Saving For Life’s Winters

A pharmacist by profession, 37-year-old, Sachin Acharekar always preferred traditional tools for investment purpose. He started investing in a Public Provident Fund (PPF) account way back in 2007, when he was just 25. His motive was to create a corpus for the future. While he admits that a PPF account back then was one of the most feasible option, it also came with a lot of benefits, the best being the tax exempt-exempt-exempt factor. “You could get deduction up to Rs1.5 lakh under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which helps you save tax,” he said.

Another reason why he chose PPF was the power of compounding. For him, PPF was always a better option comparing other central government saving or investment schemes. “I gave priority to PPF given the income tax deduction under 80C.” For example, if PPF was giving return at 8.6 per cent rate at that time, others were giving returns only at 8.54 per cent, this he cites to explain the difference.

“PPF deposit is safe and secure. It has a lock-in period of 15 years. Also, if tomorrow the bank shuts down, you may lose your money in the savings account. But the bank cannot take custody of your PPF account as per the law and no one can bring stay on your PPF account,” he said. Also you may make a partial withdrawal but you cannot easily withdraw money from PPF before maturity.

Needless to say, Acharekar’s dedication has paid off. When he decided to buy his own house and needed funding for it, he took a home loan of Rs30 lakh from his PPF account. In four years, he has repaid Rs20 lakh along with the interest amount and now only Rs10 lakh loan is remaining. He has been disbursing Rs28,000 loan EMI. As he has two days offs in a week, he likes to take care of his family business on these two days.