When Opportunity Comes Knocking at Your Door, Are You Ready?

• Mitraz
• June 1 2019

"It’s so good to see someone setting up a Trust or an NGO for the purposes they believe in. Not everyone can fund a cause, always. Must have been easy for you, eh Anil? said Rakesh, while sipping on a cup of Chai. “On the contrary, Rakesh. It’s true that we wanted to start off with an NGO which would be a school and a therapy for children with disability, however we always envisioned it to be setup when we retire”, replied Anil. “What I have been able to realize is that we don’t need to plan to be ready, but rather be ready to plan”, he further added. “That’s pretty cryptic, man! I don’t get you.”, said Rakesh with a bemused expression. “How do you plunge into anything without being ready for it? How did you arrange for the finances and registration? Surely you two would have had to sacrifice your lifestyle”, he added.

Start Early. Save Wisely. Retire Happily.

That’s the misconception, my friend. You don’t have to sacrifice but plan and be ready. It’s quite simple, if you want to do anything, the right time is now!”, said Anil. “Did you contact a soothsayer before venturing?”, asked Rakesh in disbelief. Anil smiled and replied, “No! Just my financial adviser”. “My advice would be to always get an adviser who understands that a portfolio is just meant not for generating returns, but for fulfilling your aspirations”. He concluded. “Are you confusing your financial adviser for a friend?”, joked Rakesh. “Should there be a difference?”, asked an elated Anil as he relaxed into his armchair humming to himself.

Flashback

Often torn between the amount of money that we are making and the aspirations that we have, we convince ourselves to settle for a “better time” in the future because we are always more optimistic about our future income to satisfy our desire and worry about constraints in our current scenario.
Anil and Romila, a young couple, have always lived by their pragmatic principles of simply working hard and dreaming big. This is something that most of us, and in this case, his friend – Rakesh, also do. Then, the obvious question is how did Anil and Romila manage to pull off something that others find difficult to do.
The answer lies here: “Don’t plan to be ready, rather to be ready to plan”. They planned to save first, then spend rather the other way around.
Anil was sure that if the money stays in his bank account, it will be spent in one way or the other, so he used every single penny of savings to build an investment portfolio. But that only takes care of beating inflation. So that brings us to the next question, “can we couple the portfolio investment with our goals?” If your portfolio can be structured in a way that aligns with your goals, then you don’t have to wait for an opportunity in the future to fulfill your desires.
Kids, especially the ones who are differently abled, show greater progress when they are nurtured with people they trust. Winding-up of the Trust would mean that the safe space for their son, along with 20 other kids would be lost forever. The couple saw this as an opportunity knocking at their doors for creating a Trust themselves and running it.
A quick call with their Financial Adviser helped them work on the requirements and understand the support needed from their portfolio. The comfort provided by the Financial Adviser gave them the necessary confidence to take the plunge, without sacrificing on their current lifestyle. While they still needed to fully fund their retirement corpus, their aspiration to run an NGO needn’t be postponed.
The next question was involved with the bureaucratic process required for incorporating and running a Trust. The Financial Adviser assisted in setting up the Trust, complying with the Income Tax certifications and design a basic finance model which made the whole deal pragmatic and achievable.
When the Management at the therapy center, an incorporated Trust, where Anil & Romila were taking their son for speech therapy, announced to wind-up their operations due to financial reasons, they were left in despair. Our desires are plenty, but often the money is not. This basic theme propels us not to get lost in the chase to earn more money. In the entire chase we often forget that getting more money is only a means. Until our aspirations are fulfilled the money in our bank account or the returns on our portfolio will always remain a number.

Key Take Away

It is often told that investments and portfolio have everything to do with timing. We often deliberate with what is the best time for investments. The best time do anything is “now”. In other words, ...