For Very Senior Citizens (Above 80)

FY – 2012-13

FY – 2012-13

For Very Senior Citizens (Above 80)

FY – 2011-12

FY – 2011-12

FY – 2010-11

FY – 2009-10

FY – 2008-09

The United States economy is built upon the assumption that people will spend money. Therefore, saving money is not really an applauded aspect of American culture. Sure, people are encouraged to generally save for retirement, but daily American life is definitely bent toward spending much more than saving. We are bombarded from the moment we wake up until we go to bed at night by marketing and advertisement campaigns that are all encouraging us to spend, spend, spend. Television, newspapers, magazines, radio, etc—each of these media outlets attacks us with these tantalizing offers. And the reality is that these marketing and advertising efforts work!

Prior to the 2008 Mortgage Crisis, personal savings rates in the United States had hit historic lows. Let’s break this down a bit further. First of all, the personal savings rate is calculated as follows: the government looks at how much a person makes, and then subtracts living expenses and taxes from that gross amount. Then, whatever is left over is considered disposable or discretionary money. Then, whatever a person saves in proportion to this disposable money is calculated as the personal savings rate. For example, if a person has $1,000 of disposable income at the end of the month, and they save $50, then they have a personal savings rate of 5%.

Why Did Personal Savings Fall So Low?

In short, the answer is simple—property values. During the property market explosion of the 90’s and 2000’s, people noticed the value of their homes rising aggressively every year, and people started to believe this was the new norm. Since people were building so much equity in their homes, it made personal saving obsolete. People could spend all they made, and then bank on the equity in their homes for long-term savings. This outlook in mainstream America drove personal savings rates to all-time lows by early 2008.

Then, the property market exploded and capital flew into the U.S. dollar in forex trading as investors sought safety. Suddenly, the general public realized that their property values were not immune to depreciation. This sudden shock caused a bit of a revolution in personal saving behavior. The crisis of 2008 and 2009 cut the retirement accounts of many Americans nearly in half in just a few months. Decades of savings and retirement planning was suddenly erased by 30-40% in just a matter of months. This systemic shock to financial markets served to change the mindset of many people. People started cutting back on spending and increasing their savings.

When people cut back on spending and increase savings, it basically ruins economic growth because the current economic model is based on consumer spending. By 2010, personal savings rates in the United States had jumped from all-time lows just a few years before to highs not seen since World War II. The question is, will this mindset of saving continue? One can argue that it is possible this trend will continue. Some people have taken the extra savings and used them to apply for a small business loan in order to pursue their dream of starting their own business.

First of all, the baby boomer generation is entering retirement, which means they will naturally be cutting their spending even if recession had not occurred. However, the fact that many of them took huge hits during the last two years means that spending habits will most likely remain subdued in the baby boomer age group, and since they hold a significant portion of the wealth in the United States, this could have a significant effect on overall savings rates.

Second of all, young working professionals in their late 20’s and 30’s witness the biggest financial collapse since The Great Depression, and it could be enough to forever alter their spending habits. After watching their parents and grandparents suffer the wrath of decades of material excess, their personal saving habits may remain strong for years to come.

The United States economy is still struggling to regain sure footing following the collapse of the last few years, and one primary reason is a lack of consumer spending. However, the possibility exists that widespread consumer behavior has changed, and the reckless spending of prior decades may not return in full force for some time.

It’s time to fill your tax and also time to rush for all available options to save tax. There are numerous tax saving schemes, insurance policies and funds. But the problem is how to choose the best or most effective tax saving option.

Tax saving funds is among the most effective tax saving options for you. Also known as Equity Linked Savings Schemes are termed as the most apposite investment opportunities for tax saving means for them ready to take risk. ELSS investment helps to gain benefits from income tax as well as offering a prospect to make long term wealth. These funds are parallel to rest open ended expanded equity fund excluding that there is a lock in period of three years and least investment in equity should be 80 percent. The 3 Years of lock-in period promotes the investment for prolong period rather than short term. Also long term investments are a pre-requisite for rewarding return on equity investments.

JTGF is among the similar open-ended funds for tax saving purpose. It is from the established of JM Mutual Fund. It follows a combine investment style for tax saving. JM Tax Gain Fund is chiefly commanded to invest in Indian companies’ equities and all other equity-related securities as well as with money and debt market mechanisms. The fund has been in continuation for over three years as was started in March 2008.

The chief investment objective of JM Tax Gain Fund is to produce prolong period capital augmentation from a diversified and dynamically managed assortment of equity. This fund also meant to facilitate investors a subtraction from total income, as acceptable under the Income Tax Act, 1961. On the other hand the realization of investment objective of the Scheme is not assured.

