Is Respect Directly Proportionate To Your Assets?

The Kerkar couple, with oodles of creative blood running through their veins, are residents of Mumbai. They live with their two children, who are as passion-driven as their parents are. When asked if one should run behind money or passion, Kuldip says,

"Today’s life is passion-driven and not money-driven. Especially my family, we are very passion-driven. We don’t go after money, it’s more about happiness."

But Kuldip and Anita don’t brush off money completely. During their interview, they confessed that a big house, a luxurious car and a rich lifestye are important status symbols. Kuldip unabashedly tells us why these are so important to him, “People judge you with your confidence and assets when you go for a business meeting. Your work is secondary.”

They want to support their children’s passion too. Asked how they would manage to do this, they say,

"We want to leave a fat bank balance and a legacy for them, so they don’t have to rely on anyone, whether we are there or not."

They should be able to afford to be passion-driven in life. Maybe they want to be an artist; then it will take them time to reach where they want to.”Speaking about the beginning of their investment journey, Anita quips, “Buying jewellery is one kind of an investment for me.” But will they liquidate this investment whenever they need to? Anita continues, “No. In case of gold, we never sell gold.

"Gold is mainly for stocking up. We can’t use it, because selling of gold is ‘ashubh’ (bad omen). We try not to sell gold. So instead of investing in gold, we start investing in other things like mutual funds"

shares and many other things where money doubles up and we get the interest out of it.” And that’s how their financial path had mutual funds added to it.“Our main goal of investing into mutual funds or any funds, is that they would give us returns even when we are much older. When we retire from everything, we still have money coming from this investment, to give us a better tomorrow, like we have today.” Kuldip adds,

“I want to be financially free when I am older. I have seen that when you are old, life goes down. You want to live your own life; your kids want to live their own life. I want to make sure I am financially free at a certain age.”

When prodded further on what “living his own life” means, Kuldip, a fan of Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich”, has obvious pointers in his head. “I want to shift to a bigger house. I want a dedicated room for my studio. Right now, my workstation is a part of my bedroom. I want a dedicated room for my kids. I want to step up, with my Mercedes E Class. I want a vacation home in a natural spot somewhere. I know I sound like it is for myself, but I know it is for the benefit of the family.”Kuldip and Anita both realise that they have a luxurious lifestyle to upkeep and humongous dreams for the future. This lifestyle is evident as the conversation is happening against the backdrop of Diwali. Anita tells us about what gifting during festivals looks like. “For the kids, we do a lot of shopping, like Diwali outfits and crackers and we call their friends over. We get some gold for them.”For their parents, gifting has seen a change. Anita elaborates, “Earlier our parents required cash more than things, because they needed cash to run the house, to take care of their maintenance or light bills or groceries and all that. So that time they probably wanted that kind of help so we went ahead and took care of it. People were surviving on 5,000 rupees to run a family and another 200 which came on a birthday or a festival would make a difference.But now, they are never going to accept money from us because now they feel that we are married, we have a family, and we should give our kids.” So now they have moved on to gifts their parents might need. “We always give, either my parents or his, something. For example, this Diwali, we gave an LED TV to his parents. We feel that when we have, we can give the best to our parents. That’s the way we could show our love for them after they have done so much for us throughout the years.”What do they gift themselves, we ask. Kuldip says that gifting is Anita’s department, so he tells her to take the lead on this one. “This time, for Diwali, we renovated our entire house.

"Every year, we gift ourselves a little gold and also, we make sure, whether it’s a trip in India or abroad, we try to go out."

We have discussed and spoken about it, that we are earning for what? To enjoy. So, every year, without fail, we go out for a holiday.”The couple not only believes in spending but in investing wisely too. They start by telling us about the education policy they have bought for their children, “It’s a plan where, once the child is 18, they start releasing the amount, every year. Ten years back, we started with a very little amount. Today, we feel we did the right thing by investing it for her. In a couple of years, it will give back to her in a big way."Given the fact that they are both not in salaried jobs, it must be taking a toll on their health and regular cash flow. Explaining why they think health insurance is important, they tell us, that it gives them “the feeling of being secured. We had a lot of people getting heart problems of late. We felt that it was the right time to get insurance and be secured.Medical is no more cheap in this world. That is when we went and covered all four of us. We said, whether we fall sick or not, but we were more than happy to buy it to be on the safer side. We know we are investing to get something out of it in the future – 30 years down the line, when we will need it most.”Most people take two big loans in their life - one for the house and one for their vehicle. But everyone has a different story to tell when asked what it enables them to do. Kuldip and Anita share their side, “If we did not take a loan, both of us would not be sitting in this beautiful house. We could do it only by taking a loan. At that point of time, we had very little. That little was not enough for us to be an owner of such a big property. We had to take a house and vehicle loan to have what we have today.”When asked what pearls of wisdom they would pass on to their children, Kuldip says, “I want them to hold the fact that money is very important, but that is not the only thing. You do not have to do anything wrong to earn it. Keep your feelings and achievements as a priority; the money will come.”

• With rising prices of goods and services all around investing money is one of the critical factors. One cannot be passion-driven if they do not have adequate funds to support their goals. And to support the goals channelising your money through investments and insurance is essential.
• Investing in mutual funds Investing in mutual funds can be useful in several ways. It would help in building a good corpus for your retirement without compromising on your standard of living. It can help you accumulate funds for your foreign travels or funding your child’s education expenses.
• Investing in Insurance Investing in insurance is equally important as investing in Mutual funds. Life insurance helps to compensate for the loss of income in case of the death of the primary bread earner. Health insurance helps in providing a financial cushion for the family during any health crisis.
• Taking Loans At times taking loans for buying your home can make you purchase a more lavish stay for yourself which would otherwise not be possible. Having your home would also help to keep back a legacy for your children.
• Finally, if you can make your investments wisely, you can have a lavish lifestyle and also save sufficiently for your children and their goals.

The information contained herein is generic in nature and is meant for educational purposes only. Nothing here is to be construed as an investment or financial or taxation advice nor to be considered as an invitation or solicitation or advertisement for any financial product. Readers are advised to exercise discretion and should seek independent professional advice prior to making any investment decision in relation to any financial product. Aditya Birla Capital Group is not liable for any decision arising out of the use of this information.