How To Plan For Your Child’s Future With Saving Plans?

People usually save either for retirement or with a specific goal in mind. One of the goals is children’s future like education or marriage, while other goals could be to buy a house, car amongst others. This article focuses on the children’s future as a goal.

There are 3 key variables that you broadly need to keep in mind when planning for children:

·         The amount you may need for the child’s education (and marriage)

·         Years left to the event

·         Return expectation to build in

So our first advice to you is to start early. If you start investing for a child when you marry, you may have as many as 20 years ahead of you. But if you start when the child is say 5 or 8 years old, then you could be left with barely 10-12 years. The more the years you have, the less you need to set aside on a monthly basis.

The other critical part is the return your savings are generating. It is common to find parents investing in fixed deposits or Public Provident fund(PPF) to sponsor their children’s education or marriage. While as an investment option it is safer, it also generates paltry returns of 8-9% per annum. While interest on PPF is tax-free, that on fixed deposit is taxable, which pulls down the post-tax returns even further. Given the rate at which cost of higher education is shooting up in the country, debt definitely seems an investment option not worth considering.

As against this, if you try to aim for equity investments, your returns could be between 12-14% per annum, which is the bare minimum returns equity markets show over long periods. Given the long term horizon, short term market swings are unlikely to affect your final return, and chances of making true equity returns are higher. As your approach the last 2-3 years of the child’s educational needs, you can choose to shift the portfolio towards debt, to eliminate any volatility risk – though this would not be a major consideration as the requirement for funds would be spread over a 3-4 year period.

Why Rs 75 Lakhs?

Rs 75 lakhs may sound like a large number, but remember that with normal inflation, costs double every decade. In addition, inflation in education related expense is expected to be higher than average inflation and therefore even the Rs 75 lakhs, in about 20 year time, is not a large number.

How can you go about your investing in Equity for this purpose?

Many parents prefer to open an investing account in the name of the child, in order to isolate the account, accommodate for gifts in the name of the child, and for tax reasons. If you plan to save in the name of the child, note that you cannot open a demat account in the name of a minor, and therefore the route to equities will have to be through a Mutual Fund.

Investing independently into equity funds over such long horizon requires keeping track of performance and weeding out of underperforming schemes. If you are not up to regular monitoring of funds, then you need to seek help of financial advisors, who will do it for you, but you need to trust their subjective judgment.

At Scripbox, we help in this process in 2 ways. Firstly, the selection of equity Saving Plans will ensure you own the most consistently performing Mutual Fund through the entire period. In addition, you can open your child’s account as an add-on account.

[ Source : http://savingplans.blog.com/2016/06/10/how-to-plan-for-your-child%E2%80%99s-future-with-saving-plans/ ]

Savings & Investment Planning for Children’s Higher Education

Becoming parents is a turning point in our lives. As their guardians, it is our duty to plan for their future and invest wisely so that they receive the best possible facilities that in turn will materialise as better opportunities in a competitive world. Such a goal requires early and intricate planning, dedicated devotion to the goal and taking calculated risks sometimes to generate good returns.

Children’s secure future mostly depends on a strong education which becomes a foundation to find new avenues in the future and be successful. The ever increasing education cost and tuition fees have put a shadow of uncertainty on the future of your child. Here we look at some of the options of investment that can ensure their happiness and provide them with possibilities for a sound education in future.

Insure Yourself

Yes, insure yourself! Savings will only last for some period and may get exhausted during unavoidable circumstances, but an insurance policy of a parent is the second roof for his dependent. Such a scheme would help your child with his educational needs that would otherwise be hard to cover in the absence of insurance. Some child plans also offer a fixed amount once the child attains the age for higher education which takes care of his higher education costs.

Invest in long-term saving schemes

Investing in long term fixed deposits, SIP mutual funds, Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIP),NSC etc. when your child is a toddler helps to make sustainable amounts for your child long term future plans. If you have some near future targets for your child like enrolling him/her in vocational streams of study along with a regular education then recurring deposits helps to fund these. PPF is another scheme that will help for your child’s future as it locks the amount invested for 15 years giving a good sum at maturity along with interest. PPF offers a compounded interest and hence is a very good savings option.

