PRINT the designs for me. He referred me to his friend who done the printing work. I am sure he must have got some cut for the referral and there is nothing wrong in it. Its a smart way of earning money.

Here is what Ajay shares in our last article.

I used to refer students to a local computer institute where i myself learnt ms office. they used to pay me 10% of the course fees paid by the student. i used to earn average between 1000 to 3000 monthly those days.

You might not know that even builders pay you 20-30k for each client referred (who bought the house). So now, have you got a friend who is into business or some kind of service ? Just talk to him if you can pass on clients to him and earn some money on it.

3. Create products and sell on Ebay

With websites like Ebay and OLX, you can now sell virtually anything on internet to those who are looking for products. So you can do some handicraft or anything else, which can be created at home in extra time and then it can be sold on ebay. Or you can find some local product which others would find awesome, but its not available in other parts of country and then start selling it online for a profit. Even you can look at some products which are selling at huge discount at stores (wholesale market or under clearance sale) and then sell it on amazon at regular price.

Earlier, when you wanted to sell something along side your job, you needed to have a shop and someone was required to be at shop all the day, not anymore !.

Ramit has a great article dedicated on this topic.

4. Create a Course and Sell on Udemy.com or Skillshare.com

If you are an expert in some area, which you think can be taught to others by creating a course out of it, you can always sell it on udemy.com or skillshare.com and make money on the fees recieved by the students. So if you are an expert on cooking, Yoga, SEO , Designing, MS Excel, Java, Python … whatever.. Create a nice rich course , record your videos and done ! .. You can tie up with these websites and then earn a lot money. Just understand those models and work on it.

5. Freelancing online

If you have extra time with you over weekends or after your job, you can freelance and take small projects. There are many websites like elance.com , odesk.com or freelancer.com where you can earn money by working on projects. There are thousands of people in India who are working full time on these kind of freelancing websites and believe me, they are earning in lakhs. Look at it as a serious way of making money and not just a time pass activity.

6. Become a Tutor online if you love teaching

If you have a knack for teaching and if you are an expert in some subject, you can become a tutor online for students. There are tons of websites like TutorVista or Tutor.com where you can try out this. You would need a great internet connectivity for this. It can work best for someone who is ready to work late in nights as many students from US and Canada would be right fit for you then.

7. Tutions at Home

This is the old favorite way of earning some side income. You must have listened to great stories of how many people have supported their families and their own studies just by taking tuitions. Then why not to extend your income even if you have a job ?

Do you know Music ? Are you an expert in Maths ? Vedic Maths ? Yoga or may be cooking ? Do you live in a residential society which has 100’s of other families? Then tutions is a perfect thing you can start give you are good at what you claim to. You can always dedicate 2 hours (if you really have them) and do some basic advertising in your apartment or nearby places and take students to teach them at home. The best part of this kind of tutors is that you refresh your dying knowledge, earn some money at the comfort of your home and you kill time which goes into unproductive things most of the times. myprivatetutor.com is a good place to register and start with.

7. Rent your empty house/room on Airbnb.co.in

Do you know that next time you head over to Goa for a family holiday, you can just rent out the whole house for 6-8 people at just Rs 5,000 a day . Thats correct!

Airbnb gives you great way to rent your house or even an empty room, if you want to earn some extra money out of it. You can always give your extra room to travellers and people who are looking for 1 day-week stay on Airbnb.co.in. Just put pictures of your house/room, explain your conditions and rules, put the facilities and thats all. Clients will find your listing, make the payment online, and if you accept, you host them!.

The best part is that you keep 97% of the fees paid and you don’t have to search for clients yourself . Serve them as they come. If you have a full house at some great tourist place like Goa/Shimla/Manali or those kind of places, you can put your whole house on rental basis. Many people who have a second home or extra room, hire a maid and offer the full range of services of a regular basis. Imagine if your extra room is rented even 5 times a month and you earn Rs 1,000 from it ? Its Rs 5,000 extra income !

8. Teach someone live on Google Helpouts

If you have a skill, you can teach someone live on google helpouts. There are tons of categories like Arts and Music, Cooking, Home and Garden, Fitness and Nutrition and many more .. which you can choose from.

In this era of globalisation, I am sure there are enough number of people in the world who would like to pay to someone to learn some thing unique.

9. Do Odd jobs at Fiverr.com

Imagine you want your logo/brochure to be designed or want your website andriod app to be created ? It can be done at only $5 (Rs 300). There are tons of odds things you can do at fiverr.com . Most of the times its a small manual task, which is super easy for you, but tough for others.

A small assignment can be done at fiverr.com for $5 and you can raise the fees depending on the complexity involved. There are tons of people in world who are looking at delegating some task at a small fee.

I have used it 2 times myself to get some work done and paid $5 two times.

10. Cooked meals Pickup

I recently ordered some amazing Egg Biryani in Pune (the most delicious) I had till date and the lady sold it from her home through registering at tastykhana.in. I had to go to the place to pickup the biryani.

That got me thinking how many people in our country cook some amazing things, but never capitalize on it. So if you have people at home who cook some speciality and you feel that it will loved by people in your city, you can start pickup service at home. Get the order, prepare the food , opt to deliver at home (at extra cost) or ask them to pick up from your place. And if you are thinking about preparing “Andhra meals” in Pune, I am your customer already.

11. Starting a Creche at Home

I am not talking about professional/big size creche here. If your home is big enough and there is a scope of it, a simple creche can be started. There will surely be some market for it. If most of the couples living around you are into full day jobs, you can surely cash on this opportunity and think about it.

Even if it means renting another 1 BHK flat and starting your creche there, its worthwhile. See how you can actually implement this – I just gave a direction

12. Freelance writing for someone websites/newspapers

If you are strong in writing and can put your ideas on paper in creative manner, then you can write for newspapers and magazines. I get tons of emails myself for freelance writing (i don’t do it but). Here is what Abhijit kulkarni has done..

Checkout how you can put your writing skill to earn more..

13. Sell nutritious health drinks around the Park nearby

One of our readers shared this idea with us. If there is nearby park or place, where people come for walk, jogging early morning, then you can always sell health/vegetable drinks and various healthy breakfast too. I am sure it will help you also personally to take care of your health and earn some extra income.

If you don’t have some one at home to do it or you lack time, you can employ a part time person to do this for 2-3 hours and pay them salary or a profit cut.

14. BONUS IDEA – Be a passive partner in someone else business

I know most of the people can’t do fulltime business, because they are into a regular job. But you can always invest your money, your ideas and some basic level of administration to run a side business along with a 3rd party whom your trust.

There are many awesome people, who have the ability and passion to do some business, but they dont have money or experience or some ideas to implement. You can partner with them and offer to invest money in the business and also contribute your time over weekends or after work if its possible for you.

Example 1 – Image a person who has a shop, you can help him/her start a internet cafe – because you are an expert in computers, networking and know the technical side of how to do it. You can build the systems and overall business. You do the backside work and the other person does the front office job. Divide the profits !

