Goodbye “Year of Wisdom” & welcome “Year of Opportunities”

 Goodbye “Year of Wisdom” & welcome “Year of Opportunities”

You are reading this blog in the first week of January 2021, the year of hope, possibilities and opportunities. 2020 has made us to accept that nature or the universe or whatever name you call, is the only best teacher on this earth. In the teacher's fraternity we claim that higher degrees, doctorates, experience help us to teach. On the other hand, divine nature teaches by letting the people experience the things in reality. You may say madam, you always write about finance, accounts or related subjects then why it's having the shades of divinity or philosophy.

My readers, I also understand the limitations of person's knowledge and his/her potential to express the same. This year has really taught us the criteria of measuring growth. Growth cannot be measured with tools having only the economical or financial variables but it should be based on the 3 concepts

 

1. Financial or Economical variables like GDP, stock market performance etc.
2. Health & mental strength of the people who are living in country
3. Value system, we are following in good or adverse situations

 

This is the main reason why I have called it the “Year of Wisdom“. In this year, my nation's people have experienced the importance of the above mentioned 3 indicators. Each and every citizen worked as a team to achieve success over not only pandemic but tried to nullify our mistakes. This year made us very conscious while spending time or a rupee.

In the upcoming para, I have tried to summarise the financial teachings we have learned in the last year from the best teacher.

 

Learnings:

       1.       In 2020, we have all witnessed the impacts of our choices. In other words, our financial behavior for the previous 3 years has resulted in our survival or downturn

2. Importance of inculcating the habit of making investments regularly, proving handy in the situation like cash crunch
3. Always take loan on the appreciating assets or for running activities which yield income more than your committed EMIs. Loans for depreciating assets like vehicles etc. gave us pain as the most of the vehicles were unutilised for the 3 to 4 months.
4. Importance of purchasing insurance. Provide the money for paying the premiums on the regular basis to minimise the unforeseen losses

Pay attention to mediclaim

Insure your home, business assets, and vehicles

5. Making provisions for contingency is must

i)       Individual should have the money in the bank equivalent to at least 2 months’ salary apart from his or her normal spending (Youngsters please read this twice)

ii)     Salary cuts / reducing the task force cannot be the only solution for the curtailing the losses or avoiding the burns. It may result in the higher turnover of experienced staff in the future due to availability of external opportunities. Creation of reserves can be fruitful to retain the good employees in difficult situations. Protecting the best employees of the organisation from adverse effects of pandemic has resulted in loyalty and long term commitment from the employee.

6. Good Teamwork can help to survive & succeed. Each and every Indian family has potential or seeds of “Innovative start up”, if we are ready to believe the capable person and work as per his or her instructions irrespective of our title in family,” Do you remember how we used to work together and complete the tasks in the lockdown?
7. Maintaining the diversified portfolio as per our income, age, needs and risk appetite.
0. Increasing the income sources is only alternative to nullify the losses we have suffered due to salary cuts or job loss
1. Acceptance of technology with the free mind. 2020 has taught us to accept the work from home environment for employees, resulting into reduction in costs like rent, electricity, canteen etc. for the company. Few survey also indicated that Work from home proved beneficial as resulted into higher efficiency.  2020 taught us to look at the employee in more compassionate way by accepting the severity of health/ family problems, and not letting the employee feel guilty about it.
2. I am writing the last learning specially for earning youngsters who are still ignorant and dependent on parents for household work. Pandemic taught us to be independent for the activities like from cooking to house management. 2020 has given us demo to make us aware that sooner or later every person has to own the responsibilities of the family. In my college days, I was more inclined towards studies but my parents taught me the cooking and household management techniques as well. Earlier I used to get irritated but today I feel really proud of my parents. This is the good time to start learning from your parents.

 

Finally, I will just say,

 

“Invest your time for being rich but don’t waste your time in flaunting the same.”