Bursting crackers, playing card games, or decorating the house--a lot of customs are associated with the festival of Diwali. Among these typical Diwali rituals, there is one aspect which we may dread or enjoy, but cannot avoid i.e. Deep cleaning our house. Every single drawer, wall or corner, is washed, cleaned and dried.
15 days before Diwali, my mother would stop going anywhere and her sole focus would be to clean everything around our house. My sister & I would find every way to avoid it. As we grew older, I have now started looking forward to this deep cleaning experience :D. Let us tell you why and how it affects you and maybe it can also be applied to your finances!
It helps you to declutter your mind, it just relaxes you the way many 2 therapy sessions would (or not). You just have this dopamine rush of completing some tasks. And also, it's great to be in a house that is dust-free and has more space.
Take stock of everything: It helps you understand what you have and how much. Take a stock of everything you own - clothes, books (I found some great books I got and I haven't read yet, finishing it before the year ends), home decor, candles, and shoes (omg not used them for 2 years now).
Discard all that you don’t need - Simple rule - what you don't use please discard. I am everything but a hoarder and I love my mother for this. If I don't use something, I discard it and then I buy less of things I don't want to use because discarding them is extremely painful. Thus, becoming a smart shopper. I do not decide after shopping, I decide before shopping.
No mindless Diwali/Festive Shopping - Ugh I hate it when people buy things just because it is Diwali. Yes, it was great when you did that only once a year. But now we are shopping literally all the time. We always have Myntra or Amazon tabs open on our phones. Hence just shop what you want or don't shop.
Set budgets - Diwali is all about budgeting guys. Look closely, you will see savings everywhere but Marketing is only showing Spending more. So be careful.
Once your regular expenses and savings are taken care of. Lets understand how you can deep clean your portfolio.
Ways to Deep Clean your Portfolio
Let's put everything together: Collect all the data about all your investments, this is the most time-consuming process if you have not been maintaining it properly. However, if you have maintained your data well it shouldn't take much of your time. You can check Mprofit software to maintain your investment information - it is available for free for up to 50 lakhs portfolio value.
Review your existing investments: Just like your clothes, some of your investments would hold more emotional place than real value in your wardrobe. Therefore, if it does not match your risk profile or your financial needs, it is time to book your profit (or losses) and remove such investments from your portfolio. Things which have gone bad have to go. Investments which are not a good option anymore have to go. Learn to identify the weeds of your portfolio.
Now check your Asset Allocation - You can evaluate your Asset Allocation by knowing your Risk Profile - a basic analysis to understand your risk appetite. Once you calculate your Risk Profile and have identified the investment you do not need - Check how much you have in debt, equity , gold and other asset classes. It’s time to evaluate your portfolio!
Rebalance or reallocate your Investments: Rebalancing, primarily means, buying and selling different asset classes to build your ideal portfolio mix in order to meet your risk tolerance and financial goals (basically your asset allocation). Once you know your ideal asset allocation start rebalancing your portfolio in order to achieve it.
Declutter your Investments - When we are talking about decluttering, remember that one of the first things to do is to stop hoarding on mutual funds, buying every other mutual fund is going to make your portfolio messy, and having too many things of one type is only making your diversification worst. So ensure that you have 5 to 6 mutual funds and not more than that and have 1 fund in each category. Time to declutter your mind, wardrobe, and portfolio.
Read the following article to understand this in more detail - When to exit from a Mutual Fund or a SIP
So remember, let it be cleaning your house or your portfolio, both ways you would be welcoming more Laxmi in your life 🙂