Example 2 – Do you know someone who is looking for a job and can drive well, but has limited time? How about you buy a Maruti Van and ask him to use it to start a pick and drop business for children in school . Divide the profits ! ..

Sonme months back, I heard the founder of Tastykhana.in in a TIE talk, where he shared that when they desperately needed some money in the starting years of their business, that time – one of the employee of an IT company put in Rs 1 lac in their business and within a year or two, he got back 20 lacs return through an exit option when they got funding later (it was something like this, if not exact)

Can you see a point I am making? I know its not an as easy as it sounds, but at the same time, its not as tough as you imagine. You need to take some level of risk and try out these things if you want to earn extra income.

How to handle .. “But .. “

I know these ideas must have pumped a lot of excitement in you and a lot of you might have a feeling of “But … and followed by some reason”.

Note that earning an extra income apart from your regular job, takes huge commitment. Its simple, but not an easy task. Its not for weak hearted. You will have to keep aside some of your reasons,come out of your comfort zone and take some pain in order to implement it.

It might means waking up early, it might mean sacrificing something in life (Read the story of Anupam on creating second income) , you might have to redesign your schedule, ask for support from others and taking some tough decisions. There is no shortcut when you want to make money in life.

This is exactly why most of the people never create any additional income, because they never take efforts for it. They are just focus on reducing their expenses, where the possibility is limited. Today I invite you to look at the other side, thats INCREASING YOUR INCOME, which has unlimited potential.

Also do not focus on the quantum of money you earn in the starting. What about Rs 1,000 extra in the first month ? It pays your PHONE BILL ! . Thats big thing .. Its EXTRA money afterall. I hope you loved these ideas and you would surely try out atleast one of these over the next 1 month. Plan for it and take action.

I would like to hear some more ideas from you, no matter how silly or crazy they sound. Even if its something which can earn you Rs 100 extra, please share it. Any contribution is appreciated.

10 ideas to create Passive Income or alternative Source of Income – (Part 4/5)

Posted on November 13, 2014July 23, 2019 by Nandish Desai

In the last article of “Increasing income” series you read Anupam’s real life sharing about how he created his second income (we thank him for sharing his experience with our readers). Today let’s go a little deeper and learn ways by which YOU can also create passive income stream, which means ways of income where you do not work actively and still the income is generated.

ideas to create passive income
We can see that a lot of you are interested in creating passive income but you don’t know from where to start, so after reading today’s article take at least one committed step to create second source of income in your life. After you complete reading today’ article, in comments section share at least one new idea for creating passive income.

We are a community of 50k+ people at jagoinvestor, if we all share one good idea for creating passive income, imagine what kind of passive income idea bank we will be able to create.

The rich get richer. Not only because they have surpluses with which to invest, but because of the overriding emotional release they experience from having wealth

– Stuart Wilde

I really want you to take a day off from your routine life and name the day as “PI day” of your life. On this day, you won’t touch upon any other area of your life,you will only think about creating passive income and nothing else. As next step create a special kind of account in your life called “P I income account”, in this account you will accumulate passive income, it should not come from real work or from active job. Passive income is the kind of income where either your money works for you or your people work for you.

10 ways to create passive income

(Do not discard ideas instead start thinking how the ideas can get into your life)

1. Rental Income from Real Estate

You can create rental income with the help of real estate. If you have more than two properties, the rent you get from one can help you to pay the EMI of other property you own. You can give your office space on rent or your second house on rent. You can also create either boys or girls hostel, if you have more than 1 flat on the same floor. Some even create small office units in one big commercial space and they give it on rent to people who do not have frequent visitors.

Make sure that you are selecting right people and legal aspect is taken care of. If someone (only if you are the owner) has good office space in Pune, we would like to touch base with you. (In 2015 we would like to establish jagoinvestor office in the city of Pune).

2. Buying Space for ATM Centre

This is one of the best ways to create passive income. Generally in a building, the space which is below the stairs gets sold at lower rate as compared to other offices and it is ideal place for ATM Centre. Banks can even pay upto 25k-50k per month to ATM centre owners in big cities, but again it depends on the location and the area where you own your space. There is a detailed discussion on this topic here

3. Buy extra Parking lots and renting it later

Parking is one of the biggest problem that everyone is facing today. One of our clients created passive income from the parking space that he owns in his building. Also I know someone who owns open plot next to a multiplex; he gave his space on rent to multiplex for parking purpose. This may not be possible for all but as I said do not discard ideas from your life.

4. Create Websites & Blogs

The machine age is over and we now leave and breathe inside information age, where no one cares where your office is or how many people staff you have, with the help of internet from a remote place you can create a lot of money. Creating a blog or a website is almost free (or I can say it is not very expensive) and is one of the best ways to create passive income.

You can do this as a part time activity and start creating second income in your life. This may be a slow process and it calls for good content for you to attract people to your blog or website. Jagoinvestor as a blog started very small and with the love and trust of our readers it has now created a special space in investor’s community.

5. Advertisement hoarding on your building and terrace

If your building is on main road with proper visibility you can put some banners or hoarding on the terrace of your building or even in garden or open space of your building. If you own terrace rights the money will come to you otherwise, it goes to society kitty as passive income. Some permission & authorization is required to take this step.

6. Interest income from your investments

This is one of the simplest ways to create passive income, which is in everyone’s reach. You can either create interest income through Bank Deposit products or by offering loans to people at attractive interest rate. For this your need cash on hand or pool of money from which you intend to create interest income.

7. Dividends from Stocks and Mutual Funds

You can either receive dividends through Stocks or from different mutual fund schemes. This income depends on the performance of stock and mutual fund which is linked with market conditions. There are many people, I know who create good dividend income from stocks and mutual funds.

8. Royalty Income

Your talent can help you to create passive. You can put something in a book on Amazon Kindle and it can be shared with the world, your book can help you get royalty income. Most people are disconnected with their true talent which is not good for creating second income. You really do not need a publisher you can either self-publish it or get in touch with websites who promote new writers.

We started with one book and now we have four books which are written for investors and advisors, our publisher has already assigned us two more writing assignments.

9. Referral business model

If you are into business you can create a strong referral business model by which your overall business strength increases. Here with the help of referral model not only does your business expands but you also get an opportunity to create passive income as an entrepreneur.

10. Buy cars and give on rent to companies

Many BPO’s and companies hire vehicles on contract. Some people buy vehicles and they offer their vehicles to the company they work with. This helps them to create passive income out of it. Here you need to be careful about the terms and conditions and choosing right driver who will be handling your vehicle on daily basis.

Project called “Passive Income”

If you do not have passive income it means you have yet not created “passive income” as a project. In our book “11 principles to achieve financial freedom” you can learn more about creating passive income and how you can convert your dream of creating passive income into a project.

Just place your hand on your heart and ask yourself, “How many attempts in the past I made and I failed at creating passive income? (may be zero attempts). You are unable to create passive income because you are glued to the idea of only creating active income in your life. You haven’t failed much because you haven’t yet started fully playing for creating passive income.

