15 Right Financial Decisions in the Last 15 Years

Sharing 15 right financial decisions that I took in the last 15 years of my career.

1. Renting our office – Moved from a home office setup which was a room to a bigger office in another residential area and after one year moved to a professional proper office. I am glad that we did not consider buying, instead preferred renting it. When we calculate, it made complete financial sense to rent. For the last 1.5 years, we are working from home without being worrying about the office costs etc.

 

2. Started Mutual funds at young age: I started investing in mutual funds in the year 2007 when I was 24 years old. I can see the benefit of compounding in my portfolio now. I keep on telling my kids on how they can benefit by starting early and I am happy they follow my advice here at least 🙂

3. Opening banks accounts for our newborn kids -Opened bank accounts of our kids immediately after birth and have been saving regularly since then. I deposit some amount in their account every month and make sure it is invested further for their higher education. This way the money is clearly demarcated, and I have been able to invest with discipline.

 

4. Investing in Mac book Air: In the initial years of my career, I was using HP laptops and every 1.5- 2 year, I had to change the machine. In the year 2012, I switched to Mac Book Air and since then, no looking back. I am very happy using Mac for so many reasons- It has increased my productivity, it is super light in weight, low maintenance and many more. After using, I realized why people say Mac is Mac.

5. Buying Term insurance at younger age: I bought my first term insurance policy at the age of 25 years and the other one at 28years because of which I will have to pay low premium for the policies for the rest of my life.

6.Buying Adequate Health insurance: In the days when people used to have 2 lacs or 3 lacs cover, we started with 15 lacs cover and are now at 1 Crore. There is a complete peace of mind on this front that future medical costs will be taken care of. Also, will consider increasing it this year on renewal.

7. Goal Based investments: All my Financial goals are clearly demarcated, different buckets are there for Our retirement fund, Kids’ Higher education, Our travel plans, Emergency fund and the bucket is filled every month with required amount. I can see my dreams ( goals) turning into reality 🙂

8. Liabilities are Minimal : My father used to say – Spend what you have and he never believed in the concept of credit card.Things today, however are different , we have credit cards for convenience, CIBIL scores , reward points. Being my father’s daughter, I believe in minimal or NIL liabilities. It is better to plan for your high value purchases than buying first and then figuring out how to pay for EMIs.

9. Writing a WILL : WILL is an important document that tells how you want your assets to be distributed after you are gone. I am glad that we understand the importance of the same and we wrote our will 5 years back and keep on changing regularly.

 

10. Up skilling myself – I constantly focussed on up skilling myself, Joined various trainings , short term courses and in the last 2 years focussing on the digital trainings / courses. Completed my Certification in Financial Planning last year which was long due.

11. Investing in Technology – Always visualized of having a paperless and virtual office and that could happen through technology. I always considered technology and investing in softwares enablers for my work. If it makes my and my team’s life easier, then embrace the change immediately and I am glad we did.

Last year, when we switched to work from home , we were already technology ready and were able to pull off smoothly.

12. Investing in Gold at Rs.5000/10 gms – At our wedding in the year 2005, Gold was at Rs.5000 / 10 gms. With all the shagan money that I received, we decided to invest in Gold and planned to keep it for our kids’ wedding. That was one of the best Financial decisions that we took.

13. Involving our Kids : Hargun- 17 and Gurbani -12 are part of the family’s finances for at least 5 years now. We keep on talking about our investments with them. We talk about how we all 4 can make our financial lives better and make sure that everyone’s feedback is appreciated and implemented. It is imperative to involve kids in your finances and they should know the reality.

14. Budgeting :  I am from old school here, I allocate a certain amount every month to the expenses and then write each and every spend that happens. This helps me in analyzing at the end of the every month, whether I over spent and if there are any changes that need to be made to my estimation.

15. Financial Emergency Kit– Last but not the least , We have a black box of our life which has all the important documents/ information  related to insurance, investments , liabilities , real estate documents and will. It solves dual purpose- firstly, it helps consolidate your financial documents at one place, helps you in analyzing and reviewing your financial life and secondly, it helps in Preparing for emergencies is always good than facing them unprepared.

So, these we 15 right Financial decisions that I took in the last 15 years.I would love to know your right financial decisions in the comments.

 I will be talking about the wrong Financial decisions too in the upcoming blog.

Thanks for reading 🙂

About the author: Gurleen Kaur Tikku is a Certified Financial Planner and devotes her time to her company www.hareepatti.com. She has done her Bachelors in Finance and Investment Analysis(BFIA) from College of Business Studies(CBS, Delhi) and MBA from IMT, Ghaziabad. She can be Contacted at [email protected]