The festival we enjoy the most is just a couple of days away. As a kid, the only festival which I have been passionate about is Makar Sankranti. Don’t know how, and don’t know why, but somewhere there are a lot of emotions which flow throughout that day. Determination to Win, Patience, Fear, Greed, and the list would go on.

I was blessed to spend my childhood growing in the streets of south Mumbai especially Girgaum where the celebrations are at its peak from 7 in the morning to 12 in the night.Today after completing 10 years as a Chartered Accountant & as a Certified Financial Planner, I find a lot of similarities between Makar Sankranti, the festival, and financial planning and what one can learn from this festival and implement in their financial life.

Disclaimer: Some of the terminologies related to kite flying are intentionally used in Hindi as honestly using English would just be an insult.

Some of the glaring similarities found between flying kite and investing are :- 

Choose what you need – The first step when it comes to this festival is choose the right stuff, and your decision will decide how your day goes, It varies from the type of manjha whether it is jada or patla, Bareli or surti, 12 taar etc… or the type of kites you want, so pick the manjha which suits you according to the conditions you are going to fly inevery year.Whenever I fly kites, mornings are always with barik manjha due to less wind and afternoon with jadda manjha when it becomes windy. You might argue that it is the skill of the person that is more important and not the manjha but I always prefer it the other way. Maybe now it has become a habit.

If I have to relate the above with financial planning. Not everyone has the skill to make the right call with regards to his/her financial life, yet a disciplined habit attains satisfactory results. Use the right investment options and choose what you need or ask an advisor, evaluate your risk appetite and I think you should do well.

I did not have anyone to guide me how to use my resources. You will always have.

Prepare yourself

Provisions for emergency – Make provision for Water, have ample no of kites, manjha, cap, sunglasses, tape, set up dhinchak music, and the list is ready. Similarly, if you are planning to fly your financial kite make sure that you have your emergency fund in place so you don’t have to run from pillar to post when any need arises.

Right protection– If you are flying kites and you don’t cover your finger with band aids and tapes then you are in serious trouble my friend. At least that’s what I learned in a year after I started flying. Similarly have all your insurance in place. There is no harm in playing safe and cover the areas which are going to be affected the most.

Standing in the sun – There is no gain without pain, we stand the whole day flying kites, determined to make use of the day and deal with every kite in our own way. Thus being an investor, be prepared to be there for a long time. Not every kite flies high. Some get katofied while some get torn, the one which gives us immense pleasure is the one which flies high (tikli) but for that we have to be prepared to lose some.

Manjha is money

Some have less, some have more, those who have less manjha don’t stop flying their kites. Similar for investing too, you don’t need a lot of money, even small contributions are fine, atleast start flying!!

Those who have a decent flow of manjha can surely give dheel (keep investing)  and set their path to attain high growth, (tikli).Many fly together, many get cut, many torn to pieces, yet the optimist sees many kites flying high in the sky! Set your financial path and make it a habit (Invest in SIP).

Tilgul ghya god god bola (eat sweet and talk sweeter)

Every festival has its flavours and you make sure you enjoy them it starts from tilgul to undhiya and puranpoli gathiya chivda sweet Pongal and the list is never ending. Similarly enjoy your journey and enjoy whatever life gives you financially. Yes money is important but as wise men say “if you are not able to enjoy your wealth then it’s not worth it”.

Pass on the Legacy

I have noticed over the years the craze for this festival is slowly dying. May be due to no bank holiday or high rise building or people have just moved on in life, but it hurts to see when the next generation is not aware about it, I would urge all of you to please enjoy the festival with your family and involve your kids too…Similarly, always make sure that your family is aware about all your investments liability and financial transactions. It will always help in case you are not available.

End the day on a high– Every festival comes to an end but what’s important is that you are content when it ends. So enjoy the day and enjoy your life.

The best learning which I have learnt from kite flying is “Nazar sada ho uchi sikhati hain Patang!!”
So enjoy the Festival enjoy financial Planning!!!

KAI PO CHE!!!

Hi,

Bike rides / road trips are experiences which everybody should have once in their lifetime. I have tried to put down my experiences/ learnings of my bike ride. Somewhere I found a lot of resemblance with Financial planning and I have tried to point out a few.

