What Women need: #3 Preparedness, Optimisation, Enhancement

The phone call had served as a wakeup call for Sandhya. She went to bed with the resolve that she should rebalance her portfolio, as per her advisor’s suggestion.

With the kid and the husband asleep, Shiela closed the household for the night as she switched off the kitchen light. Then, she promised herself to let go of her fear and learn more about SIPs. “Even a small start can be a big step in self-confidence”, Sandhya had told her, “...but to be really prepared to handle the future, the secret lies in continuing to invest every month.”

Morning arrived and with it, its routine. For women, mornings are a race against time. And, true to Murphy’s law, the traffic gets worse exclusively on days when we already run late. Sandhya had to go out for client meetings after dropping her kid in school and the snail-paced drive was frustrating. Whenever she hit the brakes, her mind went back to two other tasks that she had put on the back burner. One, she had a DIY portfolio of equities/ mutual funds which she had started building early in her career. She retained it parallelly, just for the kick she could get from making good returns through self-effort. But as years went by, the family expanded and she moved up the corporate ladder. “ I’ve had little time to research or to take informed buy/sell decisions. The unwieldiness of my portfolio and lacklustre returns frustrate me. I think I need to bring this too under the advisor’s ambit”, she had told her husband the previous night. When she casually mentioned her personal portfolio to the advisor in a conversation long back, she was warned of it being too concentrated on the IT and auto sectors. And, IT stocks had already taken a big rout.

A call interrupted her flow of thoughts. As she began driving again, she switched on the Bluetooth. It was her from her auditor’s office. “Madam, the due date for the last instalment of advance tax is nearing.  This is just a reminder that you are recommended to pay Rs xxx as advance tax by the 15^th of March. Last year, you had to shell out interest for not paying advance tax. So don’t forget this time”. He hung up. Tax planning! That was another ballgame altogether. First, taxes eat into returns on her investments, and then non-payment of taxes on time further sucks out cash. “To enhance your return experience, there is room for optimisation of taxes on your investment portfolio too”, her advisor had said.

In the morning, Shiela felt she was in control. She had found the route to save for the family, be prepared for emergencies as well as educate her child well.

Sheila had to act on her fear. Sandhya had to optimise her allocations and enhance her returns.

This Women’s Day, they are making a beginning.

What about you? Do you have a financial readiness blueprint for what the future might hold? Do you wish to clean-up your portfolio and earn good long-term returns? 

 If yes, reach out to us today – the clarity you seek begins with one decision.

Read our previous blog:
Part 1: What Women need: Stability, continuity, review and reset
Part 2: What Women need: Knowing, Planning and Growing