Devise a strategy

Plan for a projected amount that your child would require at various stages of his school and college life; chart an investment strategy and review it with the changing market conditions. Try to reduce risk by taking away investments from high-risk products to a safer option when your long term investment plans are at the brink of maturity. This would prevent the incidence of loss in case some risky investments are prone to loss in a volatile market.

Common Sense

Making your children aware about the expenses and limiting unnecessary frivolities would help them inculcate saving habits from a young age. Effectively teaching them the difference between a want and a need would make them responsible towards their future and  self-reliant.

Tax Savings

Taxpayers can also save taxes under section 80C and 80E against their investments and children’s education expenses. Section 80C offers a deduction of up to 1.5 Lakhs spent on children’s tuition fees. Section 80E also provides education of interest on loan taken for higher education of the child. Parents can invest in Sukanya Samriddhi – a government initiative to promote and improve education for a girl child which is again a part of 80C family of deductions. The return of this investment has a 9.1% rate of interest giving ample opportunity for education to the girl child.

A well-planned approach towards Saving Plans can help a lot in making sound financial arrangements for your children’s education. If you invest wisely in both short term and long term investments and spread the risk, a major chunk of the heavy education costs can be taken care of. After all, creating a bright future for kids is our greatest responsibility.

Best Savings Insurance Plans

We might have a sufficient income to live our life comfortably but to ensure that we lead an equally hassle-free life we need to save our income judicially. With changing time, our needs also increase. Constantly increasing inflation, expenses of our growing children, probable illness of old age along with various situations which might occur in future; it becomes even more important to save a definite amount of our income.

For a secure and a comfortable life, it is crucial to have a saving insurance plan. Saving Plans come in various kinds, offering consumers the freedom to choose a plan which suits them the most.

Primary Types of Saving Insurance Plans:

Depending on factors such as financial risks, inflationary factors, varying financial instruments, available time for tracking your investment, you can select either a traditional or a ULIPs plan.

Traditional Endowment Plans: These are the regular saving plans, which offer bonuses to investors. These are considered to be one of the safest plans. These plans help in building a corpus and also ensure maturity benefits. Here you get the equivalent returns for your deposit along with risk cover and add-on riders, assisting you in emergency such as in case of an unanticipated situation.

Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs): One of the best long term investment plans, ULIPs offer investors an opportunity to benefit the market linked returns as well as enjoy an added life cover. It is one of the easiest ways for a consumer to enter the stock market, at the same time avail tax benefits which are offered with these products. While choosing ULIPs, consider transparency and the flexibility, depending on the risk profile.

Investors can also choose from following two types of plans:

Money-back Plans: An endowment plan, money-back plans are most effective if you are keen on building large sum of funds at regular intervals. These come handy for those who would like to save for certain purposes at various point of time in their life, for instance for buying various assets. It provides investors with periodic funds payout.

Child Plans: Child Plans are suitable when parents intend to build a monetary protection for their children. These plans help investors to fulfill their child’s future needs such as education and wedding, by providing them with an opportunity to create an asset for their child.

Why a Saving Insurance Plan?

Savings Plans presents a reliable tool for increasing your funds and in turn offering a life cover to its consumers. Below are a few reasons to why one should opt for a Saving Insurance plan:

·         It is one of most secured and systematic way of increasing your assets and in turn fulfilling your life dreams.

·         It safe-guard your investments as well as take care of the changing markets conditions.

·         You get better returns for your savings

·         Assist you in the times of needs. You can cater to all your requirements with the maturity amount you receive.

·         Flexibility of the plan allows you to choose an investment period as per your choice; allowing you to fulfill

·         Your specific requirements at the right time.

·         Best Savings Plan usually has the minimum charges and thus offer you maximum benefits as well as flexibility for cash withdrawal.

How to choose a savings plan:

·         Consider all your financial goals and then choose the plan; decided whether you want a long term or short term plan.

