It is said that if you want to manage something, you must be able to measure it. In other words, if you can't measure it, you really can't manage it well.

Your personal finances also falls within the above concept. How do you know whether you are doing well with your personal finances or not?

So there are tools and calculators available which can help you with a self analysis and provide a road map for your finance decisions.

We bring to you the following spreadsheets which we have done on Zoho ,  which has a suite of online web applications offering easy collaboration.

• Financial Freedom Calculator
• Benefit of starting early
• Worksheets for You

The advantage of these sheets is that while you can toggle with your own case figures in the sheet online and they will return with the figures for your case in a jiffy. And you can also download them for free if you really like them! We'll be happier if you spread the word to your friends.

After launching the cheapest ULIP plan in the industry, Aegon Religare has done it again. This time the company claims to have launched the cheapest term insurance plan in the industry. The company says that it latest term insurance plan – iTerm Plan – launched by it is cheaper by 50-60% than other similar term insurance plans available in the market. Let us have a detailed look at the plan.

Every parent aspires to give the best of everything to their children; be it primary education, a good quality lifestyle, secondary education, lavish wedding etc. Child plans of most insurance companies play on this emotional aspect to push their products. Every parent’s top priority is to fulfil his child’s future dreams and aspirations.

HDFC Standard Life recently launched a new child plan – HDFC YougStar Super. Let us explore the features of this product. As per the company brochure the following are the details:

The policy is complaint with the ‘cap on charges’ guidelines for ULIP products issued by IRDA.

Ramesh is a risk averse investor. Over the last many years he has been investing in traditional investment products like Bank Fixed Deposits and Government sponsored schemes like Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Savings Certificate (NSC) and various Postal Office Schemes etc. He was happy with the returns on fixed income securities. So he never gave a serious thought on investing in equity markets. Previously investments in fixed income securities like PPF and NSC used to earn him a return of 12%. But over the last few years the Government has brought down the interest rates on these products from 12% to 8%. Ramesh is not happy with the interest rates coming down from 12% to 8%. But at the same time in the lure to earn high returns Ramesh is sceptical about investing in equity markets as he is not willing to take risk as he has seen some of his friends lose even a portion of their capital because of investments in stock markets. So what is the solution for people like Ramesh who don’t want to risk their capital and at the same time have some exposure to capital markets so that they can earn superior returns as compared to returns given by fixed income securities.