Love is blind but marriage is an eye-opener

Well, I write blogs on investments, gadgets and stock markets. I like writing them. One fine day, I was thinking loudly about what to write next and my wife challenged me to write something on love and relationship. She thinks I (or any guy for that matter) am/is good with numbers and logic than with emotions and feelings. Well, being the savior of the community called Gentlemen, I graciously accepted the challenge, and here is the blog. On further conversations, I further narrowed down my post as suggestions to newly wed couple. It ideally should have come a couple of years earlier, but as they say - Better late than never.

I initially wanted to name this post as "The ten commandments for a newly wed couple" but realized I can't even come up with one and hence gave up that name :) The approach I have taken is to chronologically chronicle the events that someone about to be married would go through. I have generously borrowed a lot of jokes on marriage from the internet and used them wherever they fitted nicely into the flow of this article. Here it goes....

Courtship: Consider your wedding as a video game (say Prince of Persia) and you have to complete so many rounds to get your princess. If your wedding is arranged and after the girl and boy say OK, courtship period is the first round of the game. (If you are having a love marriage, then courtship time could be the time when you are dating and time when you are engaged). The boy/girl is expected to call up the girl/boy daily and talk about a lot of things about how their future life is going to be. But believe me, most of the time, the couple end up talking about things that are least relevant for the future. A typical conversation would be like "Hey Wassup?", "Finished Dinner?", "How was work?", "Oh my god, what else to talk?", ;) I was like "Dude don't exhaust all the topics, keep something for the rest of the life ;)". But on a serious note, use this time to get as comfortable as possible with your would-be spouse. This would probably save a lot of time in the future, by not fighting ;).

Guys, there is one more very-important reason why you should talk it out during this courtship period. Let me explain with a graph, I found on the internet (after a lot of search). Check out the pic on the left....

Now as per the common thinking that Men prefer numbers and logic, you better take this advise seriously. Very Seriously!!!





Wedding: This is the second round. This is the round where you will win easily because this is one event in which you (boy and girl) just don't have any control whatsoever. There are two times a man doesn't understand a woman, before marriage and after marriage! And marriage right in between these two times, the point of inflection, and is the time when he thinks he has understood everything required for an awesome life. Ignorance is bliss!!! I would say, don't interrupt your mind in this event called marriage. Just have fun.
Personally, in my community, wedding has a lot of religious customs associated with it and one of those customs was when my to-be-wife has to touch my feet and take blessings. I was on the top of the world and probably the last time you think you got a great deal through this marriage. Never did I realize that in the next few minutes, I would be subjected to customs like washing her feet, take her feet in my hand and keep it ahead and what not. And as I took her feet to place it ahead, I got reminded of one very famous quote on marriage - "Marriage is not a word. It is a sentence - a life sentence"

Honeymoon: This is the third round and this is the time unlike in a video game(where you get to the princess in the last round), you get to the princess much before. Most of the times, your time will be spent on posing for photo opportunities and posting updates on Facebook ;). An interesting point on your honeymoon photo albums - Have you ever noted that 90% of the photos will be like either you or your spouse poses single on the snap. Don't believe me? Dig your albums and see the truth for yourselves :)

A thousand mile journey starts with the first step. Now that the first step or rather steps are taken, here comes the real life. When I say real... I mean it. And this is the fourth round...And it goes on for ever...

Once you get married, you don't even realize how different your world can turn into. And you better be prepared for it. Small things in life that will be touched upon by change include money, family relations - in-laws, your character, identity, likes & dislikes, behavior, shopping etc etc. Now lets touch upon some of them here.

In-Laws: Lets start with something interesting. The In-Laws!!!! I think, your spouse's relatives are called in-laws because if not for the law you wont care about them :) Just kidding!!! One fine day, I was watching this movie called "American Outlaws" and asked this stupid question to my wife "What's the difference between in-laws and outlaws?" She replied nonchalantly "Out-laws are wanted! "
Well enough of the jokes. Seriously, you better be prepared for your encounter with the in-laws (which could turn out to be a totally different cultural infusion) or more importantly prepare your parents to be in-laws for your spouse. Well am not going into how we will do that, but will let the intelligentsia of the world to figure that out.

Money Matters: There is a joke which goes like this "A successful husband is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man!" and believe me its just a joke and no truth to it at all. Well now that I have saved myself with a disclaimer, lets go ahead and discuss more. ;)
A successful financial planning is an absolute must for the newly weds. And yes there is a reason why the guy has to take up financial planning seriously, since not just about the guy "yearning" for the girl he loves but more importantly because after the marriage, the "y" becomes silent :) Check out this link from economic times to plan your life for and post wedding.


