What is your preferred option to finance a car? Most people will say 'vehicle loan' in the blink of an eye. But that is only till Gaurav Mashruwala explains how much money you are losing as interest. “Drive the car you are currently driving for a few more years. Invest the same amount of money you would have been paying as loan instalment in a mutual fund. Instead of losing money on interest of the loan, you will be earning from the investment,” he told a packed audience at an investment education seminar organised by THE WEEK and Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund in Thiruvananthapuram.
The logic is applied to all consumer loans. “Never buy a mobile phone with a loan,” said Mashruwala. There are, however, two exceptions. “Take loans only to buy a house to live in and for education.”
Worldly wisdom: S. Gururaj, assistant vice president, investor education and distribution training, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC.
The event in Thiruvananthapuram, held on October 24, was the second one of the three seminars under the theme 'Wealth Creation through Mutual Fund'. The first seminar was held in Kochi on October 23 and the last one in Kozhikode on November 7. Investment gurus Mashruwala, who is a certified financial planner and practitioner, K.S. Rao, who heads investment education and distribution development at Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC, and S. Gururaj, assistant vice president, investor education and distribution training, at Aditya Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company, talked at length on the timely subject of 'Financial Planning in this Turbulent Time'.
The audience was all ears. And many of them, especially retired people who were banking on their investments to support their post-retirement life, were concerned about the diminishing value of their investment. Rao instantly figured out their problem, pointing out that their high tax outgo could be the issue. He recommended the more tax-efficient systematic withdrawal plans for such investors. SWPs allow investors to withdraw from their mutual fund schemes every month.
Gaurav Mashruwala, certified financial planner and practitioner.
THE WEEK Wealth Creation through Mutual Fund is an investor education initiative by THE WEEK, India's largest selling English news magazine, and Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, India's fourth largest fund house. The investors, predictably, were worried about the slowdown in the economy. But, the three wise men explained how every crisis was an opportunity and why every opportunity should be utilised.
The icing on the cake, however, was Mashruwala's peroration on Yogic Wealth. It gave an entirely new perspective on how investors should manage their money and lives. He discussed the emotions that the mind experiences on matters related to money, and how such emotions prevent us from enjoying our wealth.