If the risk factor associated with the investment is ignored or taken as rest profitable market attribute then this can prove as the best suitable tax saving fund for you. More and more people are turning or opting for JM Tax Gain Fund to save tax and get a profitable investment option as well. The subsistence of the fund for over three years also emboldens the funds popularity and success in Indian financial market. The fund is targeting to offer investors with even higher returns on their investment. Invest wisely in this tax saving fund to generate more wealth as well as save tax.

Taking a loan seem to us as a hectic task as well as we never prefer to take a loan unless it is inevitable. You must be surprised that loan can prove to be a great tool to enhance your personal wealth. You must be amazed that how a debt can turn into wealth. But its true a loan can offer you several profits. Loans are always misunderstand as a mechanism for help in poor financial status. However, truth is different that is almost all wealthy investors repeatedly utilize loans to help themselves become more wealthier. Where loans are concerned, you might find that you are one of two broad types of individuals.

Loan is basically the fund borrowing in poor financial status to be used to satisfy the financial need. Loans have several options as well as diverse lenders such as banks, finance companies or relatives. Always ensure that you never put a stress on you by taking a loan. It is advisable to assess your income as well as expenses before jumping for a loan. A simple EMI can put a lot of stress on your finance so prefer the loan as much you can easily pay.

Loan can prove as personal wealth, the first instance loans are a great tool of tax saving. Many loans offer higher tax benefits. A home finance will serve you get rid of the recurring rental as well as tax rebate. So its making a sense of two way saving and in this scenario a loan will prove as building your wealth.

Also if you have better investment opportunity and you are running short of finance then at this time a loan can prove as wealth buider. Take this instance if you are taking a loan and its interest rate is 10% and you have an investment opportunity offering 11% or more than that then you should opt for loan and invest to garner more wealth. Keep in mind, if you have an investment mechanism which would offer you return rate that is upper than the interest you are repaying the loan.

If wisely utilized a loan can prove to be a smart mechanism to assist you in building the personal wealth. Only follow the rule to opt for the amount of loan you are capable of repaying with no extra stress on your finances. Following these you can easily avail great benefits of loan or personal finance.

In the recent times, you must have heard a lot about refinancing, isn’t it? But what is it all about? Well, refinancing can be defined as paying off an existing mortgage and replacing it with a new loan. There are various reasons why the borrowers are tempted to refinance their mortgage. Read on to know about some of the major reasons to refinance your existing mortgage.

Lower your existing interest rate: Some years back, the interest rates available for conventional as well as FHA loans were quite high. Borrowers had no other option but to go for those high rates. However, after the sub-prime mortgage crisis, mortgage rates have reduced drastically and are at an all time low. If you’re one of them and want to take advantage of those low rates, then you can refinance your existing home loan. This will help you in saving quite a large sum of money in interest payments.

Shorten the loan term: One of the major reasons to get your home loan refinanced is to shorten the loan term. If you have a 30 year loan and want to lower the loan term to 15 years, then refinancing will be your only option. You can contact your existing mortgage lender or contact other lenders as well in order to get your home loan refinanced. Shopping round will help you take out some of the best mortgage deals as per your requirements.

Change the loan type: If you want to change your adjustable mortgage to a fixed rate mortgage or vice versa, then refinancing is your only option to go for. Adjustable rate mortgages offer an introductory low rate when you go for it and then the rates may increase or decrease depending upon the market situation. As the rates are going low, it can be converted to a fixed rate mortgage with the help of refinance. Thus, your mortgage rates will remain low for the loan term.

Cash out your home equity: If you have equity in your property and want to use it to finance any large purchase or consolidate your unsecured debt, then you should try refinancing your existing mortgage. This will help you cash out the equity that you have in that property. You can use the cash out money to pay off your medical debts, credit card bills, payday loans, etc. You may even use it as a down payment for your new car that you plan to purchase in the near future.

While you refinance your existing mortgage, you will be liable for paying quite a lump sum amount in closing costs. When you plan to refinance your existing home loan, you should first decide as to how long you plan to stay in the property. It won’t be a good option to refinance the mortgage if you plan to move out of the property within the next 2 years as you won’t be able to offset the closing costs. However, if you want to stay in the property for a long period of time, then refinancing is the best option to go for.

Concern of the future persuades us to buy insurance policy. In an attempt to safeguard our future we opt for insurance policies but many of insurance policies available in the market are none of our use. But we buy them as we can’t foretell our future. We try to cover our bad time financial needs. Insurance companies well know this common public fear and provide a range of insurance policies planned to shield us from a horde of disasters that sort from disease to disability and rest in between. Here are top five insurance policies that are probably of no use for us.

