Women and Investment — Part1
This is my finance story and how i started investing
Years ago, when i landed my first job , the only option i knew to save my hard-earned money was not to spend it and keep it safe in a regular savings bank account, something i gathered from my father’s experience. My parents have always been old-school in their investments with my father putting most of his money into fixed deposit’s, recurring deposit’s, savings accounts and some stone-age era LIC policies.
Naturally my first foray into investment was through a fixed deposit too, but with interest rates on fixed deposit’s slashing everyday , they stopped appearing like a lucrative option. That’s exactly when i decided to change my investment mantra i.e.
The best way to make money is to invest it.
The Bitcoin Dream Bubble
About 4 years back, i decided to test the waters. The first instrument i chose to invest my hard earned money in was bitcoin. I know what you must be thinking, from fixed deposits to bitcoin, this woman has got guts. But back then in 2017, the bitcoin bubble was picking pace and i didn’t want to be left behind. So, i invested about a month’s paycheck into buying bitcoin and all sorts of altcoins and apparently it really worked. As the bitcoin bubble, was gaining new heights everyday, my investment started doubling and then it tripled! All this had happened in a month’s time frame. I was super excited to have found the best way of investing my hard earned money and i started advocating bitcoin investment as a solid way to invest one’s money to my friends and peers.
But one fine day , the bitcoin bubble burst and all my investments came crashing down which taught me my first ever lesson in investment.
Never invest all your hard earned money in a highly volatile market.
I might have incurred some losses with the bitcoin fiasco but i did learn a lot of valuable lessons in this entire process. My resolute to grow my money through the right set of investments just grew stronger.I decided to move towards safer avenues of investment.
The Tax Saving Champions
I started with some very basic instruments like tax saving ELSS schemes which i believed were the safest way to invest one’s money without having to attract any heavy taxes but investing in ELSS had their own shortcomings. ELSS have a lock-in period of 3 to 5 years. So you cannot withdraw your money before the maturity period. Although they do save you from taxes directly by being recognized under 80C , the profits from ELSS are considered to be long term capital gains and if the gains are greater than 1 lac, they would incur taxes. Time for another valuable lesson.
Diversify thy investment portfolio. Don’t just rely on a single investment instrument.
The Mutual Consent funds
Next, i decided to diversify a little more and started investing into mutual funds. Mutual funds are relatively low risk taking bets if you view them in a longer frame of time. They do give one’s portfolio a good market exposure with experienced fund house managers taking care of your money but these guys do make mistakes.
And that brings us to another valuable lesson.
Choose the mutual fund houses wisely and review the composition of mutual funds to see how they are using up the customer’s money.
