01-08-2022 |
Congratulations on having chosen the person who will become your significant half in the journey of life. Marriage is a beautiful relationship built over a long period with love, trust, and understanding. In addition to the aforementioned elements, you should consider financial planning as an indispensable component of a safe future.
Once you decide to get married, savings tips and investment tips start flowing from several directions. It is easy to feel confused and overwhelmed with varying pieces of advice. Therefore, it is important to adopt a proactive approach towards your finances, particularly as a combined family unit. The aforementioned approach brings certainty and consistency to your financial behaviour and helps you attain your financial goals.
What better way to start a potentially long new chapter in your life than with the confidence that you can face everything from here on together?
The importance of financial planning
Financial planning is a systematic approach to handling your finances that helps you optimise your earnings, expenses, savings, and investments. It also enables you to ascertain the appropriate investment strategy for yourself. Firstly, you should determine your life goals, including your financial goals, and determine a timeline by which you wish to accomplish those. The aforementioned goals can include personal as well as professional pursuits for yourself and your spouse as well as ensuring the financial security of your elders and children.
Secondly, you should assess your present earnings and expenses and estimate the potential rise in both in the future. Factoring in the rise in both of the aforementioned elements helps you ascertain how much you should save, which avenues you must invest in, and to what degree you need to maximise the returns on your investments. The third step is to carry out thorough research on the various investment instruments that are available in the country and choose the ones that are in alignment with your financial goals and financial plan.
Getting Married Soon? Here is What You Should Look to Invest In
You and your spouse-to-be should determine how you are going to divide the expenses of the household and where you would park your savings. In addition to several popular risk-free savings schemes, you must peruse the various term insurance plans available in India and select a suitable one. It is important to remember that the benefits of a basic term plan can be enhanced by adding suitable riders# to it.
For instance, you can opt for add-on riders# such as joint life coverage, critical illness benefit, waiver of premium.
Here are the different investment options you can consider:
1.Guaranteed Return Plans
If you are looking for an insurance plan with returns, you can select a guaranteed1 return plan that offers the dual benefits of insurance and saving. Tata AIA Life Insurance, for instance, offers various plans that serve as a safe investment avenue and provide flexible guaranteed returns. In this context, guaranteed benefits life insurance plans from Tata AIA has the following features that make it one of the guaranteed return plans1 in the country:
- Flexible payouts as a lump sum, regular income, or whole life income
- Flexible premium payment as a one-time instalment or for a limited period in the form of monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual instalments
- The facility of availing a loan against the policy
- The flexibility of including additional riders# to enhance the protection offered by the plan
A guaranteed1 return plan is affordable, particularly if you start saving from an early stage in your life. Moreover, you can plan the premium payment term in a manner that ensures that the guaranteed returns are available right when you need them, say, when your child begins their academic journey or when you need funds to purchase a house. Furthermore, the life cover offered by the aforementioned plans provides financial protection to your family against any adverse events.
2. Unit linked insurance plans (ULIPs)
If you want to add the element of investment and returns to your insurance plan, ULIPs are a good option. As stock market investments can be a little overwhelming for a novice investor, ULIPs offer the opportunity to build wealth through gains from equities without the hassle of tracking the market on a consistent basis.
Study the data and past performance pertaining to a company and estimate its future sustainability before deciding to buy any stake in it.
3. Pension plans
A worry-free retirement calls for a systematic habit of building a corpus through a pension plan. TATA AIA Life’s retirement plan is one of the pension plans in India; their monthly income plan can provide a regular income when you stop earning. Such a plan is also useful to cover your living expenses if you venture out on your own in a second career or start your own business with uncertain income flows for some time.
Checklist for a Financially Healthy Marriage
Here are some tips for a financially stable marriage:
1. Discuss your finances
As soon as you get engaged, one of the things you should do is to draw an inventory of your assets and liabilities. You should list the bank accounts, fixed deposits, other savings deposits, PF balances, shares, etc. and all the loans—personal, home, vehicle, and so on. You should then consider your expenses and current obligations. A clear picture of your present financial situation serves as the effective starting point for the determination of how much you should earn, save, and invest.
2. Delegate the financial roles
Decide how you would go about implementing your financial plan, including the following decisions.
- Who will bear the responsibility for the regular expenses of the household?
- Who will invest in which investment instrument and what would be the magnitude of said investment?
- Who will focus on accumulating funds for contingency situations, including medical emergencies?
3. Deliver on your commitments
Any plan remains restricted to ink until you take the necessary action to achieve the desired objectives. To ensure your financial well-being, committing to a task as simple as monthly budgeting can help curtail unhealthy spending habits and develop financial discipline within your behaviour. You must also keep track of the due dates of your financial obligations, such as loan instalments, if any, and premium payments on time. A default in premium payments could lead to loss of benefits under your insurance plan.
4. Be adaptive to changes
As you go along, you should consider how your plans should be modified and made more optimal. No plan can be rigid and neither should your approach. Furthermore, you must monitor the developments in the savings schemes you have invested in, seek professional investment advice if necessary, and re orient the terms of your financial plan to match your evolving needs.
How to Make Joint Financial Planning Effective
Insurance companies now offer several features so that you can complete your transactions in easy steps. For example, with the online premium calculators, you can estimate the cost of any insurance plan and get better coverage and enhanced features at a feasible price. For instance, the TATA AIA online payment facility allows you to be prompt in your premium payments.
Conclusion
Marriage is a joyful journey but one that also entails several responsibilities, including building a solid financial foundation. The ideal investing approach is to start small, be consistent, make mid-course corrections, and monitor the performance of your savings and investments plans. Applying these principles to your post-marriage goals can help you achieve financial stability and significant wealth.
L&C/Advt/2022/Jul/1748