1. Credit Card Loss Insurance

This circumstance is already covered by banks and they offer no liability of card holder in case of credit card theft and purchase. So any insurance policy covering your credit card loss is of no use or simply wastage of your premium.

2. Credit Card Insurance

Opting for a credit card insurance coverage is also of no use as in most of the adverse circumstances credit card companies themselves cover the part of wrong payment, misuse, or any other type of unwanted fraud or loss over credit card. So any credit card insurance policy will remain of no use for you.

3. Mortgage Life Insurance

Mortgage life coverage may seem to you as a useful insurance policy as it recompenses your house in the incident of your death. But the fact is it will just add to your insurance premium or to the list of your insurance policies. Instead you should opt for a good life insurance policy and that will deliver sufficient money to recompense your mortgage as well as rest expenses. At the end, the mortgage isn’t the rest bill your dependents will have to pay after you.

4. Flood Insurance

Flood insurance is of no use unless you live in a severe flood prone region or having a fruitful farm house and agricultural land that can be affected of flood. So don’t even bother to think of flood insurance.

5. Disease Insurance

Health insurance policies exist to cover heart, cancer and other diseases. So don’t try to figure out and opt for all likely diseases that you may come across. Rather than think of a good health insurance policy and invest into that. This policy will alone cover your medical bills and saving your pocket at the time of need.

Insurance companies will flash a number of policies but very few of them are highly suitable for average people. In fact you may already have several policies which you just use to save your taxes. Broad insurance policies providing coverage for a host of possible events are far better choice than single focused insurance covers.

Shooting up in the price of gold has created large sum of yellow shiny metal. Because of terrific returns more and more seeker opting for gold loan. A lot of banks who provides gold loan offering many benefits with discounted rate on the loan schema. Banks are offering gold loan up to 10 million ranging between Rs. 16000 to Rs. 21000 per 10 grams.

In present time crowd from rural, urban and semi urban area seeking gold loan for quick and fast way to get funds to meet urgent requirement of finance.

Gold is best metal to use as collateral security because in the cases of borrower become defaulter this high price metal can be used to recover the loan amount. Where as in other unsecured loan banks have to bear the loss. So this is among the main reason banks are offering gold loan.

All banks have their own methods to calculate the interest rate. Some banks calculate on the basis difference price between two weeks and some opt for daily changes in the price and then take the average of that and few banks fix the rate and review after every 6 months or three months depending on the market situation.

A user can avail gold loan even he/she don’t have any credit history and need not to get involve any third party. Any credit history is not required because if borrower fails to repay his/her installments banks can recover their loan amount from the stock available in their custody.

Unlike other unsecured loan, Gold loan does not involve a lot of paper work and very few documents are required to avail the loan. Only I.D proof and address proof required at the time of issue of loan.

So in case if you are seeking financial help immediately you gold jewelries can help you. Nowadays people are trying to get these type of secured loan for the shorter span of time for different purpose like child education loan, vehicle loan etc.

All banks are offering customized structure loan for different people. So repayment option is also not worrying area to the customers. But before applying for gold loan to any banks or NBFC see what interest rate they are offering and what others are offering. So you should be able to know that by which agency you apply for loan. Always try to take loan on your jewelry compared to the gold coins.

This is the time when another slowdown is expected to hit the market very soon and this could be the reason for an investor to understand the extreme condition of market and carefully invest their hard earn money. With the increase in cost of crude oil per barrel, government of India has increased the price of petrol and diesel which is going to impact the market with hike in the price of all. So this is the time to decide where you want to invest in gold or silver.

Gold or silver: which is preferred stock?

Investors get high returns on their investment in valuable metal like gold and silver nearly 42 percent in the row, 2009 and 2010, and 4 times in past 5 years. Return on silver (80 percent) is all most double as compared to gold (34 percent).

Low supply, high demand and safe investment decision are main reasons for the tremendous hike in the price of these metals. Silver price has been increased approximately 10 percent in first quarter of 2011.

According to the current market situation it is good to invest in these metals. Even after another slowdown is expected to hit the market, still price of silver is being appreciated compared to gold. But it is advisable to do a little research before investing your money in any of the stock whether it is silver or gold.

Selecting the right intermediaries is also a very crucial part of investment decision. So with small study you will be able to know that price of pure gold is lesser than the price offered by the chain of intermediaries, like retailers, wholesalers etc.

If an investor is making investments at regular intervals in silver and gold will able to diversify its risk and enjoy the advantage of market instability.

