Here are some financial practices that can ensure your financial wellbeing.
The foundation of a good financial plan is saving. However, to build on this, one needs to diligently invest as early in life as possible. It can start with simple low-risk instruments but should a good investor who gets comfortable always upgrade to high-yield instruments soon. Starting at a young age also ensures that one is confident of taking advantage of better opportunities by the time one starts making bonuses and increments in their professional life. Those who start late tend to make costly mistakes than the former.
Equities is possibly the best investment class that there is for retail investors. They offer good results and tend to move with greater economic trends like inflation and much more, to offer extra income at the end of the cycle. While real estate investments are a necessity for most people, parallel equity investments too have turned into a norm, taking over from bank deposits and gold.
Ensure that there is always a good mix of long-term and short-term investments. While long-term instruments like index-linked passive funds can provide good yields and are more secure, short-term investments in other forms of mutual funds can help improve the liquidity of one’s portfolio.
Trading individually too can be much more rewarding and accessible since they do not involve the fees that mutual funds do. However, it also tends to take up a lot of time and effort. However, online trading has made it much simpler and real-time. Trading platforms like Binomo make it hassle-free for investors to monitor their portfolio with alerts and advanced tools.
A good financial plan should not bet against the odds, but should be sturdy enough to survive them. This form of security net can be provided by insurance. One should also plan against many things that could go wrong with term insurance, health insurance, critical illness insurance and personal accident insurance. While the payouts might weigh in on the annual budgets, they can come in handy when things go wrong.
A good investment provides good results after tax. Since tax tends to be an after-thought for most investors, their income might be slashed after an IT filing or a demand. To avoid untowards surprises, account for tax in every investment and manage the diversity based on the same.
The tax department tends to be benign on long-term investments in equity too, so include a good mix of such instruments in your portfolio to ensure your results beat the markets and taxation alike. Make sure you include instruments that provide for tax deduction under Section 80C and Section 80D - like life insurance premium, ULIPs, PPF, EPF, health insurance and more.
For the last few generations, buying or building a home is the best retirement plan especially for those with pension payouts. However, very few who have started working in the 90s and after have the luxury. Most private sector jobs do not offer pensions, and even those who offer such might not account for much due to inflation, and can only work as a supplementary income.
An equities-based additional income can offer the cushion against time, for those who have to retire or intend to retire early. Most investment advice hence comes back to equities and while investing one must be wary of frauds in the process.
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Disclaimer:This content is created by Times Group's Mediawire on behalf of Dolphin Corp. Operations with over-the-counter (OTC) financial instruments are associated with significant risks. Before trading on the platform, one needs to analyse their financial capabilities.