When the entire world was upgrading its defence technology in preparation for a World War III or a
similar situation between neighbouring countries, no one taught us that World War III would be
fought with social distancing, wearing a double mask and getting vaccinated against COVID. Lesson
learnt “Human discipline is more important and critical than any technology to discipline machines”.
In India, the second wave arrived with a slew of new challenges. Earlier this year, no one was
bothered to get vaccinated. At the same time, the Government took early warnings very casually
and started exporting a few vaccines, which resulted in a complete disaster and failure for India and
us as Indians. We start taking things more seriously and responsibly when some of our known faces
lost their lives. The second wave disaster also showed us a mirror of how poor our health and
medical infrastructure in India. These results, like oxygen shortage and lack of accessibility of
medical infrastructure, have shown us how far we are in reaching the mission of Healthy India. Every
one of us saw immense frustration and our inability to do anything.
How India would react and what lesson it plans to take forward from this disaster will decide the
future of a healthy India? A country with 132 bn people should first have an excellent medical
infrastructure before thinking about any other advancement. We usually listen from big
management gurus that our failure will teach us the biggest lesson of your life and I hope with the
days gone by we learn some great lesson about our casual approach and indiscipline rather than
criticizing the Government or local body.
“Pahla sukh nirogi kaya, dusra sukh ghar main maya” COVID pandemic gives us callous times not
only physically and mentally but also financially. Now it’s time for us to question, “Are we seriously
managing our money well? How important is an emergency fund which we often overlooked and
withdrew to go on vacation with family?
Read: Everything You Need To Know About Wealth Management – Fintoo Blog
In this short span, we saw many families where the children have lost their parents, sometimes both
their mother and father. Are their parents adequately covered, and have they made proper
arrangements so that their children will get the funds or insurance money smoothly? Also, as
responsible parents, do we teach them how to handle such unpredictable situations? It brings us to
a profound realization – Is earning money and investing enough? Educating our children on how to
manage wealth is equally important. Here are some of the outstanding money habits or lessons we
should essentially consider for a better situation-
- If both the parents are working, then it is advisable to keep three months’ mandatory expenses as
your Emergency Fund. If your spouse is not working, then six months of mandatory expenses should
be your Emergency Fund. Mandatory expenses mean your grocery expenses, EMIs, school fees,
house rent and any other expenses you can’t avoid in the coming 3 or 6 months’ time. It is also
advisable to open a separate bank account and deposit the amount there to remain untouched
there. - Educate kids about your investments and insurance policies if you have taken any. It is also
advisable that one of your loyal friends or relatives should also know about your insurance plans and
investments so that they could help and save the boat in case of any uncertainties. - Your planned vacations or other big expenses like buying a car, luxury parties and hotel expenses
must have decreased from the last year. It is an excellent opportunity. If you don’t have an
emergency fund, do use this money to create an emergency corpus or invest this money for a long-
term goal. - The Pharma and Healthcare sector looks very promising in the next five years. Anyone who has
equity exposure can see Pharma and healthcare sector as emerging sector in coming years and can
allocate at least 20% – 25% of their equity corpus in health and Pharma stocks or Health and Pharma
sector mutual funds. - We have to understand the importance of WILL. While you are at home, do accumulate all your
wealth details and prepare a simple excel sheet. Sit with your family (spouse and adult kids), disclose
it to them, and give them a fair understanding about it. Create a simple WILL without any
considerable legal troublesome effort. An ordinary paper-written WILL is also acceptable and helpful
in the smooth transmission of the assets. - Understand the difference between direct investment and investment through some agents,
brokers or financial planners. In this challenging time, if your spouse or kids cannot do all the
exercise of getting insurance money and other transmission formalities, you should invest your
money with the help of some financial planners, agents or brokers? If a spouse or kids possess sound
knowledge and a fair understanding of how to get insurance claim money and other formalities, it is
advisable to take the direct route. Merely saving a few pennies (brokerage or commission) can
sometimes make your entire investment at stake. Take a decision wisely; your friend or neighbour,
or colleague’s situation may be different from yours.
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