 Pre ride tune up: Make sure before you start your ride, you and your beast should be in perfect physical condition to enjoy the journey. Get your bike checked with the mechanic for Oil top up, wires, breaks and buy the necessary riding gear, sadle bags, helmet, etc… After you are sorted make sure that the others are too cause if they are stuck so are you. Discuss the route plane decide on time, Points, breaks well in advance and communicate.

One should also have the necessary stuff like all the relevant documents, estimation of monthly expenses and income, goals at appropriate age. etc. ready. Ideally it should be done by themselves or seek help of an advisor.

The day: Joyous and energetic that’s how a start should be. It’s a cardinal sin to not be on time on the day of the journey especially in a group, it hampers the excitement and morale, so try and set the right tone for the ride.

Start young as early start sets the tone for future, also be punctual while doing their investments. Timely payment of premium or maintaining sufficient balance in the account for deduction of SIP’s are some of the basic rules that should be kept in mind.

Off you go: Make sure you enjoy the ride and take it easy. Mistakes will always happen but sometimes not knowing routes getting confused, missing formation these small hiccups are good as they go on to make wonder full memories.  Enjoy the local delicacies on your way during a break. But make sure you are in pairs, we don’t want to do get stranded alone do we?

Financial Planning is a long journey and many events will occur during the journey. Some may be sweet, others may be bitter. Mistakes are bound to happen, but that doesn’t mean you stop believing. Sometimes Trump may eat away our returns or Brexit will cause a temporary havoc in the economy or one fine day you suddenly enter into a cashless society with fancy purple and green coloured monopoly notes. There may be ups and downs but just hold on to it and everything will fall into place.

Safety First: I know this is the first rule of riding but the context is more psychological than physical, you might wear gears and cover yourself but you need to be mentally strong when you are on a road trip. Stay hydrated mentally by taking breaks, don’t get tempted to speed just because the other guy is, avoid racing on unfamiliar roads, you are not valentinorossi and even if you are these are not the roads you want to drift on.

You might be lured to buy a product just because a colleague just bought it. But you should know your risk appetite and choose investments according your needs and goals. Have their insurance in place and SIP’s going. Avoid investing directly in equities just because the pan wala gave that tip, if you don’t have the necessary time and patience, everybody can’t be Warren Buffet or Rakesh Jhunjhunwala. Consult an advisor if you can’t manage on your own.

Formation and consistency: Yes, we all love to speed and everyone has their own style. But it’s important to have the basics intact. Who will lead who will be at the end. Speed range, formation and moreover taking responsibility. It’s actually an excellent team building exercise. Helps some to curb their instincts and be patient and some to come overcome their fears and improve their skills and become better. It’s a visual treat to watch bikes on road in tandem and sync.

Following the plan and achieving your goals, seems like a simple individual task but apparently many variables are involved in it and they affect/ change one’s financial life. It may be spouse, kids parents, relative, friends, work, external environment etc… The more in sync the smoother the journey. Sometimes there is a job loss/change, sickness, birth of child.  life changes the skill is to adopt to these changes and to make others adapt too.

Reach your destination: There is no satisfaction greater then reaching your destination, and the satisfaction is much higher when everything goes according to plan. And even if it doesn’t then all the hiccups becomes memory to cherish for a long time.

There is no satisfaction greater than seeing the goals getting achieved and all the difficulties faced the journey become fruitful experiences.

So enjoy your ride and make the most of your financial life.

Planning out of country trip with family can be a lot easier with the right approach and some planning. You’ll make your trip a lot cheaper right from fares, accommodation, sightseeing, shopping, travelling etc.… Here’s how to plan your next vacation without any unnecessary spending’s. These tips are useful irrespective of it being a planned trip or not. Hope you will find it useful.

Flight Bookings & VISA Documentation

Most of the apps offer similar features comparing flight options and using filters to change a few fields here and there. You can use Trip advisor, make my trip etc.… I personally use skyscanner.com. Set up price alerts it really helps.