The identity crisis: Someone, a very intelligent person, said, "A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change and she does." How True!!! A guy or girl getting ready to marry would be amazed at the transformation he or she has to undergo to lead a happy life. This would mean changing yourself - some call it as "The identity crisis", but most say "Smart move". For instance, in my life the change that happened is something like this "My wife submits and I obey; she always lets me have her way". Its all how you look at it. And am an optimist. Smart Move...Eh??? and above all as the graph on winning an argument portrays, I am going along with the nature's force.

Shopping: Well, no articles on life after marriage is complete without discussing shopping. Remember our talk on the financial planning for the newly weds? Shopping is the one of the biggest reasons why its needed. Well there are these very famous words by the wise man "We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops." The current times, I am sure a lot many women can afford to say the same thing about men. And hence this shopping-gender-bias should go away.

Shopping for clothes, specially, has its charm. I personally used to have a collection of 2-3 jeans and a few shirts and t-shirts for myself and that was before the marriage and now I can confidently say I have at least 50-60 added to my collection and am proud of it (well as I said before she always let me have her way ;) .

As I was researching for this section, I came across an intelligent bar chart about dressing habits of men and women. Though I am not interpreting anything with that chart, its a good chart to look at. Just a trivia you will be interested to know. :) Of course it is open to interpretation for the people reading this blog...

All is well that is well: Yes you read it right. Its "all is well that is well". The word "End" has no meaning in marriage and if there is, that is not what we are discussing in this feel good blog. In spite of all the humor and sarcasm that the world uses against marriage as a way of life, I can proudly say, its not that bad as the world projects it. In fact, its amazing. I agree there are differences, I agree there are altercations, I agree there are compromises that you have to make, I agree you have to change yourself to an extent for someone else, I agree you lose the cricket matches on TV to the cookery shows and most importantly, I agree you lose your video games :) but these are exactly the same things that make your life amazing and interesting. Cherish the romance and companionship, savor the new flavor in food, get delighted in living for someone else and that is the new challenge you have to accept and win it.

I get reminded of this movie called "Vivah" and its catch line "A journey from engagement to marriage". I agree its a journey and let me restate the catch phrase "Vivah - A journey of a life time". Its worth it!!! Don't watch the movie though. Its crap.

Well, that is all I have to write. Have a happy married life!!!!

Disclaimer: You cant get away without a disclaimer after writing a blog on life after marriage. Smart move...eh??? Here it is... This is an attempt at something I have never tried before with a lot of humor and a little bit of information. I did not mean offense to any person, any gender or anything else that can be offended. Pardon my use of first person sometimes referring to the male gender, but that is because I am a guy and this is my post. This is not a marriage advisory and hence "Don't try this at home" and more importantly "Try writing a marriage blog at your own risk".

Note: I made sure I got it reviewed by my wife before posting this on my page. I made sure she always let me have her way ;)

Make hay while the gold shines!!!

Being an Indian, the fondness for gold is natural in me. But the reasons a Indian likes gold is different (mostly) from the reason a citizen of any other country in the world likes it for. We like the gold more for its aesthetic value than its monetary value. But this is not what I am going to talk about in this posting. This blog post will deal more with gold as an investment option for the common Indian. Times have changed and gone are those days when gold was just bought for jewelery related needs. Today the common Indian is looking at gold as an alternative investment option. The curiosity has increased more so, since RBI purchased 200 tons of gold to hedge its FOREX reserved against currency volatility. If RBI is doing it, why not us? But how do I invest in gold. What are the different options available for me in this domain? Let me try to answer these questions in a more elaborate manner.

The different avenues of investing in gold are as follows:

1. Gold jewelery
   This has been the traditional mode of buying (I don't say this as an investment) gold. If you are looking for investment this is not the approach you should take. Ornament gold is not pure and is usually mixed with copper for stability in jewelery making. The purchasing cost would involve designing & making charges, VAT, and what not :) You are least interested in spending on the sundry charges if your motive is gold investment. Avoid this option for gold investment.
   
