80 % of Indian population feels financial stress everyday. 76% don't know how much to save, invest, where to invest , what are risks , how to decide leading inefficient handling of finances. Here are the five biggest costly mistakes you can avoid.

1. Not knowing your own limit - Create Budget

People are stress-free who are disciplined in life and habits. Yes, you have read it correct. We need to start looking at our own personal behaviour finance habits. How to decide how much expenses are enough, what % of income should be saving ? As per survey those who tend to create budget and stick to it tends not overspend by 20-30%. With easy line of credits available in market it's very easy to buy new iPhone or new PS4. Short term pleasure leads to long-term dept. Do not get in peer or society pressure or FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Buying things on zero-cost EMI or on BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) generally crosses your credit risk if you are not looking at your overall expense and you are one step away from dept roll.

It's easy to do budgeting. You can do monthly or bi-weekly using simple pen and paper or tools. Use 50-30-20 famous formula. According to that you can have maximum 50% of your income to your expenses, 30% towards pleasure goals like vacations, dinning out and 20 % of income must go towards your future planning such as investing, and saving.

2. Not Having Emergency funds

What is emergency funds - to cover unexpected expense such as car break down, medical or unexpected non avoidable expenses.

Why we need it - You should ideally have 6 months -1 years of your expense in your saving account or in liquid formate to use only in emergency such mentioned above.

Emergency funds = 6x-12x of your monthly expenses

Start sip to another bank account just for this very specific purpose. Do not touch or use unless its really emergency.

3. High -interest dept

I believe this is biggest contributor to run your financials. Taking high-interest loan without consulting financial expert's advice can be life-long expensive mistake. If you have multiple high-dept loans please try to see big elephant in room such as highest one. You can also explore way to re-finance or break down loans into multiple small loans with less interest loans. Even half percentage makes a bigger difference in long term.

Every Indian has average 1L dept. Total outstanding debt in rural India is 66% and 87% in urban India.

4. Don't know where to invest and how much?

Investing is tricky. So many options available in market with different risk and return. Should you invest in Stock, Equity,IPO, Bond, Real Estate, Gold, Mutual funds,FD, Crypto and so on. How do you decide well there is easy way.

Investing in one instruments can be dangerous. Please do pros and cons before investing. You should look for risk involved, liquidation, return, safety and your age profiles. Talk to expert in case if you don't know where to start.