Come on, make list of possibilities, make list of people who can help you, see what leverage you can get in creating passive income, see what best you can do with the resources you already have, what talents you have in you that can help you create passive income or take professional help, if required. In the last article of increasing income series we will have a strong completion and for what we invite you to share your key insights in the comments section.

This week action

Take a day off from your routine and name is as “PI day” (Passive income day)

Do some brainstorming and come up with ideas for creating passive or residual income. Do share one idea in comments section for creating passive income

Interview with Anupam on creating 2nd income source along with his regular job – part 3/5

Posted on November 6, 2014July 23, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

Do you want to know how someone created his 2nd income other than the regular 9-5 job ? In this 3rd article for “increasing income” series (part 1 and 2 here), we present an interview with Anupam Mehra from Bangalore, who is one of our blog readers and has agreed to share his story of creating second income in his life. I was very impressed with him because he has done something which most of the people only imagine and never make it a reality by taking extra efforts for whatever reason.

Having Second Income in India

So I mailed Anupam 7-8 questions to answer, so that it can be shared with you all. I am sure you will get some great ideas from him, a lot of motivation to something similar in your own life and at the end, lets start a new kind of culture on this blog where we share our knowledge with others so that it can enrich others life in some way.

Here is the interview ..

1. Can you share very quickly about yourself and what you do right now in job ?

I have post-graduate degree and have about 8 years of experience. My education and profession are in the same field, Electronics. I have broad range of experience in all aspects of product design. I was lucky in a way that in both the two companies that I worked for, there were no set job definitions. For example, some companies have set roles like development, testing, documentation, verification etc. But, for me I had to do all of this at some point of time. This helped me gain good experience overall. I think for all new graduates, embrace this sort of opportunities since it will give you a good idea on what interests you. You can choose to specialize in something that really interests you as you gain more experience.

For me alternate source of income did not mean alternate field of profession. I am really passionate about my area of work. Initially for earning 2nd income, I completed a few projects on freelancer websites like Elance and others. Some of the projects were not related to Electronics, for Ex: Visual Basic Automation, but for most part I did projects in my field of interest only. Some of the projects I quoted a very low price to ensure I got the project. For the past one year, I have been consulting with a US-based company. I am guiding a group of engineers in verifying a very complex design. I have provided a lot of automation tools that I developed, which is helping the engineers improve their productivity.

2. How does it feel to have another source of Income apart from your professional active job income?

To begin with, I wanted more control in my career. I did not want to worry about layoffs, appraisals, not getting onsite etc. I also wanted to see if I can get better at what I do. Of course making more money feels really great. I feel content professionally which makes be feel relaxed at home and I spend more “quality” time with my family. It just means I can save more (and of course my wife thinks she can spend more…).

3. Was it tough to start earning alternate income ? Because most of the time everyone has this complain of “not having enough time” ?

Not having enough time is the first thought that will come to our mind. To being with, I evaluated how much time that I spend on unnecessary activity. One of the first things that I did when I started freelancing was make a commitment not login to facebook, gmail, whatsapp etc while at my work. I am required to spend X amount of hours at work. I was determined to use all this time efficiently such that I would not have to spend extra time in the office. Of course, sometimes I would have to work 14-16 hours a day to meet some deadlines. But mostly I wanted to be disciplined and not spend extra time in the office unnecessarily.

And the good thing about freelancing is you can do it in your own time. After I come home “early” from work, I would spend time with my family, do all the regular stuff, put my 2yr old son to bed and login to work. This sometimes would work well, since my clients would be in the US or UK and the time works out perfectly. I would also wake up at 5.30 a.m. instead of the usual 7.00 a.m. on weekends just to get some work done before my family wakes up. At any point I have not worked for more than 15 billable hours a week. I had made this clear to all my clients as well.

4. How did you identify that you can earn alternate income – Because most of the people complain – “I have no idea what can I do other than my job ?”

The starting point for me was, identifying my strengths. What it is that I can offer better than most? How much time can I spare comfortably on a weekly basis? I explored teaching options that are available, both offline and online. I started off with this initially. As I mentioned before, Visual Basic programming was a hobby for some time which I used to generate some income. Basically once I had an open mind, I was not hung up with the type of work. I was more interested on the service that I can provide and its quality. I offered real value for money initially as I built my reputation on the freelancing websites and then slowly picked and chose which projects to bid/work on. So the question is “what skills do you possess that you can leverage to generate an income?”

5. What is one single thing you consider as most important thing one should have in them if they want to create second income source of income ?

Attitude – “Go-Do”

What I mean is I lot of people including me used to have these great ideas when having lunch/tea with colleagues and friends. Some of us have this frustration that “I am wasting my time”,” I should be doing a lot more”, “common guys, let’s start a company on our own”.

But somewhere in the daily grind, we remain in inertia… mostly because we want that comfort zone. You are the CEO, CFO and CTO of your one-person enterprise, be it being employed in a company or working for an alternate source of income. Having the great attitude of believing that you can do it and offer outstanding service to your clients will surely help you succeed.

6. Do you think now when you have a 2nd income source, you have higher confidence to start a 3rd alternate income source too ?

Absolutely! The possibilities and opportunities are limitless. I have just started. I intend to continue this. Some of my ideas require me to invest some capital. I have earmarked a percentage of my Additional Income to fund these. Multiple sources of income -> that’s the long term goal.

7. How has your financial life changed after you have started getting an alternate source of income ? Have your savings gone up ? Has your quality of life improved ?

I have to mention this here. My following of Jago Investor started when trying to correct my mistake of investing in endowment plans. So in the past two years I have corrected my initial mistakes (with the help of Jago Investor blog, Pattu Sir’s Blog etc) as well as started generating my additional income. So, both of these two factors have definitely improved my financial life. My wife and I made a combined decision on what percentage of regular income and additional income we will save. Rest is for spending. By doing this, we are living and saving comfortably.

We save most of our additional income by the way. We do not want to get used spending away this income as it might cause lifestyle inflation which might be difficult to recover from.

Since I am spending my personal time with generating additional income, I am more conscious on spending time with my family. I try to make it “quality” time. I regularly take casual days off where I am completely cutoff from both regular and additional work. I must say I have a supportive wife as well.

This additional income helps me in not worrying about the small stuff. Instead of worrying about the expense most of which is not in my control, I “worry” about increasing my income. This has led to a smoother family life.

8. Do you think having an alternate source of income is some kind of luxury or something which everyone should mandatorily have ?

Different folks, different strokes Manish!

It would be nice to have. I also recognize that some people will not be able to do it. Some folks might genuinely not have the time or would love to spend every free minute with their family or would be really happy with what they earn. My suggestion is people should evaluate if they really want to and can work additionally to generate an income.

Second source of income builds in some security in case of loss of regular job for whatever reason. It could also be a way for a person to transition from a regular job to full-time entrepreneurship.

Sometimes I also wonder if hours of research while choosing a mutual fund which can generate additional 0.5%-1% returns is worthwhile. Can this time be better utilized in updating skills and working for additional source of income?

