How to restraint from being a member of CLUB 99

​Once upon a time, there lived a King who, despite his luxurious lifestyle, was neither happy nor content.

One day, the King came upon a servant who was singing happily while he worked. This fascinated the King; why was he, the Supreme Ruler of the Land, unhappy and gloomy, while a lowly servant had so much joy.

The King asked the servant, 'Why are you so happy?'

The man replied, 'Your Majesty, I am nothing but a servant, but my family and I don't need too much - just a roof over our heads and warm food to fill our tummies.'

The king was not satisfied with that reply. Later in the day, he sought the advice of his most trusted advisor. After hearing the King's woes and the servant's story, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, I believe that the servant Has not been made part of The 99 Club.'

'The 99 Club? And what exactly is that?' the King inquired.

The advisor replied, 'Your Majesty, to truly know what The 99 Club is, place 99 Gold coins in a bag and leave it at this servant's doorstep.'

When the servant saw the bag, he took it into his house. When he opened the bag, he let out a great shout of joy... So many gold coins!

He began to count them. After several counts, he was at last convinced that there were 99 coins. He wondered, 'What could've happened to that last gold coin? Surely, no one would leave 99 coins!'

He looked everywhere he could, but that final coin was elusive. Finally, exhausted he decided that he was going to have to work harder than ever to earn that gold coin and complete his collection.

From that day, the servant's life was changed. He was overworked, horribly grumpy, and castigated his family for not helping him make that 100th gold coin. He stopped singing while he worked.

Witnessing this drastic transformation, the King was puzzled. When he sought his advisor's help, the advisor said, 'Your Majesty, the servant has now officially joined The 99 Club.'

He continued, 'The 99 Club is a name given to those people who have enough to be happy but are never contented, because they're always yearning and Striving for that extra 1, saying to themselves: 'Let me get that one final thing and then I will be happy for life.' We can be happy, even with very little in our lives, but the minute we're given something bigger and better, we want even more! We lose our sleep, our happiness, we hurt the people around us; all these as a price for our growing needs and desires.

Same is the situation with most of the investors, they are also engaged in converting 99 to hundred, without knowing they might need much lesser then that.

Financial planning is a big eye opener and will help you to avoid being an member of CLUB 99 and help you to live your life happily.

Shop - SMART way this Festive season

Festival time is the most delightful period of the year.It recharges you as a person, every individual  in any corner of the world try to be with his family and spend quality time with them. It is time of having  fun, shopping, socializing, Gifting and lot more....

Most of the Indian festival irrespective of religion fall in the period  August to December - Whether it is Eid, Raksha Bandhan, Parsi New Year, Diwali, Muharram, Gurunanak Jayanti, Christmas or New Year etc..

But while celebrating festivals and to enjoy its charm to the fullest we miss on the budgeting part resulting in the trap of overspending. By taking some simple steps we can save ourselves from impulsive buying and mouth watering offers.

1) Contribute for Festival expenses in advance - While planning for our expenses we break our expenses evenly for the whole year, whereas there are certain months when our expenses are lesser as compared to other months. Just make a list of such months and park surplus of this month in a liquid fund of MF or make an FD for equivalent period. We can also start an SIP in a liquid fund or open an Recurring deposit with Bank whose maturities matches with festival period.

2) Budget your Expenses - Budgeting can help you in avoiding impulsive buying. Hence prepare a list of all the shopping you wish to make during festivals. Also list out separately how much you would be spending in eating out, on Gifting, movies and shopping.

3) Delay Bigger Purchases - I remember during last diwali there was a combo offer available for purchase of Juice maker and Coffee maker at an attractive price. My wife couldn't resist and she bought it. I remember we hardly used it for a week. 

Festival is the time for big discounts, freebies and offers. Delay your purchase by 3-4 days before making any bigger purchase which is not planned and suddenly you find it available at very good bargain. It will help you to come out of frame of mind of offers and discounts and give you time to think logically that really you need it/what is the necessity of buying right now or don't need it immediately.

4) Avoid Credit Cards - Try to make payments in cash, as at the end of the day you know how much you spent. The more you spend you have lesser surplus available. Credit card is a very comfortable and safer way of making payments while shopping, but it never allow you to feel the pain of overspending. Actually pain comes when the payment is due. Have you ever realised that we always spend more while purchasing with credit card as compared to cash payment.

5) Say NO to personal Loans - Personal loans are the most expensive loans avoid it.

6) Realise nothing is Free - Realise and accept that in this world nothing comes for free.

7) Plan your investments - Always plan and link your investments to goals, which will help you in reminding during impulsive buying that you will be compromising on your child's education or her marriage or your retirement.

Just follow above simple steps and have a great Festival time.

The author of this article is Raj Talati a  CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER^CM at ABM Investment.