Where will you be FINANCIALLY five years from today?

The financial secret of moving from where you are and where you want to be?


Would you like to know the financial secret behind moving from where you are and where you want to be? Try to answer this question. “Where will you be financially five years from now? 10 years from now…? 20 years from now…?”

You may get answers like “I will be financially stronger”, “I want to be financially better”. Are these answers specific? If you don’t know where you want to go exactly, there is no focus. When there is no focus; there will be lot of distraction. Distraction either leads to mediocrity or destruction.

How to refrain yourself heading towards mediocrity or destruction? You need to set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound Financial Goals. That is S.M.A.R.T. Financial goals.

Let me take you through step by step to set SMART Financial goals.

1) List down Financial Goals:
Write down all your financial goals like buying a house, kid’s education, Vacation, Retirement and so on. You may wonder why this mechanical act of writing financial goals is so important. You can be thinking something without actually realizing what that something is. It is intangible and so it is not clearly defined in your mind.

When you start putting that thought into words and you try expressing it, an amazing thing begins to happen. By creating it in words, that abstract thought now takes on body, shape, form, substance. It is no longer just a thought. It becomes something which motivates you, or creates a gut feeling inside.

Your dream becomes a goal the moment you write it down. Say one of your dreams is to buy a house. You dream about it a lot. But the moment you started writing it down, your mind will ask yourself “when, where, how many square feet, how many bedrooms?” This writing gives clarity to your goal and it forces your mind to find out the ways and means to achieve the goal.

2) Categorize and Prioritize:

You need to categorise your financial goals based on the timeframe. Generally the financial goals less than 3 years are short term financial goals. The goals to be achieved in the next 4 to 7 years are medium term goals and the financial goals to be achieved after 7 years are long term goals. This categorization will help you in building a roadmap to achieve your goals and also in selecting the right investment products.

Your daughter’s wedding would be more important to you than the international vacation. Buying a house is more important than buying a farm house. This prioritization will help you in creating a better financial plan. Suppose if you are in deficit, you know which financial goal need to be compromised and which are all the financial goals you want o achieve irrespective of the deficit.

3) Fixing a target date:

Fixing a target date for your financial goals may look like a dump idea. How do I know in advance the date of buying my house, the date of my daughter’s wedding? But if you are not fixing it, then you will not be financially prepared for that. If you are financially prepared and the goal event is not taking place at that time and getting postponed for some reasons, you will not have any financial worries. You will be financially ready from thereafter with on enough money to meet that goal.

Fixing a target date will psychologically influence your thought process to work on that goal. Also the moment you fix the target date your mind starts running a countdown. Only when you know that after how many years from now you want to achieve the goal, you will be able to make a financial plan.

4) Estimating the cost:

First you need to estimate the cost as of today. If you are planning to save for your daughter’s wedding which is expected to take place after 10 years, first you need to calculate the cost of the wedding in today’s prices. Then you need to adjust it for inflation of 10 years. Now you will have the future value of your target.


5) How much to save?
Once you have found out the future value of the goal, you can easily decide on how much you need to invest in order to reach the targeted future value. Initially you may only be able to contribute less. But year after year you can increase this contribution based on your increment/promotion/income growth.

So you need to take into account the expected growth rate on your salary or business/professional income in calculating how much to save towards each and every financial goal.

6) Budget the savings:

As you know by now exactly how much to save towards each and every goal, you need to accommodate these savings in your budget. If you do this year after year, then you can see all your financial goals becoming reality.

The difference between a goal and a dream is the written word. I am confident that you will come to find that financial goal setting works and that it will soon become a way of life for you.
Start setting your financial goals today.

The author is Ramalingam K, an MBA (Finance) and Certified Financial Planner. He is the Founder and Director of Holistic Investment Planners (http://www.holisticinvestment.in/) a firm that offers Financial Planning and Wealth Management. He can be reached at ramalingam@holisticinvestment.in

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PARUPPU THOGAIYAL (A chutney made with Lentils)

PARUPPU THOGAIYAL (A chutney made with Lentils)

After the Diwali snacks and sweets onslaught, I am thinking of foods which are easy to digest and lighter on the stomach. Togayal is one such dish which usually is a treat to the taste buds and light on the stomach as well. Thogayal is generally served as an accompaniment to a meal.