But a word of caution whenever you search try and open in “a New incognito window” (for windows) or “new private window” (for mac users). Search engines like chrome store all your previous searches and accordingly the rates are sometimes hiked up if you visit the same sites regularly.

You need to keep a check on is card/bank offers and discount schemes that can help you save more. If you are a frequent traveller, then check your miles. Have a credit card with miles programs they do help reducing your ticket price to a great extent and you waste less time to get your boarding pass and lounge access is free.

Try and buy a refundable ticket, it’s useful as sometimes you get big discounts if airline is desperate to fill up seats so you can cancel the refundable ticket and buy a new one, and if you feel like extending your vacation and saves a lot of money.

Make sure you do a web check in and select your seats together. Web check-in shows you seat map which helps you take a call on which seat to reserve or whether it’s worth paying extra for a particular seat.

Sometimes its visa on arrival or before travelling, in both cases do make sure that you carry copies of necessary documents with you, Photographs especially. Also keep soft copies handy. You don’t want to pay a hefty amount for clicking your photos and waste your time at the immigration when you land.

Carry your currency but do check the dollar rate v/s local currency v/s INR. Sometime carrying dollars makes a lot of sense then local currency if dollar is stronger. To be safe carry a mix of local currency and dollars if possible.

Organise Your Travel Plan

Once all your bookings are done, you need to organise your travel plan. Ideally you should land around the time where you can directly check in, get fresh have your lunch and utilise the day. Set plans for the rest of the days and keep one-day buffer, but try and keep the last day of your trip light for last minute errands and packing.

You can use apps like TripIt. Or now Google also has their own travel planner called Google Trips these little things really help you get the most out of your trip. Have a checklist of things to do right from things to pack, places to visit, keeping shopping days and what to buy for who etc… Make sure you have all the boxes are ticked when you are back

Hotel Bookings

Most of the flight booking apps also offer hotel bookings. However, if the requirement is only to sleep at night and keep your luggage then I would recommend Air bnb. It has a simple interface where you can either type in or voice search your destination, choose the check in/check-out date and type of room you want. The app then gives you the lowest available price of various places along with their ratings. Just call the owner and take things forward. You save on a lot of taxes too which otherwise you pay when u book hotels.

Getting Ready

Travel light as much as you can, remember you will invariably buy stuff when u travel so try and carry one suitcase and then you can get good deals and new variety at the place you visit, buy bags along with your shopping list and dump all in it.

Make sure your international roaming is activated and has a decent pack for data and calling. There are a lot of cheaper options available now. If not, then still update google maps so that they work on offline mode.

Try reaching the airport well on time and once you get your boarding pass and pass the immigration you have time to shop at the duty free. There are a lot of good deals available on chocolates, perfumes and especially on alcohol and if you are single malt person then you will find yourself in heaven. Even if you are not you can always gift it to your near and dear ones. (if you are reading this and you know me then take this as a hint…)

Sightseeing

There’s no end to websites and forums where you can get travel and destination information. Try clubbing the places to visit according to your itenary. Enjoy the places you visit as you won’t be visiting them soon. You can use sygic travel helps a lot. While travelling buy the local card for computing like NOL Card in Dubai or Euro Rail pass for Europe. It saves a lot of money and makes commuting very easy and fast.

If there are activities to do and places to visit where you need to buy ticket’s, then better take deals online. Sites like group – on, or local sites in destination country give you a great deal on leisure activities, sightseeing or even eating out and they are valid for a week or month.

Shopping

Don’t be a compulsive shopper but looks for things you find interesting or are a speciality. Always try and stick to the purpose of your trip and keep shopping secondary. There are apps like around me, or even ask your friends on face book, it helps. Apps give you details about nearest malls and things to shop around. Another app you should have is the Matrix Travel Companion app. The app is relatively new but offers a clean, tile-based interface to help you find restaurants, tourist attractions, shopping areas and even guides you on best way to reclaim shopping/business VAT if available. There is a considerable amount which one can get refunded from VAT which you can take before you depart from the airport.

Geeta Ka Saar

An international trip with family would cost you a decent amount, just by using technology and preplanning you can save a lot without compromising on any front. You never know you might end up making your trip tickets free.

Hope the above were useful, so start planning and Enjoy your vacations.