Planning to start a family

Just married, what next? Start a family. Starting a family is not just an event but a life changing event. Though there is excitement, there would be a lot of pressures. The pressures would not only be psychological, but also financial. We need to be ready to take care of both, the physical and psychological part would be taken care with guidance from your medical practitioner, but what about financial, and you need to take care of that. Are you ready? Have saved enough for this event and after that. Remember your expenses will start mounting. Now you will have to take care of 3 persons and the third person will need a lots more care both in terms of time and money. Have you take a health insurance policy? If yes, or you have one provided by your office find out if it covers maternity expenses.

On the contingency front, you would have to recalculate your life insurance requirement, as now you would have many more aspects to take care of in your absence. This life changing event can become less stressful, if you have planned properly as the event is just not one time but it will change the rest of your life. If your wife is working, you would also have to consider the possibility of her quitting her job. This means lower income. Though we usually recommend 3 to 6 months of contingency expenses, during this time we recommend to increase it to at least a year’s expenses, that too the increased expenses. Plan early and enjoy the joys of starting your family.

When will the markets go up?

Brexit results are out and everyone has started to predict the conditions of the market. Nobody is concentrating on the company results. What is the point? If the companies are not improving on their profits or their sales are not improving, do you think the market will go up? Even if the market goes up, will all the stocks go up? You need to concentrate on specific stocks and not the sensex or the Nifty. With good monsoons Rural consumption will improve and that will help companies which are impacted by rural consumption. Though Oil prices fell, commodity prices fell, consumption did not improve, this led to a total slow down. Therefore companies were not able to capitalize on this and companies which benefited, their prices have already gone up.

RBI Governor is on his way out and we would have a new governor soon, do you think this will bring down the interest rates? Even if the interest rates come down, would Banks make good margins. If you noticed the last quarter, private banks were the most profitable, the reason is loan writeoffs. Private banks had the least loan writeoffs. Brexit or Rexit the macroeconomic conditions are improving and this will reflect in the earning of the coming quarters and then see the markets just zoom. The government would also be giving more stimulus once the rainy season is over with spending on power, rail and road. So bright days are there ahead. So enjoy.