Retirement planning mistakes to avoid

How old should you be to start planning for retirement? The answer to this is simple, you should be employed. If you have a job or you are an entrepreneur, it is important that you start your retirement planning today irrespective of your age. There is a common misconception that one should not think about saving for retirement unless he/ she is in the age group of 35-40. Waiting until the 30s will come in your way of building a strong financial portfolio post retirement. The earlier you start, the more money you will save. However, retirement planning can be a bit overwhelming.

In your 20s, you would need a professional planner to help you with same. And in case you are planning it to do it all by yourself, we have listed down a few mistakes to avoid. Read on:

Not knowing your needs:

How much money will you need after retirement? How many dependents you have? What kind of lifestyle do you live? The sad part is that people start with their retirement planning without answering these basic questions. Not knowing your needs is the biggest mistake you will make while planning for retirement. List down your needs and accordingly set aside the money for saving.

Ignoring healthcare cost:

If your retirement age is 60, you are most likely to develop one or the other disease. God forbid, if it is a critical disease, it might cost you savings of a lifetime. Healthcare costs are increasing significantly. Thus, it is important to keep aside a part of savings just for healthcare expenses.

Only relying on Employers plan:

Every organisation offers a pension plan to all its employees. The plan set asides a fixed amount every month and provides you lump sum money after retirement. As amazing as it sounds, it has its own limitations. The amount is insufficient to cope up with even basic needs. Thus, it is important to buy a separate pension plan. 

Six Rules Every Investor Needs To Know

The stock market is like a casino, in the end, some win over the losses of someone. That doesn’t mean you can can’t walk away with some healthy winnings. There are no clear ways to win, there are, however, some rules which, if followed with discipline, can lead to good returns.

1.    Do Your Research

The world of share markets have a language of their own. You need to learn the basics before you begin trading. What are shares? How does stock market work? What’s a bull phase or a bear phase? Such questions need to be answered and understood. It will help ease your first few weeks and not lose money.

2.    The importance of a broker

You cannot trade on your own, you need a broker to do that. There are two kinds: full-service and discount. While the first one is traditional, the second one is all about online. Pick the one you are comfortable with. Check them out and make an informed choice before you pick one. A broker plays a vital role in your quest make profits out of the share markets.

3.    Invest in what you understand

In the market, there is always a wave. You will see a period when FMCG shares are doing well and soon it’s the blue chips companies which are reaping the profits. That’s all well and good for the companies, however, you need to know everything about a company before you invest in it. If you aren’t able to understand how a company works and its balance sheets are complex, don’t invest even if they are doing well. Always invest in companies with simple workings.

4.    Spread out your portfolio

Markets are volatile and there is always a chance of a sudden rise or slide. You never know the IT Company you invested in sees a sudden fall in its share price because of something happening in America. Therefore it’s prudent to spread out your investments. Even if 1 or 2 industries perform poorly, the rest can help arrest the losses and leave you with a decent amount of money than being penniless.

5.    Avoid doing what everybody does

There’s a term called ‘herd mentality’. Don’t become a part of it. If everyone is putting their bets on a certain industry, don’t blindly follow them. Do you research and make a decision based on your readings of the market tends. Many will give you share trading tips about this company or an upcoming trend, never listen to them. You always invest based on your reading and nobody else’s.

6.    Invest with your money

This is one rule which distinguishes a level-headed investor from a distracted one. People trade with emotions as much as they do with thorough analysis. Some win and some lose. To recover their losses or to reap more profits, many take loans or borrow from families and friends; this often results in disasters. Remember to always to invest with your own money.

Trading in the stock markets is a science of its own. If you are new to this, make sure you choose a broker who will help you. Go with Angel Broking. With experienced brokers and excellent research and advice, they are one of the best places to begin your share market journey.

Four Key Benefits of Owning a health Insurance plan

Life is full of ups and downs that may spread a smile or wipe one. Like life, your health is also supposed to be uncertain with illnesses and medical conditions taking a toll on your well-being. Illnesses, accidents, critical medical conditions, etc. can affect your health severely. Such times call for proper medical help, or even hospitalization.

For such uncalled times, you may have saved some extra cash. At times, however, your savings may not prove enough to cope with the rising medical care charges and high cost of medications for you and your family. To avert such indefinite financial crisis, many insurance companies in India provide comprehensive family health insurance policies.

There are several advantages of owning such insurance policy, apart from the complete health cover for the family. Here are four indisputable family health insurance plan’ benefits that will compel you to buy one.

1). Lower Premium

Family health insurance plans carries lower premium than individual health plan. This is because the entire health risk of the family is concentrated into a single pool, instead of different pools. As a result, comprehensive premium becomes lower.

2). Access to best hospitals

Several cashless hospitalization plans provide access to top class hospitals and Medicare facilities, without having to spend more. Based on the amount of sum assured, you can get yourself and family treated in best hospitals easily.

3). Financial freedom

With healthcare plans for family, you will not require to save separately for any medical emergency. A small premium is enough to take care of all the medical needs of your whole family. Individual savings will never such kind of extensive financial freedom.

4). Free Medical Check-ups

Many comprehensive health plans offer free health check-ups to the purchasers before the issue of policy. This is to ensure whether the applicant is free from ailments and medical conditions that are devoid of cover. Such free health check-ups help to diagnose any medical condition without having to spend any money.

Things to consider before availing a gold loan in India

After all these years Indians have finally realized gold is not meant to be kept in lockers. Finally they are using it to avail loans, something that one could not even imagine earlier. With more banks providing loan against gold, Indians are finally getting the idea that gold ornaments can help you in a much better way that just helping you in enhancing your beauty.

Gold loan is a credit given to the borrowers against the mortgage of gold. Several public and private sector banks offer this type of loan at attractive rates. People avail this type of loan for various purposes such as financial crunch, children’s education, marriage etc.

There are several benefits of availing a gold loan. Some of them are listed below.

• Unlike other loans, you are not required to present your credit history.
• It doesn’t require much documentation and paperwork.
• Interest rate is quite low as compared to personal loans.
• By pledging your gold with a bank or a financial institution, you will get 80% of the gold value as loan.

Although the benefits are amazing there are a few things that you need to consider before availing a gold loan in India.

Interest rates: the first and the foremost thing you need to consider before availing a gold loan is interest rate. Although any gold loan will charge lesser interest rate than a personal loan, you have to choose between a bank and NBFC. Sometimes banks provide better rates than NBFC while other times it’s vice versa. Research well before deciding on the financial institution.

Credibility of the financial institution: dealing with NBFC and other small financial institutions it is important to be careful about the credibility of the institution. They will make lucrative claims but the end of the day you have to keep a track of their past performances.

Method of price calculation: Every financial institution uses a different method to calculate the price of gold. Some institutes have fixed price while some charge it as per prevailing rates in the market i.e. gold loan per gram.

Procedures for loan against gold are extremely simple and convenient, also these are apt for people who in need of urgent money.