by Vinaya HS on July 29, 2010
in Finance
A friend asked,
I’m in the midst of changing jobs and have opted to withdraw the savings in my Employee Provident Fund. It’s a decent sum — around Rs 300,000 — and I wish to keep this money safe. Is there a way I can achieve this and yet earn a steady income?
My immediate answer was a fixed deposit with periodic interest payouts, but my friend has been investing in tax-saving fixed deposits and was looking to diversify. My next suggestion was the Post Office Monthly Income Scheme. And, in case you don’t need the monthly income, automatically roll that amount into a Recurring Deposit.
What would you suggest?
by Vinaya HS on July 27, 2010
in Finance
At Central, I kept the [same day only] redeemable vehicle parking coupon in my pocket and conveniently forgot to produce it during billing. A couple of days later, at Reliance Timeout, I made it a point to keep the coupon along with the cash in my wallet and since I pay for most things with cash, the first thing I saw during billing was the coupon.
Generally speaking, if you usually pay with cash keep the redeemable vehicle parking coupon along with the cash in your wallet and if you usually pay with a card — debit or credit — wrap the redeemable vehicle parking coupon around the card.
This way, you simply won’t forget to redeem the coupon.
What do you think?
Tip Tuesdays is my initiative to share practical personal finance tips — every Tuesday. I’d be delighted if you could share a tip or two from your own experiences. Drop a comment to submit your tip. And, as always, do spread the word if you find this useful.
by Vinaya HS on July 20, 2010
in Finance
At Pizza Hut, we were about to leave a service tip when D observed that the bill already had levied a 10% service charge. How a service establishment can fix a fixed service charge is beyond my understanding. Do service charges scale linearly with the size of the group being served? Would you leave a tip of Rs 500 when your bill is Rs 5,000?
On a general note, I’d prefer to not leave a tip when the bill already levies a service charge. And, I’d prefer to not host a party at that service establishment.
What do you think?
Tip Tuesdays is my initiative to share practical personal finance tips — every Tuesday. I’d be delighted if you could share a tip or two from your own experiences. Drop a comment to submit your tip. And, as always, do spread the word if you find this useful.
by Vinaya HS on July 19, 2010
in Finance
Each Monday morning, I plan to post my thoughts on Organizing Your Finances. Through this series, I hope to share a tip or two that address a common problem that many of us face in our daily lives — that of organizing our finances. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this initiative and would love it more if you could share a tip of your own. And, as always, do spread the word if you find this useful.
With D entering my life, I now see the need for creating our “Personal Finances Folder.” In this folder, I want to capture every aspect of our personal finances. Should anything happen, this should be our “Go To” folder. This far, we have kept our finances separate and therefore, to begin with, I want to capture my part of our personal finances in this folder.
Broadly speaking, I want to record information about our:
- Assets
- Liabilities
- Insurances
- Taxes
- Financial Goals and
- Personal Documents
As a first step, I bought one of these expanding folders — they’re perfect for capturing and consolidating your personal finances. I’m also using Google Docs to type-in the information and then printing it out for storing in the folder.
I plan to post each week on how I am tackling each of these categories. Stay tuned.
Now, how about you? Do you already have your Personal Finances Folder up and running? I’d love to hear from you.
by Vinaya HS on July 13, 2010
in Finance
Continuing yesterday’s thoughts, you have only two options when dealing with financial clutter.
- Keep it, or
- Close it.
What you decide really depends on your personal situation. But make that decision right now — else you’ll never get rid of that clutter.
Tip Tuesdays is my initiative to share practical personal finance tips — every Tuesday. I’d be delighted if you could share a tip or two from your own experiences. Drop a comment to submit your tip. And, as always, do spread the word if you find this useful.
by Vinaya HS on July 12, 2010
in Finance
Each Monday morning, I plan to post my thoughts on Organizing Your Finances. Through this series, I hope to share a tip or two that address a common problem that many of us face in our daily lives — that of organizing our finances. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this initiative and would love it more if you could share a tip of your own. And, as always, do spread the word if you find this useful.
Over the past year, we’ve managed to get rid of a significant amount of physical clutter that was lying all around our home. You name it and I’d bet that I had it — somewhere. Minimalism has made our home simpler to manage.
Driving to work, I felt that the same principles could directly be applied to one’s personal finances as well since most of us do have a lot of financial clutter in the form of unused bank accounts, investments we’ve no idea why we invested in, multiple credit cards, etc. Financial clutter tends to distract us from achieving our financial goals and causes much stress.
I’ve had a lot of financial clutter too in the form of old salary accounts that weren’t closed (and then stressing myself out to meet minimum balances in each of those accounts), an endowment life insurance policy that I bought out of personal obligation (and then stopped paying the premiums), a personal credit card from American Express (that came with the corporate one and that I recklessly charged), and such.
I’ve managed to rid myself of most of these. It’s honestly liberating when you get rid of your financial clutter. I now choose each item in my personal finances with due diligence. That said, here’s an acid test that you should subject each financial instrument that you have to.
Each financial instrument that you have as part of your personal finances should financially — not emotionally or otherwise — justify its existence. If it doesn’t, get rid of it.
Do this and I guarantee financial simplicity and peace of mind.
What do you think? How do you get rid of your financial clutter?
by Vinaya HS on July 9, 2010
in Finance
A reader asks,
I’m being offered an upfront joining bonus by my new employer. How should I go about investing this money? There is one condition though. I will be required to give back this money if I leave the job within 6 months.
Given the payback condition, I’d recommend that the joining bonus be kept in a 6-month fixed deposit — don’t even think of investing it right now. If you do leave the job within 6 months, you can break the fixed deposit and give back the money to your employer. And if you don’t, the money is fully yours and unencumbered and you need to use/save/invest it to meet your financial goals.
What do you think?
by Vinaya HS on July 8, 2010
in Finance
D asked,
I know there are clear-cut rules on your liability and what you should do upon losing your credit card. But what are the rules with respect to debit cards? What’s your liability and what should you do? I’m asking because my debit card doesn’t have my photo on it. Nor does the merchant even attempt to verify my signature. [Nor is it PIN verified.] A transaction on my lost debit card will immediately debit the funds from my account.
I don’t know the answer. It’s especially scary given the fact that many banks have hiked up the daily limits for shopping with your debit card. With a daily shopping limit of over Rs 1.5 lacs, would you even want to carry such a debit card in your wallet?
Coming back, what are the liabilities and lost-card reporting rules for debit cards? Do you know the answer?
by Vinaya HS on July 6, 2010
in Finance
Here’s a tip that I read about some time back, implemented it in my own life, and found it to work.
When you withdraw cash from an ATM, don’t throw the transaction receipt. Instead, keep it in your wallet and each time you spend the cash that you withdrew, note down the expense on the back of that transaction receipt. It’s an excellent way to track your expenses.
What do you think?
Tip Tuesdays is my initiative to share practical personal finance tips — every Tuesday. I’d be delighted if you could share a tip or two from your own experiences. Drop a comment to submit your tip. And, as always, do spread the word if you find this useful.