Blog Page 471

Expense Tracker Google Forms

Shitanshu Kapadia
-
1
Expense Tracker Google Forms

google docs

Tracking expenses is an essential need to control finances. Each of one uses different mechanisms to track spending, like Excel sheets, smartphone apps, or certain software on desktop, but the bottom line is the same to track where each penny/rupee is going.

I am herewith way to make a simple expense tracker using Google Docs, this expense tracker will take details of your expenses in a simple form. It will allow you to track your expenses not only you can do analysis by using built-in charts anytime. So let’s check out how you can make your own ‘Simple expense tracker” using Google Docs.

Expense Tracker using Google Docs

Step 1:- Create a new Google Docs – Form

Login to Google Docs using your Google account once you are inside click on create “form” tab as shown below.

google form

Once you click this tab it will open a new window where you can create a form. We will use this form to enter spending details.

Step 2:- Create a basic expense tracking form

We will now create a basic form with the following fields:

  1. How much?       – Money Spending
  2. Spends on:-  A description of the spending
  3. Category:- A      list of categories for spending

google spend tracker

The first step is to name the form. I have chosen “Spending Tracker”. You can give your own name. Next, add three basic questions, as shown above, the process is very simple, just try for yourself. Finally, save expenditure tracking form.

Step 3:- Enter Expense in the form

Once you are done, open the link which is marked by the red box in the above figure, or Identified by “You can view the published form here”. Don’t forget to bookmark this link. This is the URL you will access whenever you want to enter a new expense.

The form will look like this:-

spending tracker

Just start adding your expenses once you enter a few expenses the spreadsheet will look like this:

spreadsheet

Google adds the time stamp for each expense made by you. So you don’t have to worry about entering the expense date. You can use this tracker to track your spending. (provided you enter information as soon as possible)

Step 4:- Analysis of Expense

Google docs also give you the facility to analyze your expenses, just use built-in charts in Google Docs to do some analysis of the expenses. I did a bar chart to show what is possible.

chart

So, what are you waiting for just click here to take a test drive for the expense tracker made using Google Docs.

Gold linked investment products – Alternative to Physical Gold by RBI

Shitanshu Kapadia
-
0
Gold linked investment products – Alternative to Physical Gold by RBI

gold

Gold is making record in terms of price every day. It seems it is only asset class growing in value & Indian people has gold mania they are investing in gold like anything. According to world gold council estimate 800 tonnes of net gold is imported by India in 2012 for domestic consumption, This seems to be very high.

To reduce pressure on gold imports and to manage the country’s obsession with gold investment RBI (Reserve Bank of India) is planning to introduce gold-linked products to promote the use of gold as a financial asset.

RBI aim will be to find a way to promote products that people can invest in but which are not dependent on physical possession of gold, said by Subir Gokarn, deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India. Something like dematerialized form of GOLD but are not entirely dependent on physical possession.

RBI may consider modified gold deposit schemes, gold-linked accounts, gold accumulation plans and gold pension plans.

gold linked products

Gold Deposit Schemes:-

Modified gold deposit schemes would be where investors could hold physical gold deposits with banks for a definite period of time. It is kind of fixed deposit in Gold. The customers can deposit their idle gold.

This modified GDS (Gold Deposit schemes), will be suitable for mid-size investors, here interest will be paid in the form of ‘gold’ after maturity.

However, gold will not be returned in the original form.

Gold Linked Accounts:-

They would be non-interest bearing accounts, giving users the exposure to gold markets- where the gold would be purchased and hedged abroad.

As this yellow metal will be hedged abroad and physical delivery of the metal will not arise. At the end of the maturity period, the customer disposes of the gold and gets equivalent of cash. This account will allow easy entry and exit.

Gold Accumulation plan:-

Gold accumulation plans would be in the form of systematic investment plans where small quantities could be bought at regular intervals just like mutual funds.

Though the returns could fluctuate, over time the average cost of accumulation goes down. Physical delivery is quite low.

Gold Pension plan:-

Gold pension plan targeted at senior citizens while allowing reverse mortgage of properties.

According to the plans, banks will open an annuity plan with the insurance companies for definite period. Though banks will not return the jewellery, the high return is expected to attract the gold owners, said Gokarn.

Currently, huge quantity of gold is laying with Indian household which if government assures of good returns with some schemes like this, would come in circulation resulting into lower import of the metal into the country. It would save dollar for other imports and ultimately help the country to use the foreign currency for future. According to this is good step by RBI for country.

Saving for Child education is not child’s play

Shitanshu Kapadia
-
1
Saving for Child education is not child’s play

Education Saving

Mr.Rakesh Mishra Mumbai Mumbai-based MNC employee earns a good salary of Rs 60,000 and has only liability in terms of Home loan EMI. Yet every quarter his bank balance drops close to four digits, this is because every quarter amount close to 35000 Rs/- goes to school and tuition fees of his sons Shyam and Ram.

