I got inspired by this post and wanted to share my thoughts on this topic. I liked the savings from my childhood. My parents inspired me to do savings and I continued that till today. Even though I spend very little compared to my friends or others in general, I focus a lot on savings.
When I was a kid my aunt bought me a piggy bank. It was not actually a piggy bank but a compact lion bank. All the coins that I used to get during my childhood will go inside that lion bank. I was also very curious about counting my coins now and then. I hate converting them to notes because if I go to higher denominations, I get a feeling that I have only less amount of coins, so I always prefer having it more in quantity than in value due to childhood ignorance.
So, this is how my saving habit started. Today I allocate a big part of my income towards savings. I have the following investment schemes that I have been doing for several years.
Provident fund
This is a mandatory saving that most of the employees in India do. There are a few people who withdraw these funds and spend them as well. But I'm not planning to touch this fund at all. Like @r1s2g3 mentioned in his article, having it till our retirement gives lots of benefits including tax benefits as well. I'm planning to accumulate as much as I can. I'm not sure how long I would continue working but until I work, I'm going to be continuing it.
There is also another investment scheme called the Public Provident fund. This is a fund where people can do investments in a flexible manner. Any value can be invested in this public provident fund. There is a tax exception available for investing 150000 Rs per year. The minimum value for investment is also just 500 Rs. which is affordable for many people. There are 25 years locking period for this and we will not be able to withdraw this fund but we can take a loan on that with a limited interest percentage.
Liquid savings
It is important to have liquid savings. I allocate a part of my earnings to the liquid funds. There is a scheme in ICICI bank called iWish that offers flexible Fixed Deposit. The interest percentage is also pretty decent. I keep investing in this to handle any emergency need in my life. Though it doesn't give the full ROI that a regular FD can give, I at least get the flexibility to cash out at any time. Within 20 minutes I get my funds to the bank account and most of the time it is instant.
Investing in Cryptocurrencies
After I saw the drastic growth of BTC in the last few years, I don't want to miss this and bite my nails after 10 years. I invested a decent sum when BTC was 5000 USD and sold it when it reached 10000 USD. That is my only successful BTC trade. After that, I did not bother to invest in BTC but would like to invest in other cryptocurrencies that have great potential. Though I'm not bringing so much money from my real world into the crypto world, I have been investing a little now and then.
Most of the earnings and savings here on cryptocurrencies are from the earnings I do. Most of the income is from blogging and other crypto investment that gives staking rewards and other rewards.
Till today I have not taken any funds from the Crypto world into my real world. I don't have any plans to do it now as well. I would like to keep it here and keep investing in some solid projects and cash out when it is the right time. This is going to be my strategy for now.