I made bottle gourd kootu and paruppu thogayal and it felt like a slice of heaven.

Paruppu thogayal can be eaten with Idly, dosai or any snack. We can also eat this by mixing it with hot rice and a dollop of ghee or some gingelly oil.

This thogayal can be made with Moong dal or toor dal. I used moong dal as it’s a healthier option.

Add caption

Ingredients

Yellow split Moong dal / Pigeon Pea (Toor dal) – 1 cup

Coconut – 2 tbsps (Freshly grated)

Dry red chilli – 1 (To taste)

Curry leaves – A sprig

Peppercorns – 1 tsp

Asafetida – ½ tsp

Salt as per taste

Oil – 1-2 tbsp

Method

Heat oil in a Wok (kadhai), Add the Yellow split moong dal or Toor dal (whichever you are using) and the red chillies and roast until the dals turn pink and the chillies turn plump. Keep aside on a plate. Dry roast the peppercorns and keep aside. Now add the coconut, salt, curry leaves and asafetida and roast until the coconut is light pink in color and a lovely aroma is emanating, allow this to cool down as well.

Now, run the roasted dal mixture in the dry mill of your blender to a coarse powder consistency. Keep aside.

After this, run the roasted coconut. Mix the dal mixtures and coconut mixture together.

Check for the salt, if required, add at this stage Run once more in the blender with some water(about 4-5 tablespoonful), This time don’t run the blender too much, just one spin would be enough. Remember, don’t make it a fine powder. The mix should be coarse.  

This should be coarse as shown in the picture not too fine. If you grind all the ingredients together and not separately as directed then you will notice that the dals don’t get powdered and if you run it too much to ensure that the dals get powdered then the mixture will be too fine and not so tasty. All the ingredients get grounded at different levels hence it has to be done separately. The best way to grind it is always using a stone manual grinder and if not you can achieve the similar taste if you grind in the wet/dry automated grinder which we use nowadays to grind idly/dosa batter.

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BADHUSHA

BADHUSHA

I would like to wish all the visitors, 

A VERY HAPPY & PROSPEROUS DIWALI.

These days I look for sweets which are less sweet. I usually have Badhusha in a shop here in Singapore and adore it because it’s not that sweet as other sweets, so this Diwali I decided to make Badhusha also known as Balushahi in some parts of India. While I was browsing for a no-fail recipe I stumbled across Raks kitchen (Raks happens to be a fellow blogger from Singapore as well) and found this wonderful step by step recipe with pictures. I had tried making Badhusha earlier but it was a huge flop as it came out very hard. I didn’t want to try any stunts and followed exactly as mentioned in her blog.

Ingredients

Maida/All purpose flour -1 ½  cups

Butter – ¼ cup

Oil – 1/8 cup

Sugar - ½ tsp

Curd – 1 ½ tsp

Cooking soda/sodium bi carbonate - 2 pinches

Water - ¼  cup (approx.)

Oil - for deep frying

For Syrup

Sugar - ½ cup

Water - Just to immerse the sugar

Cardamom powder -      2 pinches

Saffron Optional - a pinch

Lemon Juice - 1 tsp

Method

In a big bowl, Add melted butter, oil, sugar, curd and sodium bi-carb and use a whisk to mix well, to make it almost frothy. Now add the flour to it and mix well to make it crumbly. Now add water to make the dough, I used ¼ cup of water only, it was just right, kindly adjust accordingly. Knead the dough well like you do for chappati. The dough should be smooth and not have any lumps. Knead well till you feel it is smooth. I kneaded for about 10 mins. Beating and folding the dough and trying to make it as smooth as possible. I made 23 small balls out of this, as I made slightly smaller sized badhushas. You can adjust the size according to how you want it. Now take a ball and pinch the edges and fold it inwards to make rims decoratively (You can refer to Raks blog where she has uploaded a video to show how it is done). I didn’t have much patience so I tried only 2 pieces with decorative rims and the rest I just made by flattening the balls and putting a depression in the middle with my index finger. Repeat to finish everything and keep covered.