Thanks

I would like to thank Anupam to accept my invitation to share his answers for my questions and share it with everyone else. I am sure you must have learned few things from this interview. You might have also got some validation from this interview about your own imagination and thinking. You can also see that someone has really done it and it works and now you will do it in your own financial life

Next week in the 4th part of this series, we will be talking about passive and active income and some ideas around it.

Now the question for you is – Are you working on creating alternative income source somehow ? Have you tried it ever ? and failed ? or succeeded ? Please share whatever you want in comments section below and lets have more conversation around this topic !

6 Empowering Dimensions that can help you to grow your income- (Part 2/5)

Posted on October 30, 2014July 23, 2019 by Nandish Desai

You are reading second article of “Increasing your income” series. The overall response to increasing income series is very encouraging. We got some interesting sharing in comments section and we also received personal emails from many of our readers. A lot of people are serious about increasing their income and we are happy our article series is helping them in moving forward. You can read the 1st part of the series – 8 reasons why your income level remains STAGNANT

Grow your Income

You are 100% responsible for the income you generate.

In today’s article we will change gears; we say that “You are 100% responsible for the income you generate – totally. The only question is – Will you acknowledge that or not?”. We will explore some very important dimensions which are important to understand for you to increase your income. Your monthly bank balance or income is a reflection of how you express yourself or in other words how you show-up in the world.

Here is an inspiring video , which I must have seen for over 60 times, it taught me several things and today’s article come’s straight from the notes I took while I repeatedly watched this man speaking and expressing himself. You may have already seen the video, this time I invite you to see this video with fresh pair of eyes and from the context of how you can change your conversation around increasing your income.

6 extremely powerful dimensions that can help you to grow your income

Reflection #1: Your bank balance is a mere reflection of your thought balance

If you want to increase your yearly income or your bank balance you will have to first expand your thought balance. Make a conscious effort each day to fill yourself with richer thoughts. Human being is a thought making machine and you always have a choice to be responsible for your thoughts that you give shape to. Good and bad thoughts will always strike you, but which thoughts you choose to give life to is always in your hands. Because it all starts at the thought level and then it (the thought) slowly starts to shape your reality.

What are our articles on jagoinvestor all about ? They are simply our (ie mine and Manish’s) thoughts, that we give language to. Your thought around money and income generation has to be empowering and inspiring. And so give life and energy to only those thoughts, which helps you to grow your thought balance, and this will eventually reflect in your bank balance. Check your thoughts around your boss (majority of people hate their boss or has some or other complaints with their management). Go have a conversation but do not let your thoughts get corrupted. Your organization is the source of your income and you cant afford to nurture dis-empowering thoughts.

Reflection #2: Income is reflection of your personal creativity

If you want to increase your income, then bring the ingredient of creativity to the dish called “your work”. Your work is the ultimate source of your income and your work assignment always gives you an opportunity to express the magic that you hold in you.

Income is a reflection of how much value you create for people/clients and for the organization you work for. You are never paid for spending a few hours in your cabin or company or to warm your chair or to check articles on different blogs or to find the best online deals.

Every day invest some time to figure out ways by which you can bring the creative force inside your work. The way there are more than 10 ways to draw a cat, there are many creative ways by which you can get the same job done. I personally feel that income generation is not a formula, but it is your personal creative process which you discover for yourself.

Reflection #3: Income is reflection of how innovative you get

I love reading books and biographies that are written on the life journey of Steve jobs. His overall body of work and innovative designs will continue to inspire people for years to come. A lot of times I address Manish as “Steve jobs of personal finance” not to flatter him but because he brings element of innovation inside our organization and in his articles and books. Out of working with him I have learnt that income is a function of how innovative you are as a professional?

Inside your current work or job profile check ways to innovate. There are always some or the other hidden ways by which you can enhance your performance or effectiveness. Innovation is an important dimension to ponder, if you are really serious about increasing your income. Innovative people always experience and see income as a byproduct. Their work speaks for itself and money/income simply flows into their life.

Reflection #4: Income is a reflection of how big difference maker you are

Finally, Let me teach you how you can actually increase your income. Let’s say, your current pay package is 10 lakh and you want your annual income to become 1 crore. The solution is simple but may not be easy for you. If you want your pay package to become 1 Crore all you have to do is first contribute inside your field worth 1 Crore. I and Manish care very little about our income or annual business turnover, our focus is always on how much contribution we can make in peoples’ financial world.

We take on new writing projects and constantly design our services by which we can make more and more difference. If you want to increase your income simply create or design your contribution plan for next 5 years inside your respective field. The more you will contribute the more your income will grow and expand.

Reflection #5: Income is reflection of outrageously sharing your GIFTS

There is always one thing in YOU which only you can share with the world. If you are good at singing, give more of that to the world. If you are good at writing, give more of that to the world and if you are good at painting – then share that GIFT with the world.

Whatever you are good at in life, they are your gifts and you have to share your gifts with more and more people. The more you share them, the more it will reflect in your bank balance. Don’t be stingy in sharing your gifts, outrageously share your gifts. Income is a reflection of how big heartedly you are willing to share your gifts. A lot of advisors come-up to us or mail us saying, “If you will teach everything to investors who will become your client”. Well, in fact it increases flow of inquiries and we have seen our client list expanding year on year. We want to share our gifts and we ask our colleagues to do the same. In your field just continue to share your gifts, just STOP stopping.

Reflection #6: Income is a token of appreciation

Your Income is not a symbol of security, power or just a commercial transaction; it is also not a measure of how successful or unsuccessful you are in this world. Your income is a reflection, it is a mirror that shows you how you show-up in the world, it is a reflection of how much value you are adding into people’s life and how much contribution you make in your respective field.

Salary or fee is ONLY a token of appreciation that you receive when you share your magic and gifts with the world. When you start to see your work as a medium to express your love AND in return people or organizations express their love by writing a cheque in your favor.

Work on increasing your income this week

In this week we want you to add new and empowering dimensions, which will help you to increase your income and of other people who surround you. We would love to have more and more sharing in the comments section. Lastly, we wish each one of you a very happy and exciting new year. We will continue to share our gifts with you for years to come. Stay tuned for remaining parts of increasing income series.

Let us know which new dimensions you think can help you best to increase your income !

6 tricks to increase your Home loan eligibility and learn how its calculated by banks ?

Posted on October 20, 2014August 6, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

Today you are going to learn how much home loan amount you are eligible for. I will show you how banks calculate your home loan eligibility and what are some of those factors which can impact your loan eligibility.

At the end, I am also going to share some tips you can take to increase your home loan eligibility.

home-loan-eligibility-calculator

What is Home Loan Eligibility ?

Home Loan Eligibility simply means how much loan amount you can get for buying a home. Just because you are earning Rs 1 lac a month, does not mean that you can take a Rs.50 lacs loan. Its always based on a formula and is calculated based on some formula and logic, which we are going to see today.

There are several other kind of loans like Personal loans, Car Loan, Education loans – but out of all the loans, home loan is the biggest ticket size loan and takes longer to pay off. While this article is true for all kinds of loans, still we will focus on home loan eligibility in this article.

