Nine Personal Finance Rules we all must know: An Interesting Read

Nine Personal Finance Rules we all must know

1) Rule of 72 (Double Your Money)
2) Rule of 70 (Inflation)
3) 4% Withdrawal Rule
4) 100 Minus Age Rule
5) 10, 5, 3 Rule
6) 50-30-20 Rule
7) 3X Emergency Rule
8) 40? EMI Rule
9) Life Insurance Rule

1) Rule of 72

No. of yrs required to double your money at a given rate, U just divide 72 by interest rate
Eg, if you want to know how long it will take to double your money at 8% interest, divide 72 by 8 and get 9 years.

At 6% rate, it will take 12 years
At 9% rate, it will take 8 years

2) Rule of 70

Divide 70 by current inflation rate to know how fast the value of your investment will get reduced to half its present value.

Inflation rate of 7% will reduce the value of your money to half in 10 years.

3) 4% Rule for Financial Freedom

Corpus Required = 25 times of your estimated Annual Expenses.

Eg- if your annual expense after 50 years of age is 500,000 and you wish to take VRS then corpus with you required is 1.25 crore.

Put 50% of this into fixed income & 50% into equity.

Withdraw 4% every year, i.e.5 lacs.

This rule works for 96% of time in 30 years period

4) 100 minus your age rule

This rule is used for asset allocation. Subtract your age from 100 to find out, how much of your portfolio should be allocated to equities

Suppose your Age is 30 so (100 – 30 = 70)

Equity : 70%
Debt : 30%

But if your Age is 60 so (100 – 60 = 40)

Equity : 40%
Debt : 60%

5) 10-5-3 Rule

One should have reasonable returns expectations

10? Rate of return – Equity / Mutual Funds
5? – Debts ( Fixed Deposits or Other Debt instruments)
3? – Savings Account

6) 50-30-20 Rule – about allocation of income to expense

Divide your income into
50? – Needs  (Groceries, rent, emi, etc)
30? – Wants / Desires (Entertainment, vacations, etc)
20? – Savings  (Equity, MFs, Debt, FD, etc)

At least try to save 20? of your income. You can definitely save more…

7) 3X Emergency Rule

Always put atleast 3 times your monthly income in Emergency funds for emergencies such as Loss of employment, medical emergency, etc.

3 X Monthly Income

In fact, one can have around 6 X Monthly Income in liquid or near liquid assets to be on a safer side.

8) 40? EMI Rule

Never go beyond 40? of your income into EMIs.

Say if you earn, ? 50,000 per month. Then you should not have EMIs more than ? 20,000 .

This Rule is generally used by Finance companies to provide loans. You can use it to manage your finances.

9) Life Insurance Rule

Always have Sum Assured as 20 times of your Annual Income.

20 X Annual Income

Say you earn ? 5 Lacs annually, yoy should atleast have 1 crore insurance by following this Rule.

These rules are equally useful for young, youth and old. Hope you will find them simple, useful and handy.