Investment Tips for Senior Citizens

Investment Tips for Senior Citizens

For everyone, decisions on financial investments are becoming a nightmare, at times confusing, scary, fraught with uneasiness. Especially so for retirees where inflow is decreasing year after year and the need to save increases. Here are some practical tips, especially in understanding the broad principles behind parking your funds, from Justice TNC Rangarajan, based on his experience,  as a quote, if I may say so:

I cannot say I have mastered it. I have also lost in mutual fund. I don't think anyone can time the market.I think I have understood the principles underlying investment. The basics are

• Keeping the money at home is loss of interest income.

• So keep some cash for immediate needs and keep the rest in the bank account.

• Now that phone banking with UPI is available, even an emergency fund can be kept in Fixed Deposit linked with zero balance savings account.

• NPS is a must for salaried people.

• PPF is a must for others to generate and accumulate as tax free capital fund. 

• After putting an amount equal to 3 or 6 months expenditure in FD, invest the rest in Equities

• Those who don't mind risk, can open a d'mat a/c and buy shares. It is rewarding, if done regularly.

• Those not into direct investment in shares should try mutual funds. They are easy to invest and easy to take out also. You can get tax free income of 1 lakh per year if you invest in growth option and take out after a year. Those who don't have pension and want a regular monthly income can also use the systematic withdrawal method. The added advantage is that it is easy take out in emergencies within a few days at the price of loss of value depending on the nav. 

• While investing in mutual funds we have various avenues and combinations. Debt funds are less risky with lesser yield while equity funds are more volatile but with better yield than FD rates. Balanced funds are a mix of both. You can create your own balance by investing half your surplus in equity and half in debt funds. But we must remember that mutual funds are riskier than bank FD. However we should not see the nav every day and become moody with the paper loss or profit. Best is to review after each fund has crossed the lock in period and change if required. Tax impact also dictates the way to choose the options to ensure maximum return possible under the circumstances.  

• If you want to be super safe, you can invest in government bonds, where the interest may be a little better than FD rates. Of course, seniors should not miss the Senior Citizen Savings scheme which gives the best interest rates as FD at present but has a lock in period. 

• One thing I have noticed in seniors is that they are often concerned about the facility of taking out the money at any time. I don't know why they always ask about it. One of my friends has two children and bought two houses presumably to bequeath to them. He is living in one and renting the other. Both of them have gone abroad for good and do not intend to come back. The tenant too vacated and he sold that house and told me that he will buy two flats instead. I suggested that he put the money in mutual funds with systematic withdrawal plan as he has no pension. But he said that if he has the money, he will not be able to resist the demands of his brothers and sisters etc and will have the tendency to spend the capital, as he realises that he has no financial discipline. So he believes in only houses and flats as good investment. What to say about this?

• My take on immovable property is that it is not a good investment, unless you are going to live in it. 

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I thank him for allowing me to share with you in this blog.

Egosurfing and where it led me to

Egosurfing and where it led me to

Egosurfing is searching for your own name in search engines like Google. As Google by far is the most popular search engine Googling yourself, egogoogling, autogoogling, self-googling are all synonymous with egosurfing. Vanitysearching is also used at times.

Like most people on the net, I also occasionally do egosurfing. If I type in my full name I get about 2700 results. Only my surname yields 6300 results. Accepting that others would have mis-spelt my name as Vyasa Murthy, then I get 16000. However I am Vyasamoorthy in my own right, na? But Google keeps suggesting “Are you searching for Vyasa Murthy Katti”. That gentleman, my namesake, is a famous musician in Karnataka. There are others with my name in very senior position in business / industry. Reading just a little bit I can easily pose and pass of as a big shot. There is one in Vishakapatnam with my name who performs free of cost death-related rituals for abandoned corpses.

It is worthwhile remembering that egosurfing search results are almost always tailor made for you based on secret profile about yourself compiled by Google. You can surprise or shock yourself to any length when you come to know how much google knows about you. If you keep location turned on in your mobile google even knows where you went to pee.

The earliest reference to me on the web proves that I was alive in 1966 as my name is listed as a staff member in the Annual Report of Highways Research Station, Guindy Madras; that came up when I was egosurfing for books mentioning me.  Although I was searching the net from 1993 itself I cannot say I did egosurfing then – because the term Egosurfing came up in 1995 only!!

I don’t know why others do egosurfing. But I do often to locate articles I wrote but could not locate a copy in my hard disk. I am surprised where all I am mentioned by others – in discussions, forums, directories, books, acknowledgements, comments etc. As long as I don’t land up on my own obituary,  it is fine.