3 Government Schemes Every Woman Should Know! 

What is a Budget?

A budget is a balance between your income and expenses. A good budget helps you meet your needs, manage your expenses, and fulfil your dreams. It reduces unnecessary spending and provides a clear picture of where your money is going.

Steps to Create a Household Budget

Step 1: List Your Income Sources

Start by estimating your total income. List all your sources of income, such as:

• Salary
• Dividends from stocks
• Interest from bank savings accounts

Step 2: List Your Expenses

Next, make a list of all your expenses. Common categories include:

• House rent
• Groceries
• Car EMI
• Phone bills
• Insurance premiums
• Eating out
• Clothes

Step 3: Calculate Income Minus Expenses

Subtract your expenses from your income:

• If expenses are less than income: Your financial health is good.
• If expenses are more than income: You’ll need to cut down on unnecessary expenses, like cooking at home instead of eating out or using public transportation instead of your own vehicle.

To simplify this, follow the 50-30-20 Rule:

• 50% of income for needs
• 30% for wants
• 20% for savings

Step 4: Save or Invest Your Surplus

If your budget shows a surplus every month, you have two options: save it or invest it.

• Save for Emergencies: Ideally, an emergency fund should cover 3–6 months of your expenses. This fund can help during a medical emergency or job loss.

• Invest for Goals: After setting aside money for emergencies, invest the remaining amount. Define your goals, which can be:
• Your child’s higher education
• A dream home
• A vacation in Rome
• Retirement planning

Investing Tips

• If you have multiple goals, create separate investments for each.
• For salaried individuals, a Mutual Fund SIP is a great option. Use tools like the ICICI Direct SIP Calculator to determine how much to invest and for how long.
• You can also explore government schemes like Public Provident Fund (PPF) or Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana for savings.

Making Budgeting Easier

In today’s digital age, managing a budget with pen and paper can be tedious. Don’t worry—there are many free tools and apps available to help you create and track your budget effortlessly.

By following these steps and tips, you can create an effective budget that helps you achieve financial stability and meet your goals!

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What's better than doubling or tripling your money, it's quadrupling it. The rule of 144 gives you an estimate of how long it will take for your money to grow by four times. The rule of 144 is similar to the rule of 72 and 114. Simply divide 144 by the assumed return rate to get an estimated number of years for your money to quadruple. So, if your investment account earns 11% assumed return rate it can take 13.09 years for your money to quadruple.

What is financial planning?

Financial planning is an approach that helps you fulfil your life goals. A financial plan us usually a document that defines your goals and the strategies that you can employ, to fulfil them. Financial planning enables you to control your income, expenses and investments, and maintain good financial health.

What does financial planning cover?

Financial planning covers all aspects of life goals. It broadly includes:

• Goal planning

• Retirement planning

• General and life insurance planning

• Creation of emergency funds

• Investment planning

• Tax planning

Reasons why financial planning is important

1. Helps sustains inflation in future.
2. Helps you achieve short, medium, and long-term goals.
3. Prepares you for financial and medical emergencies.
4. Enables you to lead a comfortable retirement life.

Example of financial planning

Say, you have a 7-year-old daughter and you wish to send her to abroad for further education, when she turns 18. For this you need to create a corpus. You can create a financial plan to estimate the cost of this goal and accordingly invest in securities. Early financial planning can help you create the corpus you need.

Financial planning for beginners- How to go about it

• Start investing from a young age.

• Create a budget and stock to it.

• Invest in health and term insurance from young age to get benefits like increased sum assured and lower premiums.

• Control your expenses and limit your debts (including credit card debt)

• Invest through SIP in mutual funds.

• Invest in tax saving instruments to get tax rebates under section 80 C and 80 D.

• Seek financial advisory services to manage your finances.

How to start investing?

Today most of the investments can be done online through demat and trading accounts with SEBI approved stock brokers like ICICIdirect. Once the account is opened, you can start investing.

Lumpsum Investment Systematic Investment Plan You invest a large sum in one go. You invest small amounts periodically, like every month. Ideal when prices are not volatile and are likely to steadily rise. Best in most conditions, but particularly when markets are volatile. You must time the market to get the best returns. You don’t need to time the market; just keep investing regularly. Good for seasoned investors, who have a higher risk appetite. Good for most investors, who prefer lower risk. Good for investments in liquid funds, which provide stable returns. Great for investments in equity mutual funds, where returns are volatile.