Financial Planning: Gaurav Mashruwala

I am 54. My daughter will be getting married next year. I have been investing for six years in mutual funds (MF) for her. As I started late, I aggressively invested in equity-diversified funds (Rs 15,000 monthly) and accumulated about Rs 14 lakh. Given the current volatility, my investment has eroded significantly. Should I exit and put the money in fixed deposits? Or should I use investments in PPF (Rs 15 lakh to mature next year) and leave the MF investment?
Ideally, you should have started moving out of equity funds about two years prior to your goal. Always move funds out of equity when the goal is less then two to three years away. You could start moving Rs 1 lakh monthly from equity funds into debt-oriented MF. Thus you could arrive at 10-15 per cent in equity and the rest in debt. Also, the Rs 15,000 you are saving monthly should be deployed in debt. About three months prior to marriage, if there is a shortfall in funds, use the PPF corpus. I am assuming that the PPF corpus is being accumulated for retirement. If it is more than five years away, then please renew the PPF account for another five years.

I am getting an attractive discount for a vacation in Australia. But I don't have sufficient funds. I can use my credit card, but won't be able to afford it. Alternatively, I can take a personal loan. What do you suggest? The vacationing cost for two is about Rs 1.2 lakh. My monthly income is Rs 75,000, and expenses Rs 30,000. We have neither dependents nor loans. Also, we don't invest heavily (Rs 10,000 per month).
Spending for a vacation through the credit card is not a good strategy. Also the interest on its dues is nearly 36 per cent annually. Since you will not be able to pay on time, credit card usage is not advisable. Personal loans, are more economical. But going on vacations using borrowed funds is not advisable either.

From the income and expense details provided, it can be seen that you can save Rs 30,000-Rs 35,000 in a month. Saving this money on a monthly basis will help you accumulate the corpus in four to five months.

The writer is a certified financial planner. The views expressed are personal. You can send in your queries to yourmoney@bsmail.in