Vijaibabu's Blog - Personal Finance Guide for Financial Freedom

Do you read the fine print on health insurance policies before buying them? Or do you find the reams of terms and conditions so intimidating that you just don't buy them? If the latter, you are among many who steer clear of health insurance and prefer to pay for medical expenses from the pocket. Not because they are rich, but because the idea of being snubbed by the insurance company while settling the claim hurts. Fine prints though trivial but form an important part of your claim approval or rejection process. Keep a couple of the following aspect of fine print in mind to make a wise decision regarding health insurance.  What’s covered and what’s not covered: No health insurance company covers all diseases. So read the list of covered diseases very carefully. Your decision should be based on the kind of lifestyle you lead—sedentary or active, and you should also consider health complications that run in the family. Diabetes, kidney stones, heart diseases are known to be passe

Home loans can be very beneficial for property buyers, as they not only help you buy your dream home, but also help you save on taxes. But you must remember to choose the right home loan if you do not want to face the hassles in the process. Here are a few quick tips that you could keep in mind while applying for a home loan. These tips could help ease the complicated procedure a little bit and at the same time help you save some money. Some of the tips that are recommended are mentioned below Research well These days loan are made quite attractive for the buyers with low interest rates and additional schemes. Therefore it is better to educate yourself about the terms and conditions of each loan agreement so that you are prepared beforehand. Clarify all your doubts regarding the loan scheme before you finalize anything and don’t hesitate to ask questions to the sales person even if you have the smallest difficulty understanding a particular clause. Take a look at the EMI  Calc

When you are in the urgent need of cash, the easiest option seems to be taking a personal loan. But with the raging interest rates these days, it’s not quite wise to get into the vicious cycle of debt. Banks also tend to look at your entire financial profile before accepting you for eligibility. What if you could have an option apart from personal loan in times of crisis? Here are some quick fixes as alternatives to personal loans Loan against fixed deposits This is the quickest possible loan because banks lend against their own fixed deposits. The repayments of this type of loan should be done within the fixed deposit tenure. The biggest advantage is there is minimal documentation required and loans are available over 80% of the fixed deposit value. Also, your fixed deposit continues to earn interest even during the tenure of the loan. However, you must discipline yourself to repay the loan every month like an EMI. Gold loan Initially started off as a popular source of finance

Your financial plan is one which chalks out your financial goals and how you plan to achieve them. As the situations in life change, your financial plan also requires regular reviewing and change. Just as how you undergo regular health checkups to review your health and regular service for your vehicle or electronic appliances, your financial plan also needs regular examination. Here are a few reasons on when it becomes important to review your financial plan: Change in financial conditions: The first reason why you should review your financial plan regularly is to reflect any change in your financial conditions - be it internal or external. Sometimes you realise when you review that you have not progressed much towards your goals despite a considerable time having lapsed. This requires you to change your investment plan, and sometimes other goals as well - for instance, you can retire later than you initially planned, or settle to buy a house which is lower in value than what you

Selling one's home is never a very easy thing to do. Usually, the four walls one is putting on the market are the frame for many fond memories, and one needs to say goodbye to the neighbours and familiar sights that have often defined many years of residence.  But over and above the emotional upset of selling a home, not keeping a record of the actual sale transaction can lead to problems later on.    Maintain a file of all documents pertaining to the property sale. This will ensure that you are able to address all future queries by the buyer, the bank involved and the municipal or tax authorities. Also read: Why Land Bill is giving sleepless nights to developers  You will especially need a seamless financial record while filing your tax returns for the year of sale. The documents should include proof and receipts of payment for items that you had included in the sale price, including parking space, structural modifications or additions which enhanced the value of the property,

1. Performance Ranking  More than the recent or long term performance of any scheme its ranking among peers should be looked at. To find out the ranking you need to check out the quartile ranking which will show how the fund has performed quarter on quarter among its peer group. In quartile ranking each quartile comprises of 25 percent of peer group schemes. So one may select the scheme which has remained in top quartile most of the time. If at all you find your scheme going below 3rd quartile in a couple of consecutive quarters it hints that time has come to exit the scheme. You can find these rankings from the factsheets of various AMCs and also on some mutual funds research websites  2. Ratio analysis Risk and return ratios like standard deviation, Sharpe ratio etc.  I have discussed in my earlier article on Measuring Mutual funds risk. Along with those ratios, one also should check out the ALPHA of the fund.  Alpha tells us what extra or less the fund manager has generated ou

Cheques are now valid for 3 months With effect from April 1, 2012 you will have to deposit your cheques, draft or pay order within three months of the issue date of the instrument, instead of the current six months. For your benefit, banks have been asked by the RBI to print or stamp this change in the validity period on cheques and other such relevant instruments that will be issued from April 1, 2012. Post April 1, 2012, banks will not honor cheques, pay orders, drafts and bankers' cheques that are deposited beyond the three-month period. Drafts above Rs 20,000 will have to be A/c payee only To check the flow of black money and eliminate third party scams, RBI has also made it mandatory that all drafts for amounts above Rs 20, 000 will be account payee only. This is done so that the amount is deposited directly into the recipient's account rather than any other third party account. The RBI has also asked banks to ensure that account payee cheques and drafts are only credit