Me, Myself and Money management

I like to tell myself that I am not completely financially challenged like the conventional stereotype of females.

'After all’ I say to myself ‘I got along just fine managing my hard earned apology-for-money for close on four or five years before Mr .Finance Planner entered my life and I didn’t do too badly’.

Like I said, I think so. Mr. FP (in non-financial times known as the spouse) begs to disagree and does so far too vocally if you ask me.

But let’s backtrack a bit and cast an eye on my Money philosophy (well I never knew I had one, was supposed to have one, until I was asked by the self same FP). Money was something one earned. And then a little of it was spent. And some was kept snugly in a place one could keep a close jealous eye on it – viz. in a savings account .if I had my way I would have kept it somewhere even closer – under my pillow perhaps. But as a concession to the fact that we are living in modern, educated times, and banks have assured me that they are safe, I settled on a savings account. I even chose the one with an auto sweep to the fixed deposit, so that I earned some interest on it.

This pattern would more or less continue till the middle of January or the gentle investment-proof-reminder mail from office, whichever was earlier. Then there would be some frantic calls to investment feller to beg him to meet me. And my sad little savings were further depleted and channelled into worthy tax saving bonds and some solid life insurance.

The investment feller would preface the conversation each year with questions on what are my ‘future financial plans’. But as I was wont to tell him, my future vision stopped at about four weeks, sometimes it stopped at four days.So all his grand plans of forty years and retirement were light years away from anykindofvision I had. Heck, even four years lock in periods scared the bejesus out of me.

So he would sigh like a steam engine, pocket my cheques and walk away into the sunset with my commission money (and leave me forlorn and considerably poorer)).

A couple of times he DID bring up the topic of Mutual Funds. I don’t like Mutual Funds I told him. Every time he told me about money doubling in five years I retorted with US64. After a point he gave up trying to convince me. And that was that.

And then Mr. Financial Planner happened.

One day he asked me about my money philosophy. And I chanted the flippant money philosophy I had outlined above. Suddenly, the even tempered, equable man metamorphosed before my eyes into this rather wild eyed evangelist. Fidelity, Franklin, SIP, Growth saver, Blue chip, Mid-cap, NAV– an avalanche of terms swept over me.

How can you not invest he raved . When I bleated about US64 he brushed it away impatiently and told me that I was behaving in a manner completely unworthy of my education and intelligence (!) and if I continued with this fixed deposit rubbish( and this accompanied by a beautiful sneer) I would be sure to die in penury and servitude.

Now that I have pledged to honour and serve this bloke (hahahahha ok, I couldn’t help that), I decided that I WOULD invest in mutual funds – besides if I lost my money, he has pretty much vowed to support the wife of his heart ( hahahahha ok, I couldn’t resist that either) in sickness and health and richness and poverty .

So I have.

Now every time I get a mail saying statement I eagerly open it thinking that my money would have doubled or done something dramatic like that (actually this is an unfortunate optimism I haven’t succeeded in curing myself of. Every salary slip, I open with an heightened anticipation and beating heart thinking that SOMEHOW my salary will have magically increased that month. Every month for the last I-don’t-know-how-many-years-I-have-been-disappointed. Only once the salary slip did show a spike and I was happy for half an hour until I figured out that it was the yearly bonus. Sigh.) .

Nothing has happened. The money is stuck in the same damn place for ages now. And I am beginning to lose my faith.

Mutual Fund Gods, are you listening??

P.S. Okay My January investment post is not linking so I shall recycle it . I should anyways since that is one of my personal favourite posts.

P.P.S. It IS my blog no? I can recycle whatever I want. Bah!