Meanwhile add sugar to a pan and just add water to immerse it and boil till one string consistency,

i.e; if you pour in little water, it should not dissolve and it should lay a fine thread. Add saffron, cardamom if desired and squeeze the lemon juice lastly.

Heat oil just enough, check it by adding a pinch of batter, if it rises immediately, then its just right. Don’t let the oil fume at any point.

Add some five badushas, we prepared, carefully in to the oil. Remove from fire and let it get cooked in the pre heated oil. Approximately it would take 5 minutes.

At one stage the badushas float, then again keep the kadai on fire and cook in medium-low flame, adjust heat at the end to make it golden brown, for me it took around 5-8 mins.

Drain in a paper towel and immediately add to the hot sugar syrup, to cover the badusha, Since my badushas were small I put in 5 at a time.  Leave for a minute and then drain the badushas to a greased surface.

After it cools down, the sugar syrup would have coated the badhusha beautifully, transfer to a dry container. Enjoy this sweet this Deepawali.

Notes

• If you reduce the quantity of butter or oil, then there will be drastic change in the texture of the badushas too, it will turn hard or crispy. You won’t get the layers inside too.
• Adding lemon juice is to prevent crystallization of the sugar syrup.
• Be patient while frying, please do as mentioned, otherwise the texture gets affected too.
• Consume within a week. Do not refrigerate.

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List of Government Holidays in Tamilnadu

01.Jan - Sunday - New Year
15.Jan - Sunday - Pongal
16.Jan - Monday - Thiruvalluvar Day
17.Jan - Tuesday - Uzhavar Thirunal
26.Jan - Thursday - Republic Day
05.Feb - Sunday - Meelad-Un-Nabi
23.Mar - Friday - Telugu New Year
05.Apr - Thursday - Mahaveer Jayanthi
06.Apr - Friday - Good Friday
13.Apr - Friday - Tamil New Year
14.Apr - Saturday - Dr.Ambedkar's Birthday
01.May - Tuesday - May Day
15.Aug - Wednesday - Independence Day
20.Aug - Monday - Ramzan
08.Sep - Saturday - Krishna Jayanthi
19.Sep - Wednesday - Vinyakar Chathurthi
02.Oct - Tuesday - Gandhi Jayanthi
23.Oct - Tuesday - Ayutha Pooja
24.Oct - Wednesday - Vijayadasami
27.Oct - Saturday - Bakrid
13.Nov - Tuesday - Deepavali
25.Nov - Sunday - Muhharam
25.Dec - Tuesday - Christmas

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RA One

Director           Anubhav Sinha

Cast                 Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Armaan Verma, Shahana Goswami, Dalip Tahil, Satish Shah, Suresh Menon, Sanjay Dutt, Rajanikant, Tom Wu

Year                2011

Genre              Action

I had passed judgement on RA. One after seeing the first trailer itself.  It looked so much like Tron Legacy that I was completely turned off with the idea of RA.One.  You could argue with me that I get too biased too soon but my regular readers would agree with me that of late, I have tried my very best, not to be biased at all – and successfully at that.  I was in fact hoping and praying for a good movie to begin an otherwise dull Diwali day.  However, it was not meant to be.  Approximately 100 seconds into the movie, when you come across the characters of Lucifer and Desi Girl (Priyanka Chopra), you do check if you are in the right movie hall.  And then the corniest characters of all come in – Bruce Lee’s sisters i.e. Iski Lee, Uski Lee and Sabki Lee and you are left, yet again praying that it is just a bad start to an otherwise good movie.  But the final nail on the coffin is drilled about 2 minutes later when the Khalnayak i.e. Villain (Sanjay Dutt) says, “Abhi Spiderman ko maarke aaya hoon – Baygon Spray se”.

About 140 minutes later (if you survive that long), you are left with teeth that have almost been chewed and hair that is disheveled to say the least.  You have just been subjected to the latest method of torture (cannot venture to comment on the country of origin because I have yet to discover the same) – movies designed for the IQ of a 2 year old.  It progressively reduces itself over time to the IQ of a 1 year old over the period as defined 2 sentences back.  Not surprising therefore that the cricket team of kids to my right had a blast.  I can assure you that us adults would not get what the hullabaloo is all about.  The guy at the snacks counter did mention to me, “Bachchon ki film hai sir” (It’s a movie meant for kids. 