·         Carefully evaluate and keep a balance between risks factors and the returns you will receive; distribute amount properly between the two.

·         Choose a plan which provides you a cover as long as you want and also provides you with enough bonuses and other added benefits.

·         Learn about the various characteristics of the plans before selecting one. For instance, decided whether you want partial withdrawal without letting off the entire policy or want to take the amount only at the time of maturity with all the bonuses and benefits and then opt for one suiting you.

Best time to choose:

There is no particular time to opt for a saving plan. However, it is better to start as early as you can, which ensure a bigger amount of returns. It is also advisable to motivate kids to start saving.

Things to be careful of:

·         Avoid burdening your present financial situation by over investing. Carefully assess your monetary requirements, based on which select the investment amount. Sometimes, investing more than you can comfortably afford can lead to cancellations which in return lead to penalties.

·         Decide the investment tenure, whether you want a mid-term or a long term investment. Evaluate all the probable factors. While finalizing on a plan do keep in mind the inflationary factors so as to get your expected returns.

Best Savings Plan

Top Tax Saving plans Strategies

Paying taxes is relatable to every earning person. Being a necessary evil, taxes are what help run the economy, much as you’d like to evade them completely. However, the government was kind enough to offer a variety of tax saving strategies as a concession. According to section 80C of the Income Tax Act, a sum total of 1.5 lakh rupees may be invested in all these put together so that the same amount may be deducted from your taxable income. We all know that the simplest way to avoid excess tax payments is to pay on time to avoid interest building up on it. For this purpose, there are tax saving strategies which include the following methods:

•             Your best bet is to invest in a public provident fund (PPF) as it guarantees 8.7% tax free compound interest per annum. With a maturity period of 15 years which can be extended to 25, this is a viable source of retirement funds. You could also choose superannuation funds as a pension plan.

•             Investing in tax-free bonds, NSCs (National savings certificates) and ELSS (Equity Linked Savings Schemes) are all profitable from the point of tax savings.

•             Get tax deductions on life insurance policy of any one of your immediate family members. However, only if premium is less than 10% of the assured sum for all the years will you be able to avail this benefit.

•             If you are physically or otherwise disabled, you are liable to receive a tax deduction of up to INR 50,000 on your taxable income. If you are suffering from two different disabilities, you are eligible to receive a tax deduction worth INR 1,00,000 provided you have sufficient proof.

•             Save money while creating assets such as a house. You can save money on a second home if you rent it out. This is because you can avail a deduction for interest on the loan.

•             Involve your family members in a business you run in order to reduce your own taxable income. This puts you in a lower income category while also providing you the tax deduction benefits of your family members. Hence, the total tax paid by your family will be reduced.

•             Choose Saving Plans that do not cause clubbing of your children’s income with yours or gift an education loan to your children to reduce taxes incurred.

How to save enough for family’s secured financial life?

Life is a beautiful picture until you come across the tornado of emergencies, which can shatter your happy life if you don’t have enough savings in hand. Every person faces some or the other emergency at some point of time in life. These emergencies can be tackled by building sufficient corpus over the years under a dedicated effort known as “savings plan.” Saving is a good idea. Every person sets certain financial goals such as long or short term. Depending upon their needs, income source and future projections everyone can work upon saving plans for balanced life. You don't need a big income to save for the things you want in life.

The article gives few tips on working upon your best saving plans to produce healthy corpus to lead financially secured life.

Goal Identification

Make a list of all the things you want to save for. It could be a new house, car, child education, retirement fund anything under the sun. Start off with all your dreams and narrow them down with the priority ones. Remember the more savings goals you have, the more a comprehensive savings plan will help you stay on track to pursue them.

Cost Determination

Next would be figuring out the costs to fulfill your financial goals. These could be loans or one time payments including all the costs such as foreign trips, hospitalization, buying a car or a house, etc. Once you come to consensus on cost involved use saving plans calculators to decide your premium costs.