2. Gold bars/coins
   Nowadays you can walk into any bank in you area and can buy yourself a gold coin/bar from them. You don't have to wait for Akshaya Thrithaya to see the advertisements in banks. The yellow metal gets sold through out the year and you just need to inquire about it. Its not just banks but the list includes jewelers and other NBFCs as well. You can be assured of the purity of the gold sold in banks and the banks earn the money the same way they earn money in currency dealings. They just take advantage of the fluctuations and also rely on the hunch you may end up opening a locker and hence a FD with them as well. In this option, though you can be assured of the gold quality, you sure would have issues in maintaining lockers and even the subsequent liquidation of the solid gold bars/coins. Go for this option only if you have sure plan on how to safe store and liquidate the items.
   
3. Gold futures
   They operate more or less in the same way futures operate in stock markets. They are just commodity based futures and I would not go more deeply into this option for 2 reasons - 1. Don't know much about this option 2. Usually futures are dealt by people who are sure about the value flows of the underlying commodity.
   
4. Gold ETFs
   Benchmark mutual fund launched country's first Gold ETF and it was an instant hit. ETF - Exchange Traded Funds are just like stocks that you can trade in the stock market. ETFs benchmark the actual gold value and hence more or less track the physical gold's value in the open market. Advantages include facility to buy at the least granularity, 1 ETF unit = 1 gm of gold and hence conducive to minimum periodic buying, low maintenance cost, no hassles of storing gold in lockers etc Disadvantage, if any, would be to have a demat account for yourself. Demat penetration in India is still very low. Again since 1 ETF unit = 1gm of gold, and there are a lot of ETF options available in the market - BeES, Reliance, Kotak etc, which one should I buy? Go for the ETF which has the maximum liquidity and minimum tracking error in the market and we have only one answer and that is Benchmark Gold BEes.
   
5. E-Gold
   E-Gold belongs to the E-Series dealings of the Nation Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL). E-Series is an option for the investor to buy/sell gold in demat form. You need to have a beneficiary demat a/c with NSEL to trade in the E-Series. Apparently, E-Gold has given better returns than any other form of gold investment according to this ARTICLE in Business-Standard. Options of re-converting e-series contracts to physical gold (with 100% quality) is also available. Obvious disadavantage is the separate demat a/c. But this seems to be a very good option for an options trader and someone who can be involved in disciplined investment.
   
6. Gold funds
   There are not many gold based funds in the market. I can only think 2 of them right now. Can-Robeccco-INDIGO and the recent NFO Reliance gold savings fund. There is a a difference between the 2 funds and addresses 2 different kinds of investors. Can-Robecco INDIGO is for the investor kind who wants to be conservative with gold exposure. INDIGO fund will invest a maximum of 35% of its funds in various gold-ETFs and the rest in safe debt funds. The other fund is the ongoing NFO Reliance Gold Savings Fund (RGSF). This fund is for people who want an aggresive gold exposure, since RGSF can have a maximum of 100% in gold-ETF (and just Reliance gold ETF). This is more of a ploy by Reliance Mutual to improve the RGETFs trading volumes and also an intelligent way of luring investors without demat a/c to invest in gold.
   There is one more group like the AIG World Gold Fund, Quantum gold fund etc. These funds invest in gold mining companies all over the world and is only for aggressive investors.
   The advantage with gold funds are that they allow SIP options that is not available in any other form of gold investment as of now. But otherwise there are obvious disadvantages here with double taxing and double loads of the fund and the underlying schemes here.
   If you have a demat account then buy your G-ETF directly and dont go for this option.
   

What is my recommended investment strategy?
My vote would be to go for a systematic/disciplined long term plan in gold. Gold ETFs and E-Gold look interesting. Gold funds offer benefits of SIP option that is not currently available with ETFs and E-Gold. Three different options based on your liking and in my preferred order.

• If you can be disciplined with your investment schedule, then go for a systematic disciplined investment monthly in E-gold or Gold-ETF (based on what you are comfortable).
  
• A multi-year SIP on RGSF, if you prefer automated investment.
  
• Invest in AIG World Gold Fund and Can-Robecco-INDIGO in a 50:50 ratio. This is a good mix of aggressive and safe funds.

Remember the most important thing. Any gold investment should span atleast 3-5 years and every year the investment should be distributed through out the year (like in SIP) before some good profits can be achieved.

Some gold trivia!!!
Do you know European countries (even tiny ones) hold gigantic gold reserves? Popular theory tell us that these gold were looted during the colonial era. Click here to find out which are the countries with the maximum gold reserves.

Happy Investing!!! And may your life shine like gold!!!