Money management tools every woman should use

Financial planning is an important skill-set to be inculcated by all women. Proper planning of finances will enable a woman to achieve financial freedom, success, and fulfillment of all her dreams.

Aanchal Desai, Mumbai: My current CTC is Rs 6.2 lakh per annum. I invest in Mirae Asset Tax saver and Axis long-term equity fund. My goals are to buy a new house after 1.5 years and accumulating Rs 2 crore in 20 years. I have insurance from my company. Kindly guide me to achieve the goal.

Sanghavi: You should continue with your SIP in the tax-saving ELSS fund for 3 years lock-in. At the time of the downpayment of your house, you should check how much money will be available in the lock-in. To accumulate a sum of Rs 2 crores in 20 years, you must invest Rs 26,000 monthly, if we take an average return of 10%. You should also check if your company is allowing you to port the insurance policy when you leave the company. If it is not allowing then you should have a standalone insurance policy.

Kakoli Tiwari, Kolkata: I recently joined a new job and want to invest Rs 18,000 per month in mutual funds and equities. What should be my focus while investing in these.

Sanghavi: You should first make sure you have a sufficient emergency corpus. You need to at least have an emergency fund of Rs 1/2 lakh. For this, you can divide the Rs 18,000 investment into 3 parts, Rs 6,000 each. One you can keep for an emergency, one for retirement, and one for other goals.