An Analytic Journal on Technology, Travel, Business, Finance, and Experience.
From the category archives:
Do you see any advantage in using “premium” fuel for your vehicle or is it simply a cost that you should avoid?
I’ve owned both a Santro (sold at 45,000+ kms) and a Swift (currently at 32,000+ kms) and have never ever seen a performance/mileage difference when using “premium” fuel.
Note: I didn’t run-in my Swift — it’s not meant to be. And, when traffic-free, my Swift shifts always happen at the red line.
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You can’t positively think your way to wealth. You have to positively DO your way to wealth.
Source: amzn.to/arnUJN
And I was, for a long time, thinking.
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Would you opt for a higher compensation in lieu of a shorter commute, flexible working hours, the ability to work from home when needed, and wearing what you want to work?
I certainly wouldn’t and I’ve been fortunate enough to have the financial flexibility to choose the latter.
Having a solid emergency fund in place and being debt free are what will let you make the obvious choice. Of course, secondary income always helps and you should work towards having one or two in place.
That said, have you ever had to make this choice in the past?
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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?
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Can inflation be a reason when justifying a request for a salary hike at work?
I’d say YES. What do you say?
Thanks S, for the discussion leading to this post.
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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.
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The only long-term disability insurance product that I have seen on offer by Indian insurance companies is Tata AIG’s Secured Future Plan. The insurance payout scenario is excellent: at the highest level you get Rs 35,000 per month guaranteed for 20 years.
However, no one at Tata AIG wants to sell you this policy!
I’ve tried multiple channels/approaches, but each time they act as if I’m speaking an alien language and then try their best to peddle one of their other lamer policies. I’ve now escalated this issue to the head of customer support. Let’s see what happens.
By any chance, have you purchased/researched this policy?
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You don’t manage money. What you do is manage your choices.
Source: amzn.to/b2RXrw
What do you think?
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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.
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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:
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.
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Why can’t financial instruments that offer Guaranteed Investment Returns guarantee at least the current risk-free rate of return (which in my opinion is the rate of return offered by the Public Provident Fund scheme)?
What do you think?
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Continuing yesterday’s thoughts, you have only two options when dealing with financial clutter.
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.
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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?
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How would you name a mutual fund that:
Emerging Bluechip Fund???
I’m quite sure many will be misled into investing simply by the usage of the term “Bluechip.”
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Approximately 70 to 30 — when most literature suggests the exact opposite.
But that’s what my financial goals demand and financial goals are how you ought to arrive at your own debt to equity investment ratio.
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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?
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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?
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On my way to work, I was running my finances through my head and had this thought.
Total up all your expenses (household expenses, personal expenses, EMIs, monthly savings for annual expenses, and anything else that you treat as an expense) in the past month. Divide this figure by the number of days in that month. That’s your Daily Cash Burn Rate (DCBR).
In short,
DCBR = Total Expenses in Month M ÷ No. of Days in Month M
Mine was frightening — I wish I could disclose the actual figure — and an eye-opener. It’s time for some fiscal prudence.
How about you?
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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.
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It’s time to file your income tax returns — by July 31, 2010.
You might find these links useful.
I filed returns for myself and D in the last week of June. I used TaxSpanner this time too — I’ve been using it since three years and always pay through their Net Banking facility.
How about you?
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