Think from the Lender’s point of view

Before we go deeper into this article, I want you to think like a lender for some time. Think as if you are a lender and you are giving loan to someone. How will you think, how will your thought process be? Think for a minute and trust me, you will yourself realize that calculating someone’s loan eligibility can be very easy.

There are various factors one has to look at before giving a loan to someone. Just because someone is earning a lot of money, does not mean that he/she is eligible to get loan of any amount. There are various other factors which will come into picture.

I have recorded a full video on this topic which you can view below or on this direct link on youtube.

So before we look at those factors, let me quickly show you an example and explain you the simplest way of calculating the home loan eligibility

Example of Calculating Home Loan Eligibility

Lets say Ajay earns Rs 80,000 per month as a Software Engineer. Now its very obvious that he is not left with all Rs 80,000 per month as his savings. After deducting his expenses and commitments, he must be left with some amount.

As a thumb rule, banks in India assume that you are able to save anywhere from 40%-50% of your in hand income. For this example, lets say that the ratio is 50%.

So the bank will assume that the savings per month is 50% of Rs 80,000 , which is Rs 40,000. This Rs 40,000 is available for repayment of any kind of EMI’s .

Now bank will do the reverse calculation and find out how much EMI is required to pay off Rs 1 lac loan using the standard interest rate and tenure. Assuming that the bank takes 20 yrs tenure and interest rate of 10.5% , the EMI required to pay Rs 1 lac loan per month comes to Rs.998.

Now they find out how much loan Ajay can handle if he can pay Rs.32,000 EMI per month, considering Rs.998 is required to pay Rs 1 lac loan. So it would be

Rs.1 lac * 40,000/998 = Rs.40 Lacs.

So this way, Ajay’s home loan eligibility is Rs.40 Lacs.

What if there was an existing EMI of Rs 10,000 ?

Assume that Ajay had an existing personal loan for which he was paying Rs.10,000 EMI per month. In that case, his available saving would not be considered as Rs.40,000 , but 30,000 only (40,000 – 10,000)

In which case, his loan eligibility would be just Rs.30 lacs using the same technique.

Now this is the most simple way of looking at home loan eligibility calculation. There are various banks which use different formulas and calculations, but all of them will revolve around this same logic I explained about.

Important Note –

It depends on the bank on how much % saving they assume a person does. In the example above I have taken 50% as the assumption, but some banks might take it as 40% or even 35% .

I calculated home loan eligibility on ICICI’s Home Loan EMI and Eligibility Calculator for the same example above and I got the following result

Home Loan Eligibility Calculator Example from ICICI bank

I checked the same example on CIBIL website and even there website gave me very similar result

Home Loan Eligibility from India

Factors which Affect your House Loan Eligibility

Now lets look a little deeper into some of the core factors which affect your loan eligibility. Some lenders might not use all the factors, but still its a good idea to understand how its related and do something about it.

1. Your Income

The amount of loan you are eligible for depends directly on your income.This is one single factor which impacts your home loan eligibility to the greatest extent. Its very simple, higher your income, higher is the chance of you being able to pay the bigger liability.

Your actual situation might be anything, but the simple logic is that higher income person can pay more EMI and hence he/she can take higher loan.

A person earning Rs 1 lacs has higher chances of affording Rs 30,000 EMI , compared to a person who earns just Rs.40,000 .

Now if you are salaried employee, your income is assumed to be more stable than a person who is self employed or into a business. Its more easier for a salaried person to get a loan compared to a self employed person earning Rs 1 lac a month for obvious reasons.

Note:

A lot of banks will ask for your salary slips for past 1 yr and 3 yrs of IT returns, and bank statement for atleast 6 months. This is to calculate and get an idea of your overall cash flows and what are your spending patterns.

A lot of banks do not consider the LTA , HRA and medical allowances you get from the company, so they will deduct those amounts from your yearly take home.

I thought I will mention one important point here. In reality your income can be anything, but what really matters is your income on papers, which is ITR returns you have filed over last 2-3 yrs. A lot of people do not disclose their full income and pay less taxes, Its going to directly impact their loan home eligibility.

For a self Employed Professionals, along with the ITR’s for past 3 yrs, banks also require Profit and loss statement along with Balance sheet certified by a CA for last 3 yrs.

2. Age of the applicant

The age of the applicant also matters to some extent, but not significantly. Paying a home loan is a long term commitment. And banks have to ascertain how long you can pay off the EMI.

A person in his 30’s can pay the loan for next 30 yrs, but a person who is 50 yrs old will retire at 60 and has just 10 yrs in hand and in that case, he can get a loan for lower amount compared to more younger person.

3. Credit history

Your past credit history and repayment record has direct impact on your loan eligibility. If someone has a bad repayment record, then he/she might not get the loan itself. But in some cases where bank considers the application it might happen that they only approve a certain percentage of the eligibility

In our earlier example, Ajay had a loan eligibility of Rs 40 lacs in normal circumstances. Imagine that he has a bad record in past and he had not paid his past EMI’s on time and his overall credit score was bad, then it might happen that the bank agrees to only approve Rs 10-15 lacs of loan instead of his original 40 lacs loan.

4. Profession

Profession of the loan-seeker also matters a lot. Some professions are categorized as negative or risky by the lenders. People in such professions may find it difficult to get a loan sanctioned. What a lender requires is a stable income for a very long term.

So if a person is into jobs which are well paying and which are considered stable like Software Engineers, Banking jobs etc (which are white collar jobs), then the person is eligible for a higher loan amount.

However certain jobs like BPO sector jobs, running your own shop, Insurance Agent have lower loan eligibility because the income is uncertain or the chances of losing a job is higher.

5. Your Relation with the Bank in Past

A lot of banks (especially PSU and cooperative banks) still look at your past relationship very seriously. If you have an account with bank from last 10 yrs, it will matter a lot sometimes. In some cases banks directly issue a loan in multiple of your income.

6. Your Employer Category

Almost all the banks categorize various big companies into A,B,C category and offer different interest rates to their employees. so employees of Infosys, TCS, Microsoft and companies like that will be offered a better interest rates companies to smaller companies.

Check with the bank about it and you might get a slightly less interest rate, which can matter a lot on long term. You can also get processing fee waiver if special schemes are running.

5 tips to increase your loan eligibility ?

So you understood how the loan eligibility is calculated and some factors which impact it, so now lets see some of the actions you can take to increase your loan eligibility.

Tips to increase your loan eligibility

1. Go for a longer loan tenure

your EMI depends on the tenure of the loan, so if you increase the loan tenure, you might get a higher loan eligibility.

So if you were planning to take a loan for 10 yrs, and assume that your loan eligibility came to Rs 20 lacs, if might happen that it goes up to 30 lacs if you are ready to take a 20 yrs loan. Its as simple as that. This is because you are committing to pay over a higher time frame.

2. Prepay an existing loan completely

If you have any existing loan which is about to complete, then better pay it off completely. This is because in that case, your monthly savings will go up and that will increase your loan eligibility .

