Droplet Wealth

The original plan was to publish the Evergreen Budget blog that we put last year. But one of my acquaintances told me - "Dei, Budget la enna sonnanganu oru blog ah ezuthi share pannu". Instinctively I told her, we have a evergreen budget blog and will share that. But as an after-thought, I took her comments as "God's" nudge and decided to write one. Afterall I was getting alarmingly lazy at writing and needed a good nudge. So here’s the Droplet's Budget 2023 Nugget.   Ahem! Oh hold on! This is not about the tax regimes and neither about non Linked Insurance payouts soon attracting tax payments. These are almost common knowledge now. So what's the bigger take away for us from this Budget. It is "Spending". I pretty well know most of us here are PhD's in spending and that too not by doing some theoretical course but by hard labors of actually Spending more than we earn and can barrow! So what can we learn from Govt's spending ...

We were worried as financial advisers about the budget. Of course the Union Budget because if the budget was perceived to the be good then the markets would rally and our investors will not get discounts on their Investments. Discounts are always good, Who knows it better than you guys! The fact is good business shall always thrive irrespective of the budget and when we choose to invest in equities we invest in businesses that will do well in future. Note that we have used the word "Perceived". Again most of the govt policies being good or bad are perceptions of the people. A good businessman would identify each of them as an opportunity. A classic example is Titan which when was forced to import Gold due to "Govt Policies", it started Tanisq and today Tanisq is one of the largest contributor to Titan's Profits.  So now lets look at the Budget from the view it would affect us.  1. As a (Citizen) Owner of the Country and  2. As a (investor) Owner of the Comp...

We just put up a whats app status and One of the replies inspired us to make that into a blog.  Of course, like with all things @ Droplet, this one is not related to Superficial things like Budget/macro economics. So if you want to know our feedback on this year's budget, here it is -  ---N-----O-------C-----O-------M------M--------E---------N---------T-------S--- It is that. Because, in our fiefdom of Personal Finance, such things do not matter. Well then, let us use this opportune time to turn your attention to a more important budget, that is your  P ersonal budget .  Below are a few simple things that you should deliver on if you are want to make your country (ie., Family) Rich, Prosperous & Wealthy.  1. Earnings - Make sure you have an active Income and work to increase that income by 10% every year. Improve you skill sets, shift jobs, start a part time venture, do anything (legal) and try to increase your income by 10% year on ...

Why minimum balance payment on credit card is the worst thing? Of late credit card penetration in India has increased multi-fold. A decade back 1 in 10 would have a credit card. Today 9 in 10 have 3 credit cards each. A ratio of 1:27. All these are mostly owned by salaried people, because they are the ones who pay off at any cost and are easy targets. I myself had six credit cards until 2017. And today I have two, closed the other 4. Stopped using it much.  A recent statistics reveals that there are approximately 50 million credit cards. Of which 25 million are active cards meaning at least one transactions happens every month. The whole purpose of getting a credit card is for emergency needs and/or cashback points. However we start using it for LUXURY WANTS! This is where our financials would go for a toss.  While applying for a credit card, we look out for offers, interest free credit period (as if we will pay it on time), cash withdrawal limit...

As we beckon a new year, Droplet recommends 20 things that will help you turn a new page in your financial life. 1.  Have a monthly budget in place. 2.  Earn. Save. Spend. - Start early. Start immediately.  3.  Buy a term insurance covering 20 times of your salary. Helps your dependents largely during your absence. 4.  Have adequate medical insurance in place. You don't have to shell out cash in case of medical emergencies. 5.  Do not mix insurance with investments. 6.  Have atleast six months of your monthly expenses as contingency fund. 7.  Have a plan in place before buying a property. Such as location, accessibility, resources, so on. 8.  Don't buy a property due to peer pressure or societal pressure or for status. Buy only when you are ready and it is absolutely necessary. 9.   Buy real estate only if you have 30% cash for down payment. 10. Buy real estate only if you are confident that you would st...

                         Most of us fail to understand the fundamental purpose of life insurance. We are made to believe that insurance is saving or worse in most cases an investment. However, the whole idea of insurance is to cover the  risk of  loss. In simple terms, insurance is a financial backup for the family highly dependent on their breadwinner. To make it even simpler, let me give you an example as to how insurance should be looked at - You buy a two-wheeler or car and get it insured - what happens here? Your car is insured for a specific amount and in case of any loss/damage to your vehicle; the insurer will pay you, post the inspection and only for the quantum of damage . Wonder how would you feel if anybody asks you - "What is the return I will get for the premium I paid on my motor vehicle ". Won't it sound ridiculous?              The more we talk to people...

        So we promised we will suggest a different (better) way of Direct equity investing in our previous blog . Here we are with our simple thoughts. Read on Build your Capital  1. Give yourself an 8 year time period. Well, the obvious question then would be "Don't stock markets make people rich in quick time?" Not really. One would have "made" the money in one year but by staying invested for decades. 2. In that 8 year period build your capital by saving in products that are exposed to stock markets. aka Equity Mutual funds. 3. Why Equity Funds and not something else? That is because, this will give the experience of "Market Volatility" + compound your capital at a better rate.  That's only about capital. So how about the knowledge?  Built your Knowledge 4. During this 8 year period, Start reading books relating to investing.  5. Based on what you read, Pick the Stocks and make a note of the reasons for your buying ...