Target Date

Once you determine the costs and financial goals next would be to assume the time needed to fulfill your wishes. For short term goals which are year or two away, consider keeping your savings in a low-risk savings account that protects your money. For longer-term goals, you may consider investments such as stocks or mutual funds, since a longer period can give you timeframe to recover from stock market fluctuations. When you get closer to your goals it would be good idea to transfer more of your investments to lower-risk savings products.

Calculations

Once you determine these factors divide the total cost of each of your goals by the number of months you want to wait and add them up to see how much you need to save every month. If you want you can use saving plans worksheet to help figure out your monthly savings target.

Adjustments

Best saving plans need a lot of market knowledge, permutations and combinations, and adjustments accordingly to market movements. Compare the monthly target from your savings spreadsheet to your current rate of savings. If you're not saving enough you can increase savings by cutting monthly expenses. Alternatively, adjust your goals, either by removing less important ones or by postponing the goals in future. Savings spreadsheet makes it easy to revise your savings goals until you make necessary financial arrangements.

See Savings grow

Keep a tab on money invested in funds every quarterly. Not only will this help you stick to your personal savings plan, but will also help you identify and fix problems quickly. Besides, seeing your money grow generally boosts your confidence and you tend to take a decisive approach to build best saving plans and hit goals faster. When you have set up your long term savings plan, you'll be building up a good reliable cushion that can add up to future financial security.

Best Tax Saving Plan

Best Tax Saving Plan

Are ULIPs suitable for your investment requirements?

ULIPs in the current avatar are a far better bet compared to traditional plans for a variety of reasons. Let me list a few of them below and suggest why they may be suitable to a lot of people. I will also attempt to compare some of the features with traditional plans and hence the relative suitability for individuals.

·         Risk Appetite: If the person has ZERO risk appetite and is looking for low risk investments, then traditional plans are a better bet. Not that you will know the returns in advance but traditional plans do offer a certain amount of returns historically. Now if you are open to even low or moderate levels of risks, ULIPs are better as you can park your funds in debt funds and secure stable returns. If you see markets performing well you can move your money to more aggressive funds to reap the benefits.

·         ULIPs, like most life insurance products are long term products: ULIPs have a 5 year lock-in period while traditional life insurance plans have a lock-in period of 3 years. There is a positive catch in favour of ULIPs though in this. In case you decide to exit the policy after 5 years what your get in a ULIP will be far greater than what you get in a traditional plan. In traditional plans, you get back only a small portion of the premiums you have paid. In ULIPs you may even stand to make an investment gain if the markets have performed well.

·         Flexibility: Here is where ULIPs score far better than traditional plans. A little related to the point which I mentioned above in “flexibility”, with ULIPs you can decide where your money should be invested or go by the investment strategy of the company provided default option. In uncertain times you can stick to debt funds with low risk and move to growth oriented funds when you see the markets perform better. With a 10 year horizon, you will get enough opportunities to make these small adjustments and make money.

·         Surrender Charges: I wish to highlight this separately as we often find ourselves stuck with a plan and not having the resources to continue with it. The surrender charges will kill you in traditional plans, almost to the extent of banging your head against the wall! You will curse yourself if you buy a traditional Saving plans in a hurry to save tax or because you just felt obliged to the person selling you the plan. Later on when you cannot afford to pay the regular premiums, you stand to lose even the money which you have already invested. In traditional plans you will get only a small portion of the money you have invested in case you exit. With ULIPs, you may find surrender charges to be even zero after a few years. So you may be able to exit even with a profit!

·         Transparency: This is again where ULIPs score very heavily. You know exactly what charges have been levied and how you current account stands. With traditional plans, you know nothing – no information is shared with you. It’s a bit like receiving a bill from 2 hotels – one just mentions the high amount you are charged and the other offers a lower bill but has a complete split of all the charges. Since you now see the complete split of the bill, you tend to fret over the different charges not realising that they are much lower than what the other hotel has charged. But since the high bill amount had no splits you just shrug it off and pay the amount.

Overall, if a person has an investment horizon of 10 years, ULIPs are much better than traditional plans.

Save Tax & defeat the Tax Monster even at the 11th hour!!