There is various ways by which you can invest in these metals. Some of the ways are Bar, Coins, Gold account option by Swiss banks, Gold exchange trade funds, Spread betting (predication in rise and fall of the price of these metals) and Investments with mining companies.

Accurate period of time to buy or sell

With the hint of another slowdown investors have started selling their stocks for extra earrings but with the all-time high price the stock of these metals are advisable to keep for some more time and watch the market condition carefully.

Price of US dollar and current financial condition are two most influencing reasons that affect the investor’s decision sell or not. If an investor is strong with financial condition than it is good to buy at lower price and hold it for a long period of time so whenever the market condition will improved he will be able to sell at higher price to make extra gain.

If you are not eligible to get a loan because some of the eligibility criteria, there is another way to get the loan is apply with a co-applicant.

Co-Applicant is the person who will apply for the loan with you to fulfill the required norms to match your income and other status so that your income statement will match with the required eligibility for the loan.

Not everybody can become a co-applicant for that Banks and housing finance companies (HFCs) have made a creamy layer and has defined who can be co-applicant with the loan applying authority. Some of specified relation would be used as co-applicant.

Nearly all the banks in our nation except pre specified relation like father-son, brother-brother husband-wife etc.

Father-Son as Co-Applicant

If the mortgage property is on the name of both father and son and son is applying for the loan individually then father can join his son as co-applicant and earnings of both taken as their income statement.

If an individual having 2 or more sons and want to join one of them or both of them, so in this situation he should not hold the property because if he dies his sons may get involve in some type of dispute for the ownership of property. In this type of scenario father can be co-applicant and his earning will be taken into consideration only.

Unmarried Daughter-Father as Co-Applicant

If the daughter of a person is not married then she is able to apply with his father but the mortgage property should be on the name of daughter and father’s income is not taken into consideration. Financial institutions have taken this step to avoid any legal complications.

Unmarried Daughter-Mother as Co-Applicant

This is same as above daughter and father condition, daughter should hold the property and income of mother is not taken into consideration.

Brother-Brother

Brothers can apply together only if they are living together and both of them have same proportion in the property.

Husband-Wife

A person can apply for the home loan with his wife as co-applicant. This will be the ideal condition for the financial institutions. Husband earnings will be considered as the eligibility.

As we have seen above only few relationship can be taken as co-applicants not all. Let’s talk about the relationship which can’t apply as co-applicant.

• Married daughter and father/mother can’t apply for the loan jointly.
• Sister can’t be a co-applicant for her sister
• Sister and brother cannot apply together for a loan as co-applicants.

Co-applicants are totally liable for any defaults from the side of party who is raising the loan and banks will collect all the debt by them. This is not compulsory that you apply with co-applicant. It is fully depends upon the need and requirements of the loan purpose.

With the few benefits like high success rate of approved loan, high income limit make you able to get more loan, and tax benefits, co-applicant is one good decision by the home loan seekers.

Before taking a long term loan a person should find out which repayment facility is suiting him. For the repayment option banks have customized their terms as per the requirement of the clients. Let’s discuss different type of repayment option a loan seeker can get.

SURF (Step up Repayment Facility)

This is the loan which has been set up by banks to facilitate its customers to pay back their loan in the EMI’s. This mode of repayment is for the customers, who are just starting their career. This repayment method allows the customers to get large amount for the long term with the short EMI’s options. Their EMI can be greater as they earn more. This is a floating loan.

FLIP (Flexible Loan Installments Plan)

This is repayment type which suites the persons who are close to end of their careers. EMI’s are large at the start of the loan period then it decrease as the time goes on in the proportion. This payback facility insures the retiring people to repay their installments and appreciate the Youngers to get involved in it.

Tranch EMI’s

This is basically for the long run where customers have applied for the large sum of amount. This loan repayment has been equally divided into the installments. Customers have to repay the loan amount till the time full loan amount is recovered by the bank. This loan type give you advantage of paying fix amount or full amount at once and enable you to save some money.

ARS (Accelerated Repayment Scheme)

This is another customize option for the customer by banks. Let’s assume that installments which a borrower has to pay are Rs 20,000 but he is able to pay Rs 30,000. So he can request the bank to increase the installment amount and because of shorter payback period borrower will be getting the tax benefits and loan amount can be paid quickly.

Balloon Repayment

This facility is very similar to SURF but with a big modification. In this option customer has to pay approximate one-third of the loan amount as the last installment. This is big and lump sum repayment made by the customer at particular period or at the end of the loan period.

It is a tool provided by banks to their customers to get higher amount of loan with the securities getting mature at the time of loan sanction. This typical loan is good to take when financial needs are too high or any other urgent requirements.