If surveys and trend analysts are to be believed, young working professionals in India today are enjoying the best of times. Career opportunities have moved beyond engineering and medical degrees to industries not known before. Terabytes of information is available at the speed of a click and the changing business landscape is full of promises.
On the other hand, the digital economy is shaping personal spending habits. In the unapologetic race for the next iPhone, the latest car or a fancy holiday , it doesn't take much time before the zeroes disappear from the salary account. While millennials fret about increasing restaurant bills and out of reach luxury toys, we did some research to find out what 2,000 bucks a month can buy to invest in the self. Here's what we found.
DITCH FACEBOOK AND READ MORE
What knowledge can money worth one meal at a premium restaurant buy? A lot, we found. If you have a couple of thousands to spare every month, you can own the magazine world.
We randomly picked a few top-of-the-line magazines and broke down their subscription costs by the month for the penny savers. At the cost of one movie ticket, one can easily get business updates, stay updated on world affairs, satiate some wanderlust and pick up life advice. At INR 1450 per annum and INR 900 per annum, get a copy of Forbes and The Economist at your doorsteps. Add to that a fresh copy of the Lonely Planet at INR 1200 per annum and there's still room for some good old Reader's Digest at INR 549 per annum. And this is just INR 400/month. Still room to add more.
GET A RETIREMENT PLAN
We know the sound of retirement planning would get the loudest meh! but the insurance industry is making things easier. In their attempt to woo smaller paychecks, options like the HDFC Life Click 2 Retire plan may interest many. HDFC Life Click 2 Retire is an Online Pension Plan. With an assured vesting benefit and gains from market upside, one can start as early as 18 years. Such plans offer different options as per needs (Regular, Limited Pay & Single Pay) and sought-after tax benefits.
It is an online Unit Linked Plan that offers market-linked returns, with minimal charges. The gains and maturity proceeds are tax-free under Section 10 (10d). If the life cover is not 10 times the annual premium, you won’t get any tax deduction and the corpus will also be taxable on maturity. For INR 2,000/month, you can calculate your total corpus in minutes based on your birthday and year of retirement here.
A plan like this helps avoid any dramatic change in lifestyle and provides financial protection to dependents. Even if you don't buy one immediately, a retirement cover is worth at least some research. Find out more here.
ADD A NEW PROFESSIONAL SKILL
Massive Online Open Courses or MOOCs have had quite a fan following in the past few years. While naysayers fret about high dropout rates and lack of seriousness in online learning modules, experts say paying up certification costs can actually boost stickiness.
Paying for a course can provide an artificial motivation during those days. Narrow down on a course that is really important to your learning goals, allocate sufficient time for it and consider paying for it. With platforms like Coursera and edX, the options are limitless. If you go on Stack Social, $29 (about INR 1900) can buy you a bundled package of courses to go from coding rookie to web developer. If coding is on your mind, what better use of this limited time offer.
GET HEALTHIER
This is one space that many consider but lose to procrastination. In metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, avenues to invest in fitness abound. here are a few options we found.
At the price of INR500 per session, you can experience the uber cool Crosstrain Assault community. Every Saturday morning, join the crew during their 90 minute boot camp, comprising a lot of running and body weight workout. Another option is the Outdoor Fitness Boot Camp at Siri Fort Sports Complex. Here, the Krish Fitness Academy holds marathon training sessions, sports conditioning, bootcamp, and metabolic conditioning at the cost of INR 7000 for non-members - just seven months' worth of saving.
If apps are your game, Bangloreans can try out Gymer, a mobile app and web-based service that provides a cashless system for booking instant or in-advance workout sessions on an hourly basis. They currently have three different categories, at price points of Rs 140, Rs 180 and Rs 220.
Fitternity is another option with 8,000 listings across Mumbai, Bengaluru , Delhi and Pune, the platform has more than 65,000 users accessing different fitness options.
LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE
A lot of science has gone into studying cognitive abilities of monolinguals versus multilinguals. If studies are to be believed, scientists report that people who speak two languages have more gray matter. Some earlier investigations even suggest that it can keep age-related neural disorders in control.
Moreover, in the heavily globalised world of today, knowing foreign languages also open up career prospects in the right businesses. With a plethora of online (free and paid) courses available, apart from legacy institutions such as Alliance française, learning a language from experts is not very difficult. As a bonus, it also widens your social network because you get a chance to meet interesting people. Costing wise, it would set you back only 5-10 months of saving.
With so many options and such small bills, forget the word expensive and start saving every month. As we have seen, pennies can actually do much good.
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