Every year, the month of March springs a wakeup call on many of us. Suddenly, we are rushing at breakneck speed, going through financial papers, researching investment instruments, frantically calling the accountant—the deadline to file income tax returns is once again too close for comfort.

There are many reasons why we put off filing our tax returns each year—work, family pressure, and even sheer laziness. We are all wired to procrastinate; blame it on human nature. The point is this: Should we at all be procrastinating about something as crucial as our tax planning ?

Last-minute tax savings: Why it is a problem

Higher financial burden – Last-minute tax savers often have to scrimp during the last few months of the financial year because a bulk of their income is now directed into tax-saving instruments. The problem is compounded by the fact that the largest chunk of income tax is deducted during the final quarter of the financial year—i.e. from January to March.

Greater opportunity for error – Rushing is never a good idea, especially when your financial well-being is at stake. In the hurry to make good on the potential to save tax , you could make poor financial decisions and invest in unsuitable products. For example, a 25-year-old confirmed bachelor with no dependents has little need for life insurance, but he might buy a policy at the last minute in an attempt to save tax.

Dangers of mis-selling – When attempting tax savings at the 11th hour, many people consult agents and blindly take their advice. You should never take an agent’s sales pitch at face value because (a) there is the obvious danger of mis-selling by an unscrupulous agent and (b) even an honest agent may not be sufficiently aware of your financial condition. It is necessary to do your own research, which is not possible at the last minute.

Processing takes time – Note that buying a tax saving investment is not like buying groceries; there are procedures and it takes time. Furthermore, there may be unexpected delays for various reasons. Postpone your  tax planning until too late and you run the danger of missing your tax filing deadline.

Tax Monster

Tax planning: Why you should start early

Make good investments – You should ideally give yourself time to research tax-saving products so that you are certain of getting a good deal. Starting early also ensures that you benefit from the potentially higher rate of returns than your savings bank account would offer you.

Spread out the burden – If you start planning early, you can spread out the cost of making smart investments. Smart planning ensures that you do not have to adopt austerity measures as January comes around in a bid to do save as much tax as possible.

Look at the bigger picture – The longer you procrastinate, the greater the possibility that you will be looking at tax savings through blinkers: Your main goal will then be to Best Saving Plans in that particular year rather than on which tax-saving investment instruments benefit you over the long term. This really is the most important factor in favour of starting early, as it enables you to plan for your financial future in a better and more holistic way.

Top 5 Tax Saving Investment Plans

When Frank Sinatra sang ‘Fly me to the moon…’ he probably wasn’t thinking that we humans would actually make living on the moon possible. Although that plan is for a couple of years away, you could always start saving up to make it to the moon. Tax saving investment plans could just be the best way to help you get that moolah. Surprised?

Read on to find the top five tax saving investment plans that could get you to the moon, figuratively and literally.

Home Loan Principle:

You may wonder how a home loan can be an investment vehicle. A loan is a liability, but a home loan, being a financial assistance for an appreciating asset (like a real estate investment), the principal portion of a home loan repayment works as an investment.

The principal amount paid on any home loan can be used for availing tax benefits with a maximum deduction of Rs 1, 50,000 under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act. But before you get all set to avail the deduction, it is essential to know that this deduction is not available for any principal amount paid for a property under construction. The deduction is also available only for residential properties and not for commercial properties. The total deduction here is inclusive of all other financial instruments offering tax deductions under Section 80C.

Tax Saving Mutual Funds or ELSS: ELSS or Equity Linked Saving Scheme is one of the most popular tax saving instruments that offers handsome returns. ELSS is a diversified equity mutual fund that has a three year lock in period, which is the shortest amid all tax saving instruments. You can save up to Rs.1 lakh on tax under the ELSS scheme.

ELSS funds give returns ranging from 13% to 22% per annum, depending on the type of fund. The average returns of ELSS funds have been around 17.5%. You can join an ELSS fund with a minimum investment of Rs.500 a month as SIP. Any returns received from equity funds after one year are also tax free.

