Please do not reply back to this mail. This is sent from an unattended mail box. Please mark all your queries / responses to webmaster@ecrmagic.com.
Information provided on this newsletter has been independently obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, such information may include inaccuracies, errors or omissions. www.rwd.ecrmagic.com and its affiliates, information providers or content providers, shall have no liability to you or third parties for the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or correct sequencing of information available on this newsletter, or for any decision made or action taken by you in reliance upon such information, or for the delay or interruption of such information. www.rwd.ecrmagic.com, its affiliates, information providers and content providers shall have no liability for investment decisions or other actions taken or made by you based on the information provided on this newsletter.
If full-blown financial planning sounds too complex, then a simplified system may be better for you, says Dhirendra Kumar Open-ended savings, where the saver doesn't state a goal but just wants to save as much as possible rarely works. More often than not, `as much as possible' ends up becoming `as little as I can get away with'.

However, in order to start working towards a goal or a target, you need to figure out what amount of money is available for us to save and for what kind of goals. If defining goals is too much work, there are simpler frameworks available. The conventional way of doing this is to divide the income into four buckets based on the immediacy of the need for the money. Let’s start from the long end, which is unconventional, but I'll explain later why?

The first bucket is the one where you put requirements that are 7, 10, 15 or more years away. Depending on your age, this could be retirement, kids' education, etc.

The second bucket is somewhat shorter term, say up to about five years. These could be expenses that you can forecast with more certainty. You know you'd like to buy a house in five years and will need to put down an initial payment. You know that in three to four years, your car will be pretty old and you'd like to buy a new one. These needs are distinguished from the longer-term ones not just by a shorter period, but also because the shorter time frame means that they are more precisely predictable in time and amount.

The third bucket is that of immediate needs and emergency funds. Emergency funds are something that most people ignore. You will probably have a good feel for how much you will need, and 3-6 months of family income is a good place to start.

The fourth bucket consists of the statutory tax-saving investments. It's the odd one out because it can actually be subsumed in one of the first two. However, it should be thought of as a separate entity because it saves taxes and that itself is equivalent to earning. Moreover, depending on how exactly you make your tax-saving investments, there will be a lock-in of at least three years, so the term of investment is enforced by tax laws.

Once you are clear about the buckets into which your savings must be placed, it becomes clear which kind of investments go into which bucket. The best way to get a grip on your future finances is to identify specific goals and plan accordingly. However, as a starter option, the four-bucket system is not a bad alternative.

Source: Times of India

Expenses today are very different from what they were a few years ago. This extends to parenting as well. Children born in the 2000’s need things you could not even dream of at that age. If you are a young parent or soon to become one, you might want to plan for a few expenses that didn’t really exist when you were a child.

Here are a few such new age parenting related expenses:

#1. Day Care
The cost: Starts at Rs. 2,000 per month (up to Rs. 10,000 per month)
Nuclear families usually need dual income, which means that both parents must be working to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Working mothers have no option but to enroll their child into a day care service or a creche, during working hours. Day care centers cost Rs. 5,000 per month, on an average.

#2. Play Schools
The cost: Rs 10,000 – Rs 20,000 per month
Once the child is 2-3 years of age, the parents need to start looking for a playschool. Playschools these days are not merely alphabet-teaching centers. They employ specially trained pre-school educators and provide a safe environment for kids to thrive in.

#3. Devices for children
The cost: From Rs 10,000 – Rs 50,000 per year
Your little one grows up and becomes curious about the world. As a preteen, he or she is exposed to advanced gadgets, which you could not even dream of as a child of the 70’s or 80’s. There is a Kindle for a storybook, an iPod for music, and Play Stations instead of Carom.

#4. Summer Camps
The cost: Rs 12,000 and upwards per month depending on age of the child
Devices accompany your child when at school, but even his holidays are not his anymore. Gone are the days when summers were just about a vacation to the hometown and staying with grandparents. Months before summer holidays, parents start looking for summer camps for their preteens which offer diverse activities such as creative writing, fun projects, science expeditions, art & craft, music lessons, and storytelling to name a few.

#5. Activity Classes
The cost can be as low as Rs 1,000 a month to as high as Rs 10,000 a month. It varies with age and skill.
Learning doesn’t stop with school classes. These days an activity class for specific skills is a must for most children. These can be dance or martial arts classes or even something unique like calligraphy.

#6. Academic Coaching
The cost: Rs. 2,000 to Rs. 12,000 per month
Moreover, a high school student would also want coaching classes to clear difficult competitive exams. Or home tuitions to pass the 12th grade math paper. Other than unavoidable expenses, your teen may also ask for fancy branded clothes, guitar lessons on the weekend, aerobics or swimming classes, driving lessons, you name it!

