Browse Category: Uncategorized

Importance of Education in LIFE

Importance of Education in LIFE

Today’s post is about an important topic – “Education”. We at WS strongly believe that education can bring about drastic change in one’s life. Education is one of the most important aspect of life. The post is by my dear friend SG.

“Real education enhances the dignity of a human being and increases his or her self-respect. If only the real sense of education could be realized by each individual and carried forward in every field of human activity, the world will be so much a better place to live in ” A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

importance-of-education

 

Such a trivial topic, right?

Does someone really need to write something on this topic? Maybe not. But again, throughout our LIFE we keep missing all that is trivial and natural and keep running after complicated and artificial.

When you are hungry you should eat.
When you are thirsty you should drink.
When you are tired you should rest.

Aren’t these trivial things. But in our day-to-day LIFE do we do this?
Are you eating when you are hungry?
Are you eating only when you are hungry?
Are you sleeping when you are tired at night or you gulp a cup of hot coffee?

Our lifestyle today is full of contradictions. We believe that trivial things will lead to a trivial LIFE, and I don’t wanna live my LIFE trivially. I want to live my LIFE on my own terms, a full-fledged fulfilling LIFE and what we end up doing is breaking many rules of nature. Trying to take control of our LIFE and when we reach to middle age we are already out of LIFE, ridden with life threatening diseases, LIFE energy all squeezed out and hence living on medication trying to extend our stay here. We had paid the cost of going away from trivia and becoming a robot in laboratory.

You may be thinking already, what is this got to do with the topic, but there is a connection. To learn\know is a natural instinct. As soon as we are born, our learning process starts and it ends when one dies. Learning is a continuous process also it is an individualistic process. It does not necessarily need a teacher. When we reach to school age we face our teachers, very important people in life and from there our education starts. I know we say mother is first teacher however there is a important difference. In English we do not have exact word for Guru and mother is first Guru of every child. She is our eyes and ears until we come to senses in this world. Parents are whom we look up to for every doubt and problem until we face school.

Although education is a general term, it is mainly used for academic education. In last 50 years the speed of science and technology inventions has increased geometrically. It has triggered many things to be automated, i.e. handled by machines and devices. This has caused reduced human dialogue and increased need of technical literacy. We are no more in the era where a person who can do signature or write his\her name can be called educated. Education today has got many aspects to it and is not limited to earning a living. One needs to be aware of things like banking, operating ATMs, operating smart phones, communicate with customer care guys. Apart from this one also needs to be aware of the dangers like fishing, vishing, smishing etc. Even the educated urban people are falling for these malicious things one way or other. That means level of education and awareness is far behind what is required.

Hence the necessity and importance of all-round education has increased significantly in last 20 years I would say. If you can not write 10 sentences i.e. fine however you should be able to use know and provide your Aadhar No, PAN No, bank account number accurately wherever required. So not being educated is not an option any more. That’s why we have started considering education as a basic need for survival in today’s world.

importance-of-education1

With internet revolution, world has become smaller and also smarter. With ocean of knowledge available at a mouse click, internet has power to educate anyone on any topic, only prerequisite is motivation. With companies like Google contributing hugely in linguistic R & D, websites have now been made available in local languages. You can now do banking in local languages. This has opened the doors and opportunities for people who do not know English. Still education remains the basis and key to your success.

Success is a contextual thing and hence definitions would vary however, to put it simply, if you have goals in LIFE, to achieve most of them you will need some sort of education. Level of education may vary. To put it in one sentence:

Even if you hate education you won’t be able to live without it.

An interesting relationship isn’t it?

 

 

Compound Interest – Let your money work for you

Don’t always work for money. Instead make money work hard for you

“Let your money work for you”

 

compound interest

 

I think we must have read / heard this saying many times in life. This is quite a famous quote often used by investment advisers. This is related to power of compounding which is very powerful tool if exploited properly.

If you are someone who wish to have good returns on your investments, wish to retire early, wish to have financial independence you need to exploit power of compounding and make it one of the pillar of your overall financial independence strategy.
I will just give a small example to reiterate the faith in this strategy. For assumption, I have taken 10% as returns on investment which is quite possible in today’s scenario.

If you save INR1,000.00 per month for 12 months, at the end of the year you will be left with INR12000.00

Year 1
You will earn 10% interest making total amount INR12,000.00+INR1,200 = INR13,200

Year 2
You will earn 10% interest on INR13,200 and total amount would be INR13,200+INR1,320=INR14,520

Year 3
You will earn 10% interest on INR14,520 and total amount would be INR14,520+INR1,452 = INR15,972

Year 4
You will earn 10% interest on INR15,972 and total amount would be INR15,972+1,597=INR17,569

Year 5
You will earn 10% interest on INR17,569 and total amount would be INR17,569+INR1,756 = INR19,325

So in 5 years, your initial investment of INR10,000 turned to INR19,325 – You have almost doubled your investment without doing anything
Now, to show the outcome of consistent investing, let’s take a scenario where you invest INR1,000 per month for 5 years that is 60 months and let’s see the result.

Year 1
You have invested INR12,000 and your total amount after 12 months stands at INR12,665

Year 2
You have invested INR24,000 so far and your total amount after 24 months stands at INR26,645

Year 3
You have invested INR36,000 so far and your total amount after 36 months stands at INR42,076

Year 4
You have invested INR48,000 so far and your total amount after 48 months stands at INR59,110

Year 5
You have invested INR60,000 so far and your total amount after 60 months stands at INR77,911

If you continue this investment for 15 years your INR1,000 per month investment becomes INR4,14,774

If you continue this investment for 25 years your 00 per month investment becomes IR13,19,273


————Here the magic unfolds ————

 

If you replace investment amount by INR5,000

If you continue this investment for 15 years your INR5,000 per month investment becomes INR20,73,872

If you continue this investment for 25 years your INR1,000 per month investment becomes INR65,96,367

So your INR5,000 per month investment for 25 years @ 10% per year will yield you INR65,96,367

This is simply a huge amount and can give you a big shot in your retirement Kitty.

You can use any compound interest calculator and tweak rate of returns and amount to see the magic. You will be surprised.

Idea is to find an avenue which gives you maximum return on investment for your risk appetite and to stay invested for a long time (>15years) to reap the benefits of compound interest. Compound interest works miracle with large sum invested for a long duration. The best part is it’s a passive income for you as your money is working for you.

Start as early as possible -> Make regular investmsnts -> Stay invested for a long duration -> Reap the benefits of Compounding

If you delay by a year, you will loose lot of money. Don’t think that you will loose only first year’s interest money if you delay by a year. You will loose interest of the final year if you delay. Do your basic math and you will come to know the losses.

No doubt great Albert Einstein has summed it up correctly

“Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it … he who doesn’t … pays it.”