What month is it? Nope. It’s not just July. It is the month of appraisals for most Indian companies. Companies release the bonuses, handover increment letters to the employees and in a nutshell, it is a month full of drama. I could have gone with the word ‘happiness‘ but in my short 6 years of corporate life, I have always seen people ranting about their increments. I don’t know if it’s general human tendency to value themselves higher or they just lie outright about their increment percentage. Whatever the case be, it’s hard to find a happy employee in this season.
This time was no different. The only difference was the fact that I have always been on the revolting side. This time, I had one person reporting to me. He is a third party employee and handles some key functions of our department.
Just like every other organization, we also had the dreaded annual performance dialogue. I asked him about his career aspirations, salary revision expectations etc. He quoted an ambitious 15% increment.
Skip to yesterday, the letters for all off roles were released. After pulling some strings, I managed to match his expectations.
So topic of today’s blogpost reveals why am I so gung ho about this! Let’s begin.
The (not so) Big Reveal:
As soon as I got his appraisal letter, I forwarded that to him immediately. Since this was my first time as well, to be honest, I was equally excited about his reaction. So when I didn’t get a reply/call from him for the next 60 odd minutes, I called to check on him.
He was struggling with the unfortunate windows update and had no access to mails.
My excitement died down pretty soon and the day went by as usual.
The Call:
In the evening, after both of us were done with our day, I got a call from him. After the usual discussion, he asked me something. His exact words were, “Raghav, I need your help to save tax“
That moment changed everything for me. From trying so hard to run a blog to endless hours on creating a social media presence. All of that became so irrelevant. Why you ask? What’s the point of influencing of you are unable to uplift the ones who are right next to you?
This boy was about to hit the tax slabs for the first time in his life and had no idea how that thing pans out. Financial literacy is a big concern in our society. Even if people manage to jump endless barriers that society puts forth in our way, lack of knowledge about how money works will be an ultimate challenge to conquer.
The Advice:
I have been doing this for a while now. I usually discuss investments with my friends, family to come up at a common consensus around how to make money from money.
Since most of his requirement was around saving on taxes, I tried to link it with ELSS and other long term schemes.
Also, he was blessed by a daughter about less than an year ago. Therefore, I suggested a very interesting instrument to him called Sukanya Samridhi Yojna.
Apart from that, there a low-risk, decent-return instrument called PPF. Simply put in some money every year and wait for compounding to show it’s magic.
Conclusion:
To be honest, all this started with an attempt to create an alternate revenue stream. Soon it became a way to hone my skills and financial knowledge.
But today, it has even got a purpose. I feel nothing but gratitude. I have been the fortunate ones to help people in whatever way I can. So all those who are trying to make it big in the community building space, let’s start offline this time may be?
If you know anyone, who needs help to traverse this unchartered space of taxation, I would love to help them out.
Got questions? Want to take it to the next level? Reach out to me using your preferred platform from the links below
Until next time..