These are the expected costs of raising a child in the 21st century, and this excludes healthcare bills, education loans (in case your child wishes to study abroad) etc.

The Learning; It helps a lot to plan your finances keeping in mind the rising costs of being a parent.

Source: Scripbox.com
Saving for retirement seems to be a similar process as that of dieting. We all are well aware of what has to be done, but actually practicing it is a really tough task. It is easier to make excuses. You are busy. You have several responsibilities towards your family that keep competing with your ability to save money for your latter years. Furthermore, your remuneration has stagnated in recent past whereas the cost of living is constantly climbing. A plenty of people actually spend more of their time in researching their next car or planning a vacation than they plan for retirement.

Why is Retirement Planning Must?
Retirement planning helps you lay the foundation stone for your future when you no longer earn any salary. Retirement planning allows you to accumulate funds and grow over the subsequent years so that you have extensive resources to navigate the years of your retirement.

In order to make a smart and wise choice, you need to read the following ways towards a more fulfilling future:

  • Amplify your alternatives
  • Reality-check of your assumptions
  • Attain distance before making a decision
  • Prepare to be wrong


Amplify your Alternatives:
Whenever you come across an ‘either/or’ situation, get alerted, that is a red flag—there arises a need for you to amplify your alternatives. You must be thinking that retirement, in itself is a firm decision, either you still working full-time or choose to retire completely. During the course of retirement, your primary objectives should be your wish-fulfilment and happiness. You do not have to stop working to attain the set goals.

Reality Check of Your Assumptions:
You assume a lot of things while you get into retirement phase. You make a list of assumptions for every retirement decision. But you must ensure that you take the time to observe these assumptions carefully so that they do not turn out to become a hindrance in your situation.

Attain Distance Before Making a Decision: The sooner you start with retirement planning, the higher the odds that you will find it fulfilling. Ask these five questions mentioned below to you when you think of retirement:

  • What will you do?
  • Where will you live?
  • Who will you spend time with?
  • When will you retire?
  • Why have you preferred to make these decisions?


If you have answers to all these questions, then you can easily answer the sixth question: How much money will you require after your retirement and how will your finances cover that sum?

Source: policybazaar.com
Buying a pure term insurance plan is the most cost-effective way of getting one’s life insured. However, it has endless advantages but still, when it comes to buying a term insurance plan, people always give it a second thought. This is due to many myths that surround term insurance plans. Here, we have busted some common myths about term plans, so that the insurance seekers can find the simplest and the most economical solution for getting life cover.

1.  An insurance plan without any return is not worth it
Well, if you are one of those people who think that an insurance plan without a return is not worth it, you seriously need to think again. A term insurance plan provides highest life coverage at a nominal cost. However, life insurance policy does not provide any return of premium paid, but on the contrary to this, it has a huge benefit. 

2.  All term insurance policies are similar, insurers don’t give claims
The major use of insurance policy is at the time of biggest family crisis. Have you ever thought that what if the insurer turns down the policy at the time of claim? This is where the reliability and transparency of the insurer come into picture.  In case of any eventuality, a term insurance plan provides a lump sum amount to the beneficiary of the policy so that the future of your dependents can be secured. 

3. Buying term insurance too early and too late in life is not beneficial 
It is never too early or too late to buy a term insurance plan. Moreover, it is very beneficial if you buy the policy early in your life as you can buy it at the cheapest rate and can avail maximum benefits over the time. But one doesn’t need to worry even when he/she is older; the premium rates of term insurance plan are most affordable as compared to the other insurance plan.

4.  My company provides Group Life Insurance
If you have a group insurance offered by your company then it’s really great but it is important to check the amount. You can also take advice of the financial advisors who will help you to know that how much insurance coverage you should have based on the current income. Many companies provide coverage, but most of the time it is not enough to provide you full coverage.

5.  The cover of a term insurance plan cannot be increased
This is one of the major myths about the term insurance plan. Well, it’s not true. In case a person opts for a plan based on the income at the age of 25 then he/she can increase the amount once they reach the age of 30 or 40 and make it big. However, this will definitely cost you more but you don’t need to buy a separate term plan. www.policybazaar.com
Please do not reply back to this mail. This is sent from an unattended mail box. Please mark all your queries / responses to webmaster@ecrmagic.com.
Information provided on this newsletter has been independently obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, such information may include inaccuracies, errors or omissions. www.rwd.ecrmagic.com and its affiliates, information providers or content providers, shall have no liability to you or third parties for the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or correct sequencing of information available on this newsletter, or for any decision made or action taken by you in reliance upon such information, or for the delay or interruption of such information. www.rwd.ecrmagic.com, its affiliates, information providers and content providers shall have no liability for investment decisions or other actions taken or made by you based on the information provided on this newsletter.