India is home to various spectacular cultural festivities and celebration, and none is more captivating and mesmerizing, than the celebration of Navratri. True to its diversity, Navratri, meaning ‘nine nights’, is celebrated differently across India, but it essentially signifies how good triumphs over evil.
For many of you, it is a time of religious reflection and fasting; for others, it is a time for dancing‘Garba-dandiya’and fasting. These nine days are dedicated to the nine avatars of the goddess Durga that she had morphed into while battling the demon Mahishasura. Each Navdurga avatar has attributes that we can imbibe and derive life lessons from, which may guide us towards learning how to survive different facets of life, including financial challenges.
The festival is divided into three parts, where the initial three days are dedicated to Goddess Mahakali, who destroys all the bad within us. The next three days are dedicated to Goddess Mahalaxmi, who brings us plenty of wealth and prosperity. And the final three days are devoted to Goddess Saraswati, who inspires us and increases wisdom.
The number 9 is considered divine and magical across religions. Taking this into consideration, here are nine financial mantras everyone should follow for a happy and prosperous life:
1. Get Disciplined With Finances:-
Just like in Navratri, when many people fast for nine days, which requires resilience. In the same way, your finances also need discipline and patience to reach stability.
Handling your own hard-earned money with enough care and prudence is crucial. Therefore, engage in a budgeting exercise so that you can save money and invest it sensibly to buy your dream home, your wedding, children’s higher education and their wedding expenses, including your retirement.
2. Set Goals:-
Similar to the nine avatars of the Goddess signifying various weapons she used to kill the demon. Similarly, set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Adjustable, Realistic and Time-bound) investment goals and execute the plan. Also, classify goals into short/ medium/ long term and assign time frames.
3. Save and invest sensibly:-
When you think of investing, the first thing is to save mindfully, i.e. control your expenditure. Eradicate, your excessive spending habits, just like Navratri which is symbolic of the triumph of good over evil. You should let go of your impulse spending to eliminate bad financial decisions to avoid having debt burden.
If you are borrowing thoughtlessly, it could result in a situation of debt-overhand and Threaten your long-term financial health. Hence, just as you clean your home during festive times for it to appear neat, make it a point to repay and clear your debt diligently over time. Instead, plan your thoughts to invest prudently from the savings based on a strategically created investment portfolio.
4. Diversify:-
Similar to farmers planting a variety of crops like cereals, pulses, food grains etc. based on their resources, soil and regional characteristics. Your strategic portfolio should be built considering your personal life goals, risk profile, investment horizon and financial condition. By optimally utilizing the different and specific attributes of asset classes to ensure balance, growth and safety in market volatility.
5. Always stay focused on the journey of wealth creation:-
As the Goddess Durga slayed the demon for the good future of all humanity, likewise for your future financial well-being, it is imperative for you to remain focused on your goal based-financial plan.
Do not get swayed due to market turbulences, policy changes or any other short-term aberrations.
When you invest to accomplish your envisioned financial goals, it is important to stay focused and be patient. As “Patience is a virtue”, a wise man once said, so if you have sensibly engaged in investment planning to build a solid investment portfolio of worthy instruments, you need not worry.
6. Monitor, Review and Realign:-
Popular dance form “Garba” – danced in a group within a circle during Navratri represents self-realization and joy. With each step of Garba, you experience joy to bring you back to your first point after dancing so many steps without any worry.
Similarly, if you review your portfolio regularly to ensure that you’re on track in the journey of wealth creation and accomplishing financial goals. A periodic review and tracking of your investment portfolio help you to weed out the duds from your portfolio to replace new ones that could help you achieve your goals faster and know the performance is in sync to your goal’s approaching timeline.
Once every year, review and realign/rebalance your portfolio to make necessary adjustments to incorporate personal changes or economic fluctuations to stay in line with your targets set.
Plus, it allows you to look for more investments opportunities to generate a strong flow of income. And use the income earned to generate more returns or wealth so that it leads you to financial freedom. In turn, this will help you relax and give you peace of mind.
7. Take optimum Insurance:-
When you light a lamp to offer puja to the Goddess during Navaratri, you are focusing on the divine power of the deity. Similarly, you should focus on your inner power and insure yourself against risk as well with an adequate insurance cover. The purpose of insurance is indemnification of risk from an untoward event.
Hence, make sure you’ve optimally insured yourself for both, life and health. And as far as possible, do not merge your insurance and investment needs, keep them separate. For life insurance, consider a term plan, and for health insurance needs a medi-claim policy with worthy features, as medical inflation is skyrocketing.
8. Prepare for the Unexpected:-
In every avatar Goddess Durga is seen holding various weapons and is always prepared to fight. Similarly, you should maintain an adequate emergency corpus and be prepared for emergencies like job loss/ hospitalization, after considering your income stability, medical records etc.
9. Acquire Knowledge and Seek Guidance:-
In Navratri religious scriptures and holy books are referred to chant mantras or perform puja and many times we also appoint a Pundit to guide us to perform Puja. In a similar way one should gain knowledge and/ or seek guidance from financial experts when one can’t figure out how to go about investing. Because a proficient financial expert will not only guide you but will also handhold you in your financial decision-making process by providing an unbiased and research-oriented solution.
And just like the 10th Day called Dussehra or Vijayadashami, one of the most auspicious days, signifies the end of evil and new beginnings. This year you end your bad financial habits and begin a new journey with focus, discipline, and a positive outlook which can brighten up your financial future.