Tax Saving Fixed Deposits: Tax Saving Fixed Deposits allow you to save tax up to Rs.1 lakh under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act. However, the interest earned from these fixed deposits is taxable as per your income tax slab. Tax Saving Fixed Deposits come with a 5 year lock in period with an average return ranging from 8% to 9% per annum.

Banks do not offer any overdraft facility on these fixed deposit investments, unlike normal FDs. The interest for Best Saving Plans fixed deposits is generally compounded quarterly and gets reinvested into the fixed deposit along with the principal amount.

National Savings Certificates (NSC): National Savings Certificates are also tax free deposits allowing you to save up to Rs.1.5 lakhs under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act. Any deposits made under NSC, however, are not tax free as understood wrongly by many investors. But the interest earned can be re-invested to save tax under the same section.

NSC investments can be made at your nearest post office.  NSC investments come with options of a lock-in period for 5 years and 10 years. The rate of interest for investments made under NSC is fixed at 8.50% for five years and 8.8% for ten years. The minimum investment here can be as low as Rs.100.

Rajiv Gandhi Equity Saving Scheme (RGESS): Rajiv Gandhi Equity Saving Scheme (RGESS) offers tax savings up to 50% of the invested amount for the first year for a first time investor. So if you are a first time investor, you can claim a deduction of 50 percent of the invested amount subject to a maximum deduction of Rs. 50,000. However, the deduction can be claimed by only those who have an annual income below 10 lakhs.

The attraction of RGESS is that the deduction offered under it is applicable for money over and above the Rs. 1.5 Lakhs limit available under Section 80C. This scheme has reported returns of about 9.6% during the last financial year.

Source: https://blog.bankbazaar.com/top-5-tax-saving-investment-plans/

Build your castle of happiness with savings plan

Simple living and high standard of thinking is the mantra for success. But due to the ever improving lifestyle pattern, increased competition, high inflation costs simple living has become of a myth in life. Today, people are constantly striving to earn money to match the pace of lifestyle, create a big bank balance for themselves & family and secure their future. However, have you ever wondered will the handful of money that you save in your job or business will help you build a castle of happiness? NO. For this you need to have an out-of-the-box planning, possibly a savings plan that will help you create the desired funds to fulfill you and your family needs time-to-time and build sufficient corpus for future if anything unfortunate happens to you in life. 

Savings insurance plans are the modern day investment tools that help beat inflation costs and build a large corpus. Savings plan offers an insurance cover on your life and additionally helps you grow and develop an adequate amount of wealth through market linked investments. They help you save systematically and provide you different options to invest your savings in funds, on the basis of your risk appetite. The life cover promises the sum assured in case of the insured person sudden demise.

Today, there are various insurance companies in India that provide customized plan for their customers that will fulfill their requirement and most importantly fit into their budget. These plans should be selected keeping in mind three main goals:

Risk Profile- While young you’re free of responsibilities, liabilities and tension so you’re willing to take financial risks, therefore adopt a savings plan that can invest a part of your corpus in risk based funds. You can experiment the funds and produce the requisite savings over a period of time. 

Investment Period - Insurance plans offer a mid-to-long term investment horizon. So carefully choose your funds that can last the investment period and help you provide with better results. ULIP savings are very good long term instruments.

Final Goal – It is crucial to sketch out the purpose of your investments, whether it’s your child education or marriage or retirement, or some other goal.

The article discusses some points that will help you create an efficient savings plan of your choice:

Returns time

It is important to sit and understand whether your goals are short term or long term. This way you can decide where you can pool your money in. These could be risk based funds, debt funds or balanced funds.

Risk Appetite

Understanding your risk appetite is very important. Never set a premium higher than your monthly income source. If you skip a premium, then your policy would be likely to get lapsed. If you prefer safe investment take a look at bonds or securities.

Investment pattern

You have to strategist a plan whether you want to invest a big amount one time or small portion regularly. Invest in risk based funds or debt funds. It is advisable during your young days you can experiment in risk based funds and gradually start reserving your earning in debt funds for your ageing days.

Knowledge

Since these plans have market based earnings you need to have proper knowledge on the topic. Sit with your financial planner and discuss about present status of funds and future projection. For efficient result keep a periodic review (yearly) of your fund investments.

