Seshadri's Musings

Even though there are many avenues for investing, I will discuss the benefits of investing in just 2 of them.  Both of them are government sponsored ones – Public Provident Fund (PPF) and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY).  The SSY is only for those who have a daughter aged below 10 years of age. Let us take the PPF account first.  It can be opened in any post office or some of the nominated banks like SBI and ICICI banks.  The deposit can range from Rs 500 to Rs 1,50,000 per year.  You will have to invest at least Rs 500 in this account so that it does not become dormant.  You cannot close this account before 15 years.  At the end of 15 years, if you still don’t want to withdraw, you can extend it for another period of 5 years and so on.  Current year’s rate of interest is 7.9% compounded annually. Assuming we invest Rs 1,50,000 on 1 st April each year and take 7.9% interest as being constant for the next 15 years, you are looking at a fi...

On special occasions, earlier, people used to go out for food and enjoy outside food.  Nowadays, there are various companies available, who will ensure that the food reaches you at home, rather than you having to bear the traffic, the waiting at the restaurant and the travel before consuming your food!  Welcome to the world of ordering food online!!  There are many companies like Swiggy, Faasos, Foodpanda, Zomato, Getmyfood and their likes, through which you can get sumptuous food delivered at your doorstep, without having to venture out yourselves. All these companies also offer inaugural discounts for using their services.  All you need is a mobile number or get yourself registered on their website.  If you have multiple mobile numbers at your house, you can use each of the mobile to get your first “discounted” order for all the numbers 😊 .  And since there are various companies, you can enjoy your “discounted” food for a longer duration!!...

This blog will tell you of some of the things that I employ while bargaining in a local market buying things.  Bargaining has been in our psyche since a very long time even when we did not have money.  Earlier people used to bargain and barter things with each other.  So when something is so ingrained in our psyche, it will naturally come out from somewhere or the other!! I strengthened my bargaining skills in Delhi where I spent the initial 30 years of my life!!  I used to stay in a place called Karol Bagh. Every Monday, there was a Monday market, wherein the shops on Ajmal Khan Road would be closed and both sides of the road’s footpath would be covered by different vendors spreading out their wares on the footpath and waiting for customers to stop and purchase stuff.  You can buy just about anything in these so-called “shops” and at a bargain price!! A lot of people from other parts of India used to come to Delhi for vacation and this place was a not...

Nowadays, most of us have got a d2h (direct-to-home) connection.  There mays till be a lot of people who think they cannot afford a d2h and are still on the cable connection that their local cable guy provides.  This blog will throw some light on how to compare different offerings and finally select one based on your requirements. Among the popular d2h connections are Dish TV, Sun Direct, Videocon, Airtel, Tata Sky and Reliance Digital.  Each one claims to be different than the others and claims to offer the maximum number of channels in their bouquet of offerings. With over 600+ channels that these service providers are offering, it gets a bit tedious to decide on which provider to select.  The first thing to do is to browse through the different channels and decide on which are the ones you will be seeing on a regular basis.  No use going for a product offering 400+ channels while you watch only 10 of them on a regular basis.  Once you arrive at...

Once upon a time, having a credit card was a novelty.  I remember I got my first credit card some 22 years ago.  When I presented it for payment, it felt great.  I could see the awe in my friends’ faces too when they saw me paying through the card!! Nowadays almost everyone has a credit card or on the verge of owning one.  Most of the card companies have done away with the one-time card fee. They have waived it off only for the lower variant of their card offerings.  Recently I saw an offer where the card company was offering Rs 1,000 if you went for their card!! The key to using any credit card is to pay off the entire expenses before the due date.  Once you delay the payment, the interest keeps piling up and in the end you end up paying a lot more than what you bargained for.  I charge my credit card for all the expenses that I can pay through it.  It includes electricity bill, mobile payments, gas payments, school fee payments, ca...

A claimer before today’s blog.   Whatever blogs I have written before today and whatever I will be writing in future, I have done them and am still doing all these.  Please be assured that I will not be asking you to follow or do anything that I am not comfortable doing. Having put that in perspective; let me move to today’s topic. We all would have read lots of magazines in out childhood.  I still remember Champak, Filmfare, Stardust, Week, Illustrated Weekly, Star&Style, Sunday, Caravan etc that I used to eagerly await and read them fully or maybe just glancing through the pictures in some of them.  Even today some of these magazines are available, but we find no time to browse through them.  Either we subscribe to them and get it by post/courier or we go to a library and look for these magazines. When subscribing, many times we do not read those magazines and they lie in a shelf gathering dust.  One fine weekend, we will call the paper...

Each year, there are more people applying for a loan than the year before.  Before sanctioning the loan, companies/banks check for the credit worthiness of the individual before sanctioning the loan.  If you are going to take a loan soon or just want to know what these companies check for and see about your credit score, then this blog is for you!! There are 4 companies in India who have been permitted to compile and disseminate credit reports to people.  Usually they charge some amount for preparing and sending this report.  But as per recent (sometime back) guideline issued by the government, they are obligated to send you one report free each year.  This means, in effect, you can get 4 reports each year, as there are 4 companies providing this information.   The best way would be to apply from one company, each quarter and repeat the same steps next year!! These 4 companies and their websites are mentioned below: - CRF High Mark – www....

Looking for seeing some movies in your free time and don’t know which one?  Your friend has suggested a movie, but you want to know more about the movie before spending on the ticket.  You don’t know the title of the movie but know the name of the hero/heroine.  If you have found yourself in this scenario, often, then this is the blog for you!! The best site for knowing details about any movie is www.imdb.com .  IMDb stands for Internet Movie Database.  You can find anything and everything about any movie here – the stars of the movie, the director, the storyline, trailer, release date, box office collections, runtime, some trivia about the movie, some goofs in the movie and the movie reviews. Reviews available are from the users as well as the critics.  Looking at the times we are living in, user review can rate from 0 to 10 depending on the person doing the review.  They also publish an overall rating on the movie based on the ratings given...

In this blog, I will show you how to create a personal budget plan.  Before working on the plan, you have to identify all the income that you will be getting in the next few months and the expenses that you foresee during these months.  Don’t worry; there will also be a buffer row where you can keep funds for emergency or other unforeseen expenses. Start with a 1 year budget and over a period of time, increase it to other years.  When you are planning for a multiple-year budget, increase your expenses by 10%, each year.  This is done so that in case it doesn’t rise by 10%, the balance amount becomes your buffer. I have attached below a sample income and expenditure sheet that is done for a year.  Similar one can be created for multiple years too.  Over a period of time, you will be able to fine-tune it to give you a comfortable idea of what money is left with you!!                     ...

Nowadays people open accounts in different banks.  Either they have been forced to open the accounts by the marketers or by their shifting their place of residence, or voluntarily deciding to keep their eggs in different baskets😊 It will be very tedious to maintain different accounts as you have to keep one day separate for updating your different passbooks from various banks.  Sometimes the passbook machine will not be working. Sometimes the printer will not be working. I am going to show you how you can keep track of the bank accounts in a simple way without moving out from your house.  All you need is a computer and MS-Excel and of course, internet!  Please see the screenshot below of a fictional different-bank-accounts scenario. You can track different bank accounts as shown above. Whenever you issue a cheque to someone, write down the amount in the Expenses Column and write the reason in Column L.  In the above sheet, the amounts have bee...