Whether you are starting a family or already have one, managing finances is challenging. A financial roadmap is crucial to meet your family’s future goals, allowing them to lead a stress-free life. Thus, financial planning for your family must top your priority list.
Steps to secure your family’s future
Ensuring the future financial security of your family provides a vital safeguard against uncertainties and ensures their well-being. It helps in planning for long-term financial goals and ensures financial stability. Here are a few steps that will guide you in this journey.
Defining goals
Financial planning begins with understanding the family's financial objectives. It must include short-term goals like vacationing, to long-term goals like saving for children's education, purchasing a property, retirement planning and even starting your own business. To ensure every goal gets accomplished, you must have an estimate of the time frame and funds required for each objective.
Risk profiling
To understand your risk appetite, you must consider factors like your financial situation, age, investment time horizon, investment instruments, and dependents. This self-assessment is essential in determining the risk that you can bear comfortably.
If you have a high risk appetite and are an aggressive investor, you could invest in avenues like Mutual Funds. If you are a conservative investor whose risk appetite is low, you can invest in government small savings schemes, Fixed Deposits, etc.
Budgeting
To make your finances simple, you can try the 50-30-20 budget rule, which simply means putting your income in three buckets: 50% for meeting needs, 30% for meeting wants and 20% for savings. You can change the proportion as per your needs.
Budgeting helps streamline your income and expenses and gives you a clear picture of your financial situation. Having a budget makes you aware of your income, expenses, debt obligations, liabilities, etc. It can help you tackle areas that require reduction, such as debt obligations.
Investment planning
Budgeting gives you a clear idea of the investment needed to secure your family’s future. You could begin with a systematic investment plan (SIP) in a mutual fund where the investment amount required is minimal. Choose suitable investments during every stage of your life, and your family will have less to worry about.
The simplest way of saving for the future is via a Fixed Deposit. You can easily open a Digital Fixed Deposit with Axis Bank. It is an industry-first, digital, KYC product. It offers attractive interest rates, no penalties on premature withdrawal (up to 25% of the FD amount), and zero issuance fees.
Portfolio diversification
Portfolio diversification is a crucial principle in investing. Putting your funds across varied asset classes like equity, debt, gold, real estate, and other investments is vital. Investing in mutual funds allows you to invest in stocks and debt securities of companies across different sectors like banking, information technology, consumer durables, pharmaceuticals etc. By doing this, you can minimise your risk. Make sure you consult with a financial expert when designing your investment strategy.
Emergency fund
The unexpected pandemic is a reminder of why you should set aside an amount regularly towards an emergency fund. This fund is a safety cushion during unforeseen events like medical emergencies, job losses, or sudden repairs to your house or vehicle. Build a fund that can cover all your living expenses for about 6 to 12 months. Ensure that this emergency fund is highly accessible at any time. You can use a Savings Account for this fund.
Retirement planning
It is crucial to plan for retirement well in advance, as the ever-rising inflation will spike up the costs of essentials in the future. You could set aside funds for your retirement by investing in pension plans, the National Pension Scheme (NPS), Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs), Senior Citizen Savings Scheme (SCSS), the Public Provident Fund (PPF) or even Mutual Funds. Consider consulting a financial advisor to create a retirement plan that suits your lifestyle and long-term goals.
Periodic review
Financial and investment planning should be a continuous activity. You must regularly monitor your family goals, requirements, and investment portfolio to ensure they are in sync. It helps you modify your strategies and portfolio to ensure they help meet your financial goals.
[Also Read: 10 rules of thumb for financial planning and wellbeing]
Conclusion
There is no age or perfect time to begin financial planning; the earlier you plan, the better equipped you are for your future. Proper financial and investment planning is essential to secure the future of your family.
Disclaimer: This article is for information purpose only. The views expressed in this article are personal and do not necessarily constitute the views of Axis Bank Ltd. and its employees. Axis Bank Ltd. and/or the author shall not be responsible for any direct / indirect loss or liability incurred by the reader for taking any financial decisions based on the contents and information. Please consult your financial advisor before making any financial decision
Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risk, read all scheme related documents carefully. Axis Bank Ltd is acting as an AMFI registered MF Distributor (ARN code: ARN-0019). Purchase of Mutual Funds by Axis Bank’s customer is purely voluntary and not linked to availment of any other facility from the Bank. *T&C apply