Savings plans not only provides growth to your money but also provide you with financial security at various stages of life. It depends on your needs to select the product size which suits you best. You must go through the scheme documents before taking up any investment scheme. Each financial plan has its own advantages and shortfalls, only a good research will save your hard earn money.

Tax saving Plans - A FEW TAX SAVING TIPS TO SAVE THE DAY

Tax Saving Plans

Buying Online Insurance is a Smart Choice

Today, internet is the buzz world where people can meet, shop, play games or find jobs. Also, Indian market is witnessing a ferocious development of e-commerce industry which is active with acquisitions and mergers. In fact, banking has taken the way of internet and so have the insurance companies in India.

From small steps with simple term plans, insurance sector is now exploring the online market for slightly complex endowment plans and other different policies with a combination of riders. If you spend more time on internet, then explore this medium to purchase insurance policy in India as well.

You will find ample information about insurance products at a simple search. Search and analyze these policies based on comparative data and reviews. Low cost is one of the biggest insurance policy benefits which insurance policyholder can avail only in online mode.

Buying online plans is a very easy process and simple to understand. Insurance service providers offer a range of facilities such as premium calculators, online comparison source along with various plans which buyers can select from.

It clearly means that purchasing online insurance policy in India is not just convenient but cost effective as well. Customers should keep in mind that they need to produce correct medical details and other related documents to make sure that the insurance company processes the insurance policy rider faster.

It helps for quick claim settlement which is more important for an insurance policyholder. The only offline part in this entire process is furnishing the results of medical tests.

Insurers have online helplines which can be approached for detailed information related to Best Saving Plans purchases makes it more cost effective and less time consuming. Customers can make well-researched decisions about purchasing a plan after giving the correct details and risk is reduced to a greater extent.  

How Savings Plans Can Help You Achieve Your Dreams and Goals

Three years ago, my family and I stopped living above our means and put an end to all credit card spending. It wasn't until I was in the habit of regularly tweaking the budget to accomplish things that I began to realize how much others can benefit from creating savings plans like we were.

To kick start your savings plan, choose a dream or goal that you had set aside because you felt it was too expensive or out of reach. By following the four steps below, this dream can be made more affordable and ultimately achievable.

Step 1: Choose your goal or dream. Coming from a family whose income fluctuates as much as the weather (in our case, literally; if it rains, he can't work), I knew that I needed to create a plan if we were going to successfully live without credit and on cash alone. I learned about the importance of saving and budgeting for everything, especially for fun things like holiday gatherings, mini vacations to attend family weddings, parties, and more, and took action. Just because we decide to live below our means doesn’t mean we have to stop living!

Step 2: Research your goal’s costs. Comparison shopping in the age of the internet makes it so much easier to find out how much that dream cruise or beach destination is going cost. Be thorough in your research! Don't stop with hotels and airfare. You'll want to include a budget for all the incidentals too: dining out and entertainment, as well as fare to get around by a cab, bus, subway, or even a car rental. Find the options that best suit you and be as conservative as possible with your estimates.

Step 3: Set a date for achieving your goal. Once you have a date set, it makes it easy to calculate how much money you'll need to set aside each month toward funding your goal. Keep in mind that some goals, like vacations, require payment of a deposit or of the trip in full in advance of the actual trip; always take note of important benchmark dates, like when a deposit is due.

Step 4: Create your savings plan. After you've crunched all the numbers, creating a savings plans is easy. The hard part is sticking to it. I'm not going to lie, those first few months were rough for me. It can be frustrating to resist the impulse to shop or the instant gratification of swiping your card. Think long and hard about any unbudgeted purchase; it could mean the difference between reaching and missing your savings goal’s target date.

Revisit your savings plan often, and you too will experience the excitement that comes with progress. Even under the tightest of circumstances, contributions can be made toward all of your savings goals with careful planning and realistic budgeting.

Source: http://www.americasaves.org/blog/1243-how-savings-plans-can-help-you-achieve-your-dreams-and-goals