In India, gifting is a wide spread phenomenon. You give gifts on birthdays, when a child is born and on other less happy occasions like marriages as well. Buying physical gifts from malls and kirana stores is most common; some parents and grand parents have upped the ante by gifting life insurance policies especially from LIC.Read More
Banking
Understanding RBI Monetary Policy
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has taken everyone by surprise in its annual monetary policy for 2012-2013. Between March 2010 and October 2011, the RBI had hiked policy rates 13 times and everyone was baying for a slash but not to the extent it came. The latest cut signals the fact that RBI isRead More
Prepayment of Home Loan
Should you prepay your home loan if you have a surplus or should you avoid doing that and simply invest that money elsewhere for it to earn returns ? The decision can be taken emotionally with your heart or rationally with your head. Prepayment of home loan helps to reduce your burden. Less debt helpsRead More
All you wanted to know about bank lockers
So you got carried away and bought a lot of gold jewellery for your wife and are now hunting for a bank locker to park that jewellery ? Getting bank lockers in India is more painful than buying the jewellery ! Most of the time the banks will say that the safe deposit lockers aren’tRead More
Union Budget 2012-13
After having crashed headlong with Mamta Di on the railway budget, the government has committed a Kolaveri Di with the nation. It has dashed hopes of taxpayers and signed off it’s last attempt to recover from a reeling economy with a disappointing attempt. I personally think, the budget was presented because it was meant to beRead More
Credit card pitfalls – how to avoid them
I can’t help writing about credit card pitfalls and how to avoid them – my latest client’s financial planning has gone horribly wrong as he lives on his 4 credit cards. He is flamboyant, he is shopaholic and has no clue on how to read a credit card statement. He thought he knew all theRead More