He keeps on praying that no unexpected expense turns up during this time. This could be the case with you A massive surge in education costs in the past five years has stretched the monthly budgets of middle-class families like anything.

According to an Assocham survey of 2,000 families across 15 cities, the annual school education expense on a child has risen from Rs 35,000 five years ago to Rs 94,000 now. It is observed that the cost of education usually rises twice as fast as normal inflation.

If you are worrying about this sharp rise in school education expenses, there’s a bigger time bomb ticking away. Higher education costs are growing at an even faster rate. The average fees of an Engineering course is roughly Rs 6 Lakh today, five years down the line it would be close to double meaning Rs 12 Lakh. In 10 years’ time, it’s likely to cost around Rs 20 Lakh.

Education Cost

The cost of the MBA course has grown even faster current cost is approximately 15 Lakh and is expected to be 40 Lakh after 5 years. MBA is likely to cost 60 Lakh in 2027.

This exponentially growing cost has no dead end. Many of you are planning for your retirement but looking to the future cost of education you must plan for your child’s education.

If the current trend continues then to make your child an Engineer or MBA like you is not child’s play.

You have to save & invest enough money for your child’s education.

Save Education Cost

If you are thinking that you need to save only for fees then you are wrong your child’s school fee is not only an expense related to the child’s education. A lot of other expenses is involved in child education. There are books, stationery, uniforms, transportation, projects, picnics, annual school/college functions, sports, extra-curricular activities etc.

The estimated annual cost for one child is formulated in the below table. You can put your figures and see how much it costs in your pocket.

Education Cost

As we said saving for child education is not child’s play but if you think long term and invest Rs 5,000 a month in an option that delivers a 12% return every year, you would build a Rs 25 lakh corpus in 15 years.

If you can manage to increase this investment amount by Rs 1,000 every year and then your corpus will be almost doubled and you can build to Rs 50 lakh for child education.

It seems very simple, it is but parents should feel strongly that they need to save regularly for child education one of the crucial financial goals.

Remember your Investment amount, discipline & selection of the right asset class will decide whether your child goes to a premier institute like IIT, or IIM for higher studies or ends up doing a correspondence course in a small institute. This education will also decide the career path he plans for himself.

Essesnse of this article is not to increase your worry about the cost of child education but to make yourself aware of the situation so that appropriate steps can be taken.

Free Smart Phone Apps to Manage your Money

Shitanshu Kapadia
-
0
Free Smart Phone Apps to Manage your Money

Finance Apps

Do you know how much money you spend in a month? Do you know the percentage of your spending on different categories like house hold, food, entertainment or health/medicine? It is advisable to keep an eye on the income and expenses. This will help you be aware of your financial situation and you will know how much you need to save for future needs.

Technology touches life, in good old days people were using notebook and pens to track and calculate monthly expenses and saving. Than we used excel based tool to track expense. Today technology has shrunk the world on our 3X2 inches mobile screens. Everyone wants everything on mobile. Yes we can track our expenses, set payment reminders and manage bills all with a few taps and clicks with a variety of applications available for smart phones. Here are free smart phone apps to manage your money in better manner.

Expense Manger:

If managing your expenses is an issue, this app will help you with your monthly budgeting. This app is available for the Android platform.  Features of Expense manager are:-

  • Just feed in your expenses and income and you will be able to track the same on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.
  • Schedule payments and recurring payments like electricity bill. Automatically add expense is to defined category. For example if you have a category like “Utilities” then payment towards electricity bills would be added to this category.
  • Get alert for payment dues.
  • Generate dynamic reports. You can also export the data to excel files to do more analysis.
  • Data can be stored SD card & Dropbox account.

 Toshl Finance:

Toshl is easy to use mobile app to organize your expenses in a streamlined manner. This application is available for multiple platforms Android, Blackberry, Symbian or Windows. Features of Free version of Toshl Finance are:-

  • Track expenses and incomes with ease
  • Set up repeating expenses and incomes to organize your bills
  • Export your expense reports into CSV
  • Lock this application using passcode
  • Graph generation a& visualization of your finances with infographic
  • Automatic Backup mechanism

This apps also has paid version Toshl Finance pro, Incase if you are ready to purchase Toshl Finance Pro than you can have advantage of adding multiple incomes, advance fancy graph facility, searching within expense you can also export this report in Excel, pdf or doc.

Money Lover:

Money lover is another application to track income and expense. This apps is available for iOS and Android. Features of Money Lover are:-

  • Budgets for different expense categories for various time periods
  • Supports 45 different currencies and many languages
  • Alert/ Reminder of dues
  • Income / Expense Category modification
  • Backup and restore facility

You can download these Apps from Google App store.

There are many apps available in google play app store like Expensify, Manila, Perfios, Quicken or Mint which allow you to manage your entire personal finances. You can manage your portfolio, manage your bank accounts and do a whole lot of other activities.

Do you use any mobile app to manage your money? Do share your experience via comments.

1...470471472...484Page 471 of 484