Money9 Edit | The rise of savings: Now don’t let your money sit idle

In the past year, Indians have saved like ants. Despite lockdown, job losses, and reduced income, household savings have gone up in the country. According to a report by a prominent brokerage house, the rise was from 19.8% of the GDP in 2019 to 22.5% in 2020 – an outcome of the insecurity that has pervaded society. The consumer confidence survey by the Reserve Bank of India also pointed to the same phenomenon – weak sentiments emanating from downbeat perceptions on employment scenario, household income, price levels.

Now that we have saved a lot of money, we must switch from savings to investments. Saving, which is a conservative approach, must at some point of time must give way to investing which involves measured, calculated risk-taking. Otherwise, mere savings will erode the value of the corpus, thanks to inflation.

A large number of investment options are available in the country spanning a wide spectrum of risks. At one end, there are government-guaranteed fixed-income schemes and at the other are the high-risk futures and options in stock markets where one can multiply wealth overnight or wipe out a fortune at a single stroke. Earlier many have fallen prey to wild Ponzi schemes promising the moon only to vanish with their hard-earned savings.

 The prudent way is to stay within a regulatory framework and not be too greedy. The money that Indians have saved if invested wisely, can also serve as an emergency corpus in case the virus stays on longer. When the uncertainty is high, the investments should be measured so that the capital expands reasonably beyond inflation, which RBI has estimated to be within the tolerance band of 6% in its monetary policy meeting on April 4 before the second COVID surge was not visible.

You work hard. Don’t allow your money to sit idle.