Read this interesting  article last week and thought of sharing it with all our readers. A client shared this story with us: It started at the grocery store. Every time we were shopping, my older son, then eight years old, would bug me to buy him a certain cereal he’d seen advertised on morning TV. The same thing would happen when we passed a toy store. He’d beg me for highly advertised action figures.  I realized it was time to teach him about how businesses work and decided that the stock market might be a fun way to do that.  We started small. I told him he could buy the stock of any company he wanted—so long as he paid with his allowance or with money received as a gift. I’d match his funds.   Of course, he was drawn to companies he could relate to: computer stocks, Manchester United, and the like. When we ate in a restaurant he liked, he started asking if it had stock, and if so, how we could invest.  Our stock market game not only t...

A lot of us know mutual funds invest in Stock Markets. Stock markets aka  Equities aka   share markets aka companies. So a simple thought that comes to our mind, why not invest in shares by ourselves. The self-realization that we are smart than others props this thought to the next level and we commit. If not this then the greed of becoming Wealthy soon props this thought. If not now, then at some point it will. So you are caught and our job as advisors is to help you escape. Let us caution you - The very purpose of this post is not to Frighten you from Stock Markets but to frighten those who think stock market is a place to become filthy rich over night by investing based on a random tip. Read on. We have for now kept the legends who take personal loans and invest in the stock market away. We are only talking about individuals passionate about investing and want to make serious wealth by Investing in Stock Markets. By serious, we mean a number no less than a few...

A lot of us might be thinking about making part payments against our home loans. We suggest you look at the below table of savings before you take any such decisions -  For those not adept with numbers/tables, lets us clarify in simple sentences.  1. If we prepay 1 lac of our home loan at the beginning of each year for 5 years. Our Total "Interest Savings" come to about INR 5 lacs for a period of 15 years. 2. If instead of prepaying the home loan, we choose to invest the same in an equity mutual fund, then a fund returning 12.5% per annum, would help us create a corpus of 20 lacs. 3. If instead of prepaying the home loan, we choose to invest the same in an equity mutual fund, then a fund returning 10% per annum, would help us create a corpus of 15 lacs. Before we complete - here are the few reasons why r ecommend delaying the Pre-Payment of the home loan - 1. The Prepayment can be used to create your retirement corpus. 2. Locking up your savings...

C lick here to read in Tamil We know so many people that have a home loan. How much ever they try to, they still pay a minimum of 40% to 90% of principal as Interest to the lender. We delved about this and wanted to give our readers a plan that helps them reclaim the interest portion.  We have normally noticed that most of the home bought are about 40 lacs. WIth 20% down payment, the loan amount comes to 32 lacs. On a loan taken for 15 years at 8.6%, the EMI works out to be INR 31,700. If the loan is duly completed in 15 years, the total interest paid is 25 lacs. Now we have to do plan to get this 25 lacs back.   But the plan is good only if there is no extra payout that the borrower has to make. So we suggest that you extend the loan tenure to 20 years. This will save you 3,700 per month in EMI. Next, Invest the EMI savings in a good equity fund for 20 years. Let's see what happens now.  As one can see by simply managing one's investme...

There are a set of genuine standard questions shot at us from people whoever we have met so far -  Will my capital be safe? Will I seriously make money? How do you say I will make money if I stay invested for a long period? My money in a fixed deposit or LIC is always safe or at least my capital is protected.   Mutual funds are risky. So... WILL I LOSE ALL MY MONEY? This clearly indicates how fearful people are towards equity-related products. We are so tired of answering them with all the possible answers to ensure that they understand it better. Yet, the fear has not moved away. So we thought of writing a blog with an object of making everyone know what will happen to his or her money and whether MF is risky or not! Point 1 - Never put your money anywhere for a period of 20 to 25 years with the intention of protecting your capital alone.  Point 2 - By doing so, you are forcing your money to lose its value.  Point 3 - You have inve...

Everything is associated with Risk. Even NPS does. What matters the most is how long you stay invested. We read an interesting article about NPS and thought of sharing it with our readers. Read on -  Pension funds have marginal exposure to the distressed firm - Many debt funds with the mandate to invest in corporate debt securities have been left saddled with bonds issued by the indebted IL&FS and Essel group companies, resulting in a sharp erosion in their net asset values (NAVs).  While the exposure of mutual funds has been making headlines, the holdings of other investment vehicles have been largely been under the radar. A  BusinessLine  analysis shows that pension funds under the National Pension Scheme (NPS) and Atal Pension Yojana also hold these stressed assets, albeit to a smaller extent.  Scheme-C of the National Pension Scheme invests primarily in the fixed income securities issued by corporates. The portfolios of the ‘Scheme-C’ from the tier...