Recurring Deposits

April 24, 2011 3 Comments

wealthymatters.com A Recurring Deposit(RD) is a type of term deposit account opened by a person/persons with a bank or a post office wherein the investor or investors deposit a fixed amount of money every month for a fixed tenure . This scheme is meant for investors who want to deposit a fixed amount every month, in order to get a lump sum at the end of the tenure. The interest on RDs normally offered by banks is one percent below Fixed Deposit(FD) rates compounded quarterly.Often there is nothing extra by way of interest offered for senior citizens.Otherwise the rules for operating a RD account are the same as that for a FD account.The PO offers a fixed 7.5% interest compounded quarterly for a 5 year term.

RDs are great for people to develop the savings habit.It is especially useful to teach kids to save especially the Post Office Recurring Deposit (PORD) which has a minimum deposit of 10 rupees per month.Often banks package RDs as schemes to become or to make your child a lakhpati,millionaire etc or as schemes to build the down-payment on a house or vehicle. Read more of this post

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Collecting Gemstones

April 23, 2011 3 Comments

Collecting gemstones is a fantastic hobby.Observing the play of light in gems and taking in their myrid hues is really very soothing.It is astonishing just how beautiful some of nature’s creations can be.Gem collecting is a hobby almost anyone can indulge in for all gemstones are not expensive.In fact many semi-precious stones cost just a few rupees.

Gemstones selected carefully and bought at the source at wholesale prices and held passively for a couple of decades can be reasonably good investments. They definitely keep up with inflation.

Gemstones are collected for their beauty.So taking your time to select the most beautiful stones is essential.Also it’s important to read up on the different ways in which natural gemstones are treated.Read up on whether treatments affect their desirability for other collectors.By paying a little attention to other people’s preferences while still buying gemstones you find beautiful will ensure a greater liquidity in future.Avoid paying retail rates unless the stone is extraordinary and even then bargain.Otherwise you are unlikely to ever recover the money you sink into your collection.The average jeweler will sell you a stone for two or three times what he paid for it wholesale and he’ll buy a stone from you for half of wholesale.

If collecting loose gemstones is not so interesting maybe you can buy gemstones on wholesale and have them fashioned into jewellery? This is another way of investing in gemstones.If you can handle the cost and quality control issues you can acquire beautiful jewellery at a fraction of retail prices. Read more of this post

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Economic Life,Sinking Funds,Amortization and RDs

April 22, 2011 6 Comments

Having an abundance of material resources and never having to hustle round in the last-minute to find the funds to do what we want to do is a good indicator of wealth.

I first came across the concepts of economic life,sinking fund and amortization as an engineering student.Adapted to our personal finances and business these concepts help us to always have enough money at the right time.

Economic life , a.k.a useful life is the period of actual usefulness of an asset.Beyond this period it is cheaper to replace or scrap the asset than to continue maintaining it.

A sinking fund is a reserve created by periodically setting aside certain sums in an account to replace an asset in future or to repay a liability.

Amortization refers to spreading an asset’s replacement cost over it’s economic/useful life. Read more of this post

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Back From Hospital

April 20, 2011 3 Comments

I’m back from hospital.I’m still awaiting the reports.Hope it’s not the C – word.

I’m still a bit groggy with the pain-killers I need to take and sleeping all the time.I’ll be back to posting ASAP if everything goes fine.

For the reader asking for a follow-up article on “A Critique of The Giving Pledge’ please check the philanthropy section for the more recent articles.I think you’ll find what you’re looking for there.

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What To Do If There Is No Will?

April 14, 2011 20 Comments

I came across this in today’s Economic Times.It is a good article on what legal heirs need to do when a person dies intestate in India.

If there’s no will, there’s still a way

Sakina Babwani

The death of a loved one is the most dreaded thing that can happen to any family. It can get even more traumatic when the family realises that the deceased has not left a will behind. In such a situation, the family is usually left running from pillar to post, trying to gain access to the property which, in many cases, could be the only saviour from doom.

However, according to experts, the family can still get its due even in the absence of a will, provided it can get hold of a few documents. “A succession certificate and a copy of the death certificate should solve at least 95-96 % of your problem,” says Sivaramakrishnan, head of legacy planning, Altamount Capital Management . Read more of this post