For example – imagine you are able to save Rs 40,000 per month. But you have an existing personal loan for which you are paying Rs 15,000 per month EMI and that leaves you with remaining Rs 25,000 only. Now imagine that you have Rs 1 lac in outstanding for that personal loan and its going to complete in next 8 months, after which you will have full 40,000 with you for paying home loan EMI .

But right now your bank will see that you just have Rs 25,000 in hand to afford additional EMI , and you will have a loan eligibility of only Rs 25-30 lacs, where as in reality you know personally that you can afford much more EMI given a chance.

So in this case, its always a better idea to arrange for money from somewhere else and pay off the personal loan fully and that will free your EMI there, and you will be left with full Rs 40,000 in your hand. This simple action will increase your home loan eligibility by a big margin

3. Extend your other loan tenure and decrease the EMI for the other loan

Now this is just an extension of the above trick . You have to think about how you can show the bank that you have a higher amount available with you.

So if you have any other EMI going on and you cant prepay it fully, then at least you can increase the tenure of that other loan, which will decrease the EMI part and that would leave you with more money in your hand each month.

For example, imagine you have another home loan for which your tenure left is 4 yrs and your EMI is 15,000. Now if you cant prepay it fully, what if you can increase the tenure to 10 yrs, may be the EMI comes down to Rs 9,000? That would mean extra Rs 6,000 with you. That can show the bank that you can pay more EMI on the other loan now …

Check this point with the bank when you need the loan. In some banks this thing might not be of any use if they do their calculation on outstanding loan.

4. Include the spouse or parents for the loan application

This is pretty clear. If you include your spouse or parents as additional loan applicants, then your overall loan eligibility will go up because now there is more income to support that loan.

The person you are including should have all the documents and ITR as proof for their income and its stability

5. Add any bonus you are liable of

You should also mention to the banks if you get additional bonus or perks from your employer or if you have any other source of income like rental income, interest from deposits or some other business income apart from your regular income.

Even if you mention that your spouse also earns some additional income which can be used later, then it might help sometimes. This particular point is not going to increase your loan eligibility, but at times this can help you get your loan approved.

Conclusion

The simple point of this article is that banks look at your potential to repay the future loan and there are factors which affect that and you can take some actions to improve your chances of securing the loan or increasing your loan eligibility

Let us know about any questions you have or some thoughts you want to share ?

How I failed into stock trading and 4 amazing things you can learn from my experience

Posted on October 1, 2014August 6, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

Today you are going to learn some valuable lessons of stock market trading from experiences of a person who traded in stock markets for 1.5 yrs and failed miserably during those 1.5 yrs. This person is no one else, but myself

Background

Let me share my story

Sometime in June 2007, I got recruited in Yahoo from campus placements. I was 23 yrs old, fresh into job and had no idea how my life is going to take shape at that time. Suddenly, I saw a huge inflow of money (salary) in my life and I was not very clear what to do with it.

I had some weird notions about “Getting Rich Quick” back then. I was good with numbers, knew about stock markets basics and considered myself to be “analytical”, so I thought I am smart, very disciplined internally and can “possibly” do better than “average” in stock markets (every one thinks like that only).

So I was ready to enter the world of stock markets.

Now, there was one more guy in our new joiners group who was equally enthusiastic about stock market (that guy is now an IAS officer) and just like a smoker finds another smoker in a big group, we found each other and became buddies.

Over the next few weeks we made various plans on how we will get rich trading in markets. We were already millionaires on an excel sheet and we thought even in worst case scenario, we will do well.

So our next step was to open trading and demat accounts.

When God Sent that guy!

Things were all set, we were about to start the race.. and one day one ICICI Direct guy was in office (targeting new set of employees to open trading accounts) and we thought he was god sent ! . We opened our trading + demat accounts in no time.

The Rs.500 annual charges seemed too small to us compared to what we would be minting in coming months. When he said its “FREE” for the first year, we were like – “We won’t mind even if you charge 10X for that in the first year” .

We got to know about “options”

While we were ready to start our journey in stock markets . We got to know that there is something called Options (derivatives) apart from regular stocks. This was something new for us. We googled and searched about options, and we came to know it’s a high risk/return thing. We didn’t focus too much on “high risk” part , the only thing we could read was “high return” part.

So next moment, 20-30 eBooks got downloaded on our laptops and we decided we will learn about it and make sure we don’t leave any stone unturned for make our “millionaire dream” a truth. It was a bit hard for us to delay our “trading” for few weeks 🙁

Learning about options was FUN

Learning about Options trading opened up to a whole new world for us. We learned that options trading is an amazing leverage tool which was very fascinating. I learned about technical analysis also and used all the office bandwidth to download technical analysis eBooks and videos (at one point of time, I had 1000+ eBooks on stock markets and I didn’t read 998.8 eBooks out of it).

For those who want to learn about options in detail, I would recommend an excellent resource on it from Deepak Shenoy of Capitalmind. He did a webinar on the topic and it was recorded and uploaded on youtube. You can see it below

After getting introduced with Options, our greed went to next level and now we became much more rich on excel sheet. Our profit margin went really high (but we didn’t focus too much on risk factor, infact we were not even clear on where we are entering into and how risky it can turn out to be).

So were all set with high energy, but could not take any action because our trading account was still not active that time and we were waiting for it.

Finally we started Trading

So, one day I got a sms – “Your Trading account XXXXXX9484 is Activated – ICICIDirect” . I logged into my account, transferred 10,000 from my ICICI bank account to ICICIDirect account (they were interlinked already) and there was one stock we were following from long time. We bought an OPTION for that stock , I had to pay approx Rs 6,000.

We went for lunch and were back in 3o min
I logged in my trading account and saw the current price of the Option trade
It was Rs 8,500. I SOLD it

I made Rs 2,500 profit , a 24% profit during LUNCHTIME and now we were planning, if we can I leave our jobs ?

I realized years later that one should never make profits in their first trade in stock markets, it fuels the overconfidence in you like anything and gives you a false sense that you are really some smart guy !

Now the Learning Starts

Till now I was giving you the background of what all happened before we started our options trading journey . For next 1.5 yrs, we were very much involved each day into stock markets, made some money, lost a lot more money, got frustrated, some short-lived happy moments came in too and finally one day I put a big break on my options trading.

I learned a lot of lessons in those 1.5 yrs of my journey in stock markets and realized that I can pass on some learning’s to others who are now trying to enter the markets or are fascinated with the potential stock market trading holds .

I am not saying my learning’s are some hidden secrets which are very new, but I can share what all I learned in my style , I am sure it will help someone who wants to learn from my mistakes.

These few points will help you to not make mistakes I did and help you overcome some myths and notions associated with stock market trading . Just a request – Note that these learning have come from my trading in Options (which is derivatives) and not regular stocks, but that does not change the learnings you are going to read below.

