How to Plan Financial Life

What is Financial Planning?
Financial planning is the roadmap to realise and achieve financial goals in life. Everyone has financial goals in life. These goals may include:

• Planning for children’s education
• Planning for children’s marriage
• Buying a house or buying a second larger house
• Buying a car
• Enjoying a vacation with family every year
• Living a comfortable retirement life without any compromises
• Leaving behind an estate for children

Through proper financial planning a person can accomplish all the above goals. Given this it is so scary to know how less people know about money. As they say “Being wealthy is not about how much you earn or what you do. It is just a matter of proper Financial Planning”. Financial planning can help a person identify his / her goals, invest towards achieving those goals and regularly review the investments every year to make sure they are on track to meet the desired goals. In short financial planning is a journey and not a destination.

Financial Planning Stepping Stones
The process of financial planning is divided into seven steps. Let us try to understand the process of financial planning with the help of an example.

Ajay is an MBA working for a MNC and is reasonably well placed. Ajay is married, has a 7 year old son Karan. Ajay stays with his parents. Ajay’s parents are retired and are dependent on Ajay. Ajay now wants to buy a new home and start saving money for his child’s education and marriage and his own retirement. He would also like to go on a short vacation once every year.

Let us see how financial planning can help Ajay realize his goals with a high degree of certainty. The first step to financial planning is to assess the strengths and the risks involved.

Strengths:
Ajay is (30 years of age). That means a 30 year investment horizon till retirement.
Ajay has regular income @ 8 Lakhs per annum
Ajay is debt free and has no financial liabilities.

Risks Involved:
Ajay is sole bread earner of the family.
Ajay’s parents are old and hence more susceptible to health issues.
Now keeping Ajay’s example in mind let us see how the process of financial planning works.

1. Emergency / Reserve Fund
This is the first step of financial planning. Ajay should have a reserve fund equivalent to meet his 3 to 6 months expenses. A reverse fund is needed for the purpose of covering unforeseeable expenses like medical emergencies or temporary job loss etc. With an adequate reserve fund Ajay will not be required to dip into his investments in times of crisis.

2. Insurance
Life is full of uncertainties and so it is imperative that one has adequate insurance cover to help mitigate the risks that might arise due these uncertainties. A term insurance plan for Ajay would ensure that the family’s survival is not at stake in Ajay’s absence. Ajay’s insurance cover should be equivalent to the present value of his future earnings till his retirement. Also Ajay should buy a good health insurance policy for the entire family to take care of any expenses that might arise due to medical emergencies. Ajay’s parents are dependent on Ajay. If his parents get hospitalised due to some critical illness the huge hospital bill can burn a big hole in Ajay’s pocket.

3. Child Education Fund
Ajay wants his son Karan to become a doctor. Ajay wants to start saving for his son’s education from now onwards. If the cost of the course as on today is Rs. 10 lakhs then the same course will cost Rs. 41,77,248 (Rs. 42 lakhs approximately) 15 years down the line if the cost of education increases by 10% (inflation) every year. If Ajay wants to reach this target of Rs. 42 lakhs 15 years down the line then he will have to start investing Rs. 9300 per month (Rs. 1,12,000 per annum) if his investments earn him a return of 12% per annum.

4. Child Marriage Fund
Ajay wants to start saving for his son’s marriage from now onwards. The marriage is planned 18 years from now. If the cost of an normal wedding as on today is Rs. 6,00,000 then the same marriage will cost Rs. 33,36,000 (33.36 lakhs) 18 years down the line if marriage expenses increase by 10% (inflation) every year. If Ajay wants to reach this target of Rs. 33.36 lakhs 18 years from now then he will have to start investing Rs. 5000 per month (Rs. 60,000 per annum) if his investments earn him a return of 12% per annum.

5. Buying a House
Ajay wants to buy a house worth 25 lakhs 3 years from now. For this he will have to make a down payment of Rs. 5 lakhs (20% margin money). He will have to start setting aside Rs. 13,000 every month in a recurring deposit account.

6. Annual Vacation
Ajay wants to go for an annual vacation every year. This will cost him anywhere in the range of Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 40,000. Ajay can make provision for this from his monthly cash flows. He can set aside Rs. 3,500 from his monthly salary in a recurring deposit account and withdraw the money at the end of the year and go for a vacation at the end of the year.

7. Retirement Planning
With advancement in medicine and technology the life expectancy of individuals is on the rise, this means more number of years of retirement. Therefore in order to reduce dependency on others; individuals must start working early on building their retirement corpus. Ajay wants to live a comfortable retirement life. So he wants to start investing for it from today itself. Based on his current monthly expenses Ajay can calculate his retirement expenses assuming an average inflation rate of 5%. And accordingly Ajay can start investing from today onwards to build his retirement nest.

8. Asset Allocation
Ajay needs to invest for various goals like Karan’s education and marriage, his own retirement. Ajay can invest in a mix of asset classes like equity mutual funds, fixed income securities, commodities etc. to meet these goals. Initially Ajay can have a higher exposure to equity mutual funds. As his age goes on increasing he can change his asset allocation and go on gradually reducing the equity exposure and go on gradually increasing the fixed income securities exposure.

9. Tax Planning
Ajay should make sure that while choosing his investment instruments he gets maximum income tax benefits. Under various Sections of the Income Tax Act (like Section 80C, 80D, 80E, Section 24) an individual can avail deduction from taxable income.