One day, you wake up and you’re no longer living with your parents. You have rent and bills to pay off, groceries to buy and taxes to file — whatever that means. So here I am, a 20-something journalist living by myself in the most expensive metropolis in the country with a working knowledge of trigonometry, but not the first clue on how to manage my finances, now that I have them.
I was never, not once, in school or at home, told that getting a job which creatively and financially satisfies you comes with reminders from the accounts department to declare your assets, mystifying sums of money being deducted from your salary every month and an option to “buy shares”. What does it all mean? Is there an initiation or a course us 20-somethings can take to learn about financial planning before this generation is labelled as materialistic consumers of instant gratification?
A Few Questions
Do I actually need to plan for retirement from now on? Everyone on the internet agrees, and then something about Roth IRA comes up which, turns out, is the American version of the PF, VPF, PPF or even an NSC. Even if I wanted to begin saving for my retirement, I wouldn’t know what form to ask for, or what the difference between the various arrangements of random letters of the alphabet is, so that’s that. No retirement plans for me, unless you count living on your sister’s couch a plan.
And, what’s with Form 16? What do forms one to fifteen do? I personally like the ring ‘Form 13’ has to it: ominous, like the calm before the storm of tax slashes and then progressive deductions for rent, groceries, electricity and gas descend upon your bank account. Then, comes the niche adult skill of evading taxes, legally, which is like saying apples are good for my health, but the really clever thing to do would be to figure out how to throw it away when no one is looking.
Stock markets, in my head, only ever crash dramatically as shown in movies and are the devil’s property, as taught by my parents. If I do look to buy stocks, I should also be able to choose between buying a single company’s stock or a stock mutual fund, and keep up with the red markers going down and the green ones, going up.
I’m not sure if I should have insurance; I’m pretty sure my parents still have to do that because it concerns weighty matters such as fire and heart attacks. As far as investing in mutual funds is concerned, it is out of the question since mutualfundsaresubjecttomarketrisk,pleasereadtheofferdocumentcarefullybeforeinvesting. And concerning a bond, I only know of one.
A Heads-Up Would Have Been Nice
I find it extremely jarring that no one, not once, explicitly or by the means of small talk mentioned that suddenly, I have to “file my taxes” every year. It is especially strange considering how, as the income tax website of the government of India says, my “undisclosed income is a ticking time-bomb”. No pressure.
If Buzzfeed thinks we live in the age of the ‘urban poor’, it is not because we are always lusting after brands and other upwardly mobile status symbols. It is more because we were never coached, specifically and directly, to save money and in ways to grow wealth.
It’s because apart from fulfilling our every need (where the complacency admittedly arises), we were never involved in the finances of the family — a trend I have observed after conversing with many my age. Discussions around ration bills, fixed deposit forms, repayment of EMIs, decisions regarding the buying or selling of a new property, accumulating loans for our education — we were told not to worry, that they would handle it, that it would be done.
Then, am I just supposed to wing it, through trial and error? If I hadn’t been digging around for ironic tweets by young adults clueless about money management, I would have never known about the “sweep-in facility” available for activation in my salary account which can give me an interest rate eligible for fixed deposits — almost three times higher! Had I known, maybe that “emergency fund” all responsible adults should have wouldn’t be so... trivial.
So, what’s the protocol on this? Is there a brochure I can read, or a course tailored to Indian banks, forms, red tape, schemes and nomenclature that I can sign up for?
Anything will do; I don’t have much to lose.
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