Mistake #1 – I focused too much on Knowledge

When I entered into stock markets, I was of the impression that I need to acquire a lot of knowledge on how things work, how various strategies work ? How technical analysis can help in trading ? I learnt all the technical indicators, back tested them on the past data, wrote lot of programming scripts to test my hypothesis.

I even went on to download lots of videos online and watched it over and over for many months and I realized that my knowledge had gone up significantly. I now understood lots of concepts, strategies, complex terms .

I could see a chart and instantly see lots of hidden patterns and could tell more than a normal person who does not know how to read a chart.

But then, over the months, I realized that “knowledge” is just a secondary element to trade successfully in stock markets. Almost all the good traders around the world agree that “knowledge” does not contribute more than 10-15% in being a successful trader. It’s an important thing , but certainty not the holy grail

I am not saying that one should not focus on “knowledge” part, all I am saying is that it’s not that KEY thing to succeed. Over knowledge will only create problems for you.

One of the famous stock trader Ashwani Gujral says in his book – “How to make money trading derivates” – that as per his experience over many decades, he feels that knowledge of charts etc contributes to just 10% of success for any trader. Here is the chart which explains what he mentioned in the book

So, learn things in stock market and then concentrate on the other important elements which you will learn in some time. Dont overthink about knowledge part.

Mistake #2 – I went against the Trend

What I have seen is that all the new traders somewhere want to challenge the markets and want to predict when markets will fall and when it will rise. They want to predict when the trend will reverse. They want to catch that top or bottom.

This is the essence of where most of the failed traders are stuck . If markets are rising , somewhere inside me, I wanted to catch the top and wanted to prove as if I “almost” know that now markets will fall OR if markets were going down.

However in this process, I realized that all the time I was just trying to swim against the trend, If markets were going up, I tried to predict when it will fall and how much and vice versa, and in that process I never stayed with the trend. There was some kind of fun in going against the trend. It was very tough to accept that markets can be simple (not easy)

Below you can see last 1 yr graph of NIFTY Index and see that there has been an uptrend in market and it has risen from 6000 in 2013 to around 8000 now . That’s 33% increase , but imagine someone who didn’t stay with the trend and always tried to predict when will market fall and looked at markets with suspecting manner and never got in the trend itself.

So just make sure that you never go against the flow in general. If I have to compare this trend following with some adventure sports, then I will compare it with Surfing, where you ride on the flow of the water. The flow of the water itself will take you with it, you just need to stay with it. Imagine what happens if you try to go against the water flow, the chances of you getting crushed is high.

So, try to identify the overall trend (upside , downside) and then make sure whatever is your trading style , be with the flow itself.

There is nothing wrong in having a contrarian view and predict when the markets will turn its direction, but be sure you know how you will take that decision. You can surely take a call against the trend , but make sure you accept that you were wrong in case you fail. Don’t try to prove yourself right if you are wrong, because it’s only going to harm you.

Mistake #3 – I didn’t realize that Money management is supreme

I personally think this is the most important part of being a successful trader . The biggest reason for my failure was that – I was very casual about money management and made the biggest mistakes in this area. Money Management in context of trading is all about managing your overall money and how much part of your overall trading capital you put at risk in each trade.

I will give you an example – Let’s say you have set aside Rs 10 lacs for stock market trading . Now let’s say you make 2 rules

Rule 1 : You will never use more than 20% of your capital in any given trade, no matter how promising it looks to you. Which means out of Rs 10 lacs you have , you will not put more than Rs 2 lacs on any single trade (so even in worst case, you will lose only 20% of your capital)

Rule 2 : The maximum loss you will allow on any give trade is 10% , which means that if you put Rs 2 lacs on a trade, you will not let the loss cross 10% , which is just Rs 20,000

If you see these 2 rules, you can see that the maximum loss in any single trade will not be more than Rs.20,000 which is 2% of your overall capital. So assuming you make 1 trade each month, you have 50 months of quota with you to go wrong fully

No one is so bad that they will make bad decisions every time, you make good and bad both decisions , but important point is that you should survive in markets till that time when you start taking right decisions .. Hence it’s important to be in the game and unless you take money management very seriously , you are bound to get out of the game some or the other day.

This is exactly what happened with me. By the time I started realizing that I am moving from “bad trader” to an “average trader” zone , my capital was over and I was already in loss and I never went back to the game itself.

Why one should use Money management ?

The biggest reason why money management should be used is that it does not expose you heavily to the risk on a broader level, even if there is very high risk on individual trades.

And the next big reason why money management is crucial is that it brings some kind of consistency in your growth overtime.

Below you can see 3 versions of money management, which is BAD , Average and GOOD money management, where the overall risk taken on a single trade is moving from high to low.

I did some simulation on excel where we are measuring how capital will grow over 36 months (assuming 1 trade is done in a month) . I ran 25 tests and plotted them on a graph together. You can see how in case of bad money management the growth of capital is very random, unpredictable and varies from very high (lucky) to very low (unlucky)

But in case of good money management , the growth of capital a trader has moves up over time and with high consistency .

So to sum up , I would say money management system is like having a great stamina . If you are there for longer time in markets, in a way you win the battle to some extent.

Mistake 4# – I thought trading is all about WINNING

Psychology plays a big role in being a good trader. From the childhood we are programmed to WIN and that same mindset takes over rational thinking in stock markets trading too. We want to WIN on all the trades , It’s hard to accept that you were wrong , being wrong means taking a LOSS . LOSS equals FAILURE and we are never taught properly how to take failures. And that’s exactly what happens in trading, novice traders don’t cut their losses fast, they let them grow (ego) and keep hoping that they will WIN

This is what also happened with me. When I bought an option for a stock, every time I wanted to WIN, every time I wanted to make profit on that option. I thought I will become a great trader , if I WON more and more ..

I was so WRONG

Winning MORE times is not same as making MORE money in stock markets trading. I know some of you who are reading this are confused with this statement , but let me explain this important point

So when it comes to stock market trading, you can’t choose how many times you WIN or LOOSE, but can control HOW MUCH you will win or lose !

All you can do is 3 things

1. You can control how fast you can get out of loosing trade (getting out of a bad decision)

2. You can control how long you will stay with a winning trade

3. And You can control when you will take the decision using your knowledge.

WINNING MORE , but still LOOSING

Every trade you make in stock market, you should make sure that your profits potential is generally much higher than the risk potential. Here is how it should look like

It’s very much possible that a trader wins 6 out of 10 times and still looses the money and in the same manner, it can happen that a trader wins just 4/10 times and still makes a lot of money.

Let me explain this with an example. Let’s say a person has Rs 10 lacs to start his trading .

A good trader wins just 4 times, but he makes sure that he will make big win and every time he makes a bad decision, he cuts the loss fast.

And in same way, a bad trader might win 6 times , but every time they are in hurry to book their profits (so they earn small every time) and when they are in loss, they do not book their losses fast (no money management rules in place) and hence let their losses grow because they can’t accept they made mistake (Ego) . The chart below will explain you this .

This is the only big difference between a good trader and bad trader .

