If you’re an average millennial or even Gen-Z, you’d relate when I say I wish someone told me how to manage my personal finances. Luckily, I stumbled upon the ET Money app a few weeks back.
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I mean, our school didn’t teach us that, neither did college.
Do we only have the Internet as our best friend?
Every time I shared an Instagram story about the investment options I’m looking at, I got DMs asking about it.
Don’t mistake me as an expert, I’m in the learning phase too.
Thanks to the age of social media, apps, and video content, it has become easier to learn almost anything on the Internet.
Table Of Contents
So, what exactly is personal finance?
Personal finance covers the concepts of managing your money, saving, and investing. It also includes banking, budgeting, mortgages, investments, insurance, retirement planning, and tax planning. (Source: cleartax)
To put it in simple words, it is about knowing where your money goes, where you should be investing so that your money isn’t just stagnant in the bank.
Not even stagnant, in fact, if you consider how things get expensive over time, inflation and due to a dozen other factors, your saved money in the bank is actually losing its value every day.
If you are reading this in your late teens or early 20s, congratulations you’re already ahead in the game.
The earlier you start thinking about your money and its whereabouts, the better financial stability you’ll have in the future.
Your adult self will be eternally grateful that you began early.
There are numerous ways in which you can manage your finances. Taking a small step towards this is to install the ET Money app.
How to begin with the ET Money App
Download and install the ET Money app on your phone.
Track all of your expenses at one place
Sign up and create an account. Preferably, use the email address which is linked to your bank account, apps like Uber, Zomato, Amazon, Myntra, Grofers, etc.
This is so that the app can track where and when did you spend your money without you having to manually calculate your expenses for the month.
As you can see in the screenshot above, the expenses can be seen in 3 ways: Merchants (Paytm, Zomato, Uber, Amazon), Categories (Bills, Eating out, Net Banking) & Accounts (Bank accounts linked with your email).
Writing down in a notebook, although is great, is not possible every day. Let the app do it for you. It’s 2021!
There’s an option to sync in your other bills such as insurance, credit cards, DTH, electricity, broadband, EMI, gas, water, and mobile.
To do this go to the investments tab> bill calendar> and click on the ‘+’ to add your service provider.
Whenever you receive a message on your phone about any kind of bill, the app will automatically calculate that amount into your expenses for the month.
You’ll see many investment options in the ET Money app, do your research thoroughly before choosing one.
What kind of investor are you?
The first step is to find out your investor personality.
What are your goals?
What would you prefer: lesser risk or higher returns?
How much money can you invest right now?
And how much money are you okay with losing due to the risks involved?
Take this quiz titled Know your investor personality. You will find this quiz on the investments tab.
Read & educate yourself
Don’t be in a hurry to start putting your money into the different investment options.
You can find articles and YouTube videos linked right inside the app to better understand what each investment option looks like.
ET Money has a YouTube Channel where they explain finance and investment options.
A quick tip: Avoid taking any loans when you’re in your 20s, irrespective of the amount. This is the time when you should be saving the maximum share of your earnings not exhaust them by paying installments.
Zero commission when you invest in Mutual Funds
Generally, people used to invest in mutual funds through agents/banks. In doing so, the agents take up a commission fee out of your returns from the mutual funds.
Whereas through the ET Money app, when you invest in mutual funds, you don’t have to pay anyone.
The money which would’ve gone to your agent will be added back into your returns. This can result in up to 1% extra returns on your investments each year.
Also Read: 7 Benefits of reading you didn’t know about
Already invested in mutual funds? No problem!
You can add your previously made investments in the ET Money app and track everything inside one app itself.
All you have to do is to upload the statement of your previous investments.
Think about Insurance- Life & Health
Life is unpredictable. You don’t want to be worrying about the bills when you or your loved ones are unwell.
Go to the insurance tab> health insurance.
You’ll be asked the following questions, after which you will see different health insurance plans:
- Whom are you insuring? You, your family or your parents.
- Where do you live?
- Age
- Gender
- Existing health issues, if any
- How much health cover do you want?
Similar apps that you can check out & compare:
- Zerodha
- Groww
- INDmoney
- Upstox
- Angel Broking
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