Anubhav Sinha is not best known for producing block buster movies as such but Cash and Tathasthu weren’t really atrocious if you know what I mean.  They were slickly made and had reasonable consistency.  At least they didn’t show Karwa Chauth before Dushera… duh!!!! Come on Mr. Sinha you could have at least sequenced your movie well.  And lets not go down the direction track because poor Anubhav seems to have lost whatever basic capabilities he had in this department.

One cannot expect much in the acting department when King Khan is sharing screen space with the appallingly irritable Kareena Kapoor – some may argue that she looks heavenly in the movie but I can assure you that the only angels you will find in the movie are those which are referred to in a couple of sentences.  Newbie child artiste – Armaan Verma looks more like a girl than a boy throughout the movie. I mean whats with his hair yaar??? And girls who thought would get a glimpse of the chiseled Arjun Rampal would be disappointed with his 4 minutes and 38.5 seconds on screen in the role of Pi / 2 aka Ra.One.  Shahana Goswami is much too talented to be wasted on movies like these.  Please to be reconsidering your choices in future. 

Overdoing the Tamil angle also didn’t quite go well with my roots.  And whats with “Paityakaran (Mad Man)” playing continuously in the background for about 10 mins after the movie started.  The only Tamil angle and probably the only good part of the movie was the 30 seconds that the one and only superstar of today made his presence felt.  As the joke goes, Shah Rukh made a 2.5 hour special appearance in the movie that was led by Thalaivar.  Rajani just dazzles in the role of Chitti. 

Discouraging you from watching RA One will fall on deaf years because it is destined to beat Bodyguard in terms of first week collections.  But try to avoid it.  Its no more than a 3 on 10 and that too for some good special effects and of course the track that is going to be around for a while – Chammak Challo

Oh yes and as I had tweeted – taking inspiration from Tron or Hancock or Iron Man or Terminator is definitely acceptable.  But doing the same from “You Don’t mess with the Zohan”???? What??? Zohan??? Come on Anubhav Sinha – what in the blazes were you thinking.

Sorry about the longish review.  An extremely frustrated viewer here as you can see.

Trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1860607513/

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KeepWrite wishes its readers & contributors a very Happy Diwali !

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7am Arivu Movie Review

The most hyped film of recent times "7am Arivu" (Seventh Sense) is a mixed bag of sorts. To begin with the film has a documentary style of telling the viewers about the life and journey of Bodhidharmar (Surya) who from a prince in Kanchi in the year 520 A.D travels to China and becomes a powerful saint who gets to cure diseases that didn't have a cure and also help the Chinese people learn self-defense in the form of the famous Martial Art Kung-Fu.

The movie does keep the viewers glued to their seats for the first 20 minutes. However, when the plot moves to the present day where our hero who is a circus artist Aravindan (Surya) gets to meet his lady love Subha Srinivasan (Debutant Sruthi Hassan) things tend to drag a bit with the usual run-of-the-mill romance sequences. The only thing here is that the heroine is a genetic student who is involved in doing some path-breaking research.

Aravindan when he gets to know the real reason behind Subha's purpose of meeting him gets totally shaken and then when Subha explains him the importance of her research, he is in awe of things that has happened 1600 years ago and its impact on humanity now.

Simultaneously walks in the villain Dong Lee (Johnny Tri Ngyuen) the martial arts student who comes to India to unleash Operation Red, things start to heat up. The villain then follows Subha and Aravindan in a bid to successfully complete Operation Red plans to assassinate both but as cinematic logic cannot be defied, the hero overcomes all odds.

In the end what happens to the hero and what are the sequences that build to the climax is well told in this 165 minute film. The screenplay has lot of loop holes in it but at the same time, the entertainment quotient doesn't take a beating. There are good amount of fights, songs and romantic sequences which keeps the normal movie going audience happy.

Harris Jeyaraj's music though is a huge disappointment. Ravi K Chandran's cinematography is exemplary. In terms of acting, Surya shines in patches though his overall performance is nothing great to brag about. Sruthi Hassan looks very pretty on screen but her acting lacks the substance and one hopes she gets a longer rope in Tamil to prove her mettle further.

"7am Arivu" - Worth the watch.

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