Conclusion

Today I have shared my mistakes I did when I traded OPTIONS and I hope you will learn from my mistakes . But this can just be starting point only, you will only learn when you get on the ground and do the real trading. Till then it’s just a practice no matter what you do.

It’s extremely addictive to trade and if you are like me, you will feel a great thrill trading either stocks, futures or options (or any other instruments) , while I didn’t succeed in trading, I at-least know why I failed, I at least came to know my weakness and now I can improve upon it. I can at least help others to not make the same mistakes I did.

Also in future, if I get into trading again, I am sure I will be 10X better compared to earlier version of mine. I know it will still be very though, but I can try at least and when I stopped my trading, somewhere I felt bad about leaving it. I felt as if I am turning my back and got a feel of leaving the battle ground, but it was a right decision because I could have damaged my own net-worth to a big extent had I not stopped.

I would love to hear what you feel about the points I shared and if you would like to share your own experiences

Yes – You can now invest extra Rs 50,000 in your PPF account and it will be accepted

Posted on August 23, 2014August 6, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

Congratulations, Now you can now go and deposit the extra Rs 50,000 in your PPF account as the limit for your PPF investments was raised from Rs 1 lac per year to Rs 1.5 lacs in this budget.

ppf

A lot of investors had invested Rs 1 lac in their PPF account this year start and when the budget raised the limit by extra Rs 50,000 . They had this big question – “Can I invest Rs 50,000 more in my PPF account this year and get the income tax benefit?”

The thing is even if the budget has mentioned that PPF limit was raised, it does not get increased instantly. I mean the banks officials and post office staff does not allow the max limit the same moment. A separate notification is required by the RBI after making the required amendments in the Public Provident Fund scheme and that’s exactly what happened on 22nd Aug .

PUBLIC PROVIDENT FUND (AMENDMENT) SCHEME, 2014 – AMENDMENT IN PARAGRAPH 3 AND FORM-A

NOTIFICATION NO. GSR 588(E) [F.NO.1/2/2014-NS.II], DATED 13-8-2014

In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (4) of Section 3 of the Public Provident Fund Act, 1968 (23 of 1968), the Central Government hereby makes the following further amendments to the Public Provident Fund Scheme, 1968, namely :—

1. (1) This Scheme may be called the Public Provident Fund (Amendment) Scheme, 2014.
(2) It shall come into force from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette.

2. In the Public Provident Fund Scheme, 1968,—

(i) in paragraph 3, in sub-paragraph (1), for the letters and figures “Rs.1,00,000”, the letters and figures “Rs.1,50,000” shall be substituted;

(ii) In Form-A, in paragraph (iv), for the letters and figures “Rs.1,00,000”, the letters and figures “Rs.1,50,000” shall be substituted.

Below you can see the copy of the notification which came 1 day back and the same has been sent to all the banks and post office departments and RBI has asked them to now incorporate it and also inform to all the PPF subscribers.

ppf limit raised notification rbi

How much extra income tax you will save by investing Rs 50,000 more in PPF ?

If you are into the highest bracket of 30% , in that case you will save 30% tax on the extra Rs.50,000 invested in PPF. So that comes to Rs.15,000.

Earlier you used to pay income tax on Rs.50,000 (because you had maxed out your investments in income tax saving products) , but now you will save 50,000 and also pay Rs.15,000 less in your income tax (because your taxable income will come down by 50,000)

So now you can visit your SBI Bank or Post office or any other bank where you have your PPF account and invest the extra Rs.50,000 🙂

How you will save more Income Tax compared to last year due to Budget 2014 (Download Calculator)

Posted on July 11, 2014August 6, 2019 by Jagoinvestor

Budget 2014 was a big event this year as the expectations from BJP govt was very high. Here are some of the income tax rules which were changed int his budget and impact a common man directly.

1. Income Tax Exemption Increased from 2 lacs to 2.5 lacs

The basic exemption limit was raised by Rs 50,000 in this budget and now the new limit is Rs 2.5 lacs . So there is no tax to be paid upto income of Rs 2.5 lacs. For senior citizens, the new limit will be Rs 3 lacs. So the new tax slabs looks something like this

new income tax slab 2014 2015

3% education cess is extra on income tax2. 80C limit raised from 1 lacs to 1.5 lacs

This was a big relief for most of the people, as the old limit of Rs 1 lac in 80C was not enough for most of the people. There are too many things like EPF, PPF, Home Loan Principle amount, tuition fees, Life Insurance Premium, Tax Saving Mutual Funds and Tax saving FD and many more things, which gets 80C exemption.

Now with this exemption increase to 1.5 lacs, more motivation will be there for people to utilize this 80C limit. So if a person earns Rs 4 lacs, he/she can invest upto Rs 1.5 lacs in 80C, which lowers the taxable income to 2.5 lacs , which does not attract any income tax. So in best case, a person do not have to pay income tax upto Rs 4 lacs income with help of 80C investments done.

3. PPF limit raised from 1 lacs to 1.5 lacs

The limit for PPF investments was increase from 1 lacs to 1.5 lacs. This is going to be a great news for PPF fans and especially those who are investing in PPF in their children names, as the overall limit would increase for their family.

4. Home Loan Interest exemption raised from 1.5 lacs to 2 lacs

This was again a big relief for salaried class, as a lot of people who have taken home loan pay much more than 1.5 lacs of interest per year. With the increase of limit from 1.5 lacs to 2 lacs, the extra saving is of tax on Rs 50,000 , which turns out to be around Rs 15,000 for those who are in 30% tax slab. Note that this is only applicable for self occupied house taken on home loan.

5. Capital Gains Tax on Debt funds raised from 10% to 20%

The capital gains tax on debt funds has been raised from 10% to 20% and the minimum holding period to get benefit has been raised from 12 months to 36 months. So what happened was that earlier, people in 20%-30% tax slab rate used to invest in debt fund for 12 months and got it taxed at 10%, which was a great alternative to fixed deposits (where you pay 30% tax , if you are in higher tax slab) . But now this cant be done . Those who are interest to understand this part, please read this analysis on Deepak Shenoy Blog.

Then vs Now – An example calculation of a person earning Rs 10 lacs

Below I have given an example of a person who earns Rs 10 lacs, and takes full benefit under 80C , Home loan Interest and other basic exemptions like HRA, Medical Bills, Medical Insurance premium etc and compared his situation from past year rules vs the new rules which came in new budget. It has been seen that he can save approximmately Rs 30,000 additional tax. Have a look below

income tax calculation example

Download the Income Tax Calculator

I have created an excel calculator which you can use for calculating your new income tax and also compare with past year and see how much saving you will make with new rules.

Click Here to Download the Income Tax Calculator

Some Other Changes and Points from Budget

There is a proposal for introducing a single demat account for all the financial products
The EPFO will launch a unified EPF account, which will be a single account and there wont be headache to transfer or merge them every-time you change the job.
There will be uniform KYC across all financial institutions so that you don’t have to update your KYC at all the places

Please share how do you see this budget and the benefits ? Do you think its really going to help bring the “acche din” or not ? Please share your thoughts in comments section below.