How to achieve Financial Goals

Have you ever wondered how people are fortunate to be free of financial worries? This article aims to help individuals achieve their personal financial goals. 

The process of goal-based planning may sound to be very simple, given the data points and other facts, but it requires lot of experience and data crunching to fit the numbers to the specific future goals. 

Ashish Goel, Founder and CEO
Vista Wealth Consultants



While investment has always been a very important aspect of an Indian family, it is a much-talked about subject today given the uncertainties that come with a competitive work environment and the rise in expenses of an average middle income family. Our country has always been a ‘saving-savvy nation’, which has been a blessing to us during many times of economic slowdown or recession in the past. Yet, we had emerged out winners – thanks to the saving habit which runs in our blood. 

As we grow with the economy and have more disposable incomes to fulfill our ever-growing needs and requirements, it becomes pertinent to understand and plan for our future financial goals. India is on the fast lane to have economic independence and shine on the global arena. As the nation grows, we feel it is important that our intrinsic habit of saving should gain strength and be more robust to give clarity to our future financial goals. We, at Vista Wealth, strive to differentiate between the ‘needs’ and ‘wants’, so as to have a clarity of what’s important for us and what can be kept on hold for the time being. Here is where the clients get a clear vision to their journey of fulfilling their future financial goals. Then, we help them design a plan based on which they can visualize what milestones in life are important and need to be planned for in utmost seriousness, so that they don’t get a shock/surprise on reaching the very evident and important occasions of life. 

When we onboard a client, one of the preliminary questions we ask them is: ‘Why do you want to Invest?’ Most of the time, he is not clear about the importance of investment. Sometimes the reasoning is that he had a surplus and therefore the investment, sometimes he had heard or seen some of his close acquaintances doing the same. We need to understand that the financialjourney of every individual is different and everyone has different goals in life. So, a particular investment option which is good for a specific goal may not be good for another goal and person. It is like an examination, where everyone has a different set of questions and everyone has to answer separately and most importantly – nobody is right or wrong. The answers for an individual just needs to get refined and that is why the role of a professional financial advisor is very important. We have defined this journey in a process named as ‘Goal-Based Investing’

We generally discuss about 3 steps of Goal-Based Investing or Success PlanningTM process, namely 

Financial Awareness: Aware of various savings and investments option available with its pros and cons considering the impact of tax and inflation 

Financial Responsibility: How to be careful while enjoying surplus income and act in a responsible manner, thus keeping you in control of finances with peace 

Financial Freedom: What is true freedom and how to achieve it by proper planning and allocating resources to Wealth Protection and Wealth Creation

Let us take a real-time case study to understand this process better. It was in August 2017 that we got a referral of a very senior professional in one of the leading and fast growing e-commerce payment and digital wallet company in India. When we met him, we were happy to know that he understood the importance of investments and revealed that he had spread his past investments in many options, ranging from fixed deposits, PPF, insurance, stock markets to equity mutual funds. Hailing from a well-educated family, completed a wellaccomplished half century of his life, he had been saving since long and invested in financial instruments which, according to him, were appropriate. Having a highly responsible professional profile where facing challenges was a daily affair, in personal investments, the struggle to find a balance between what he had invested and satisfaction on the outcome/adequacy of those investments was the major thing bothering him. Whatever he had done was either out of impulse, following what other people were doing or something he thought was good as per that situation.

His financial requirements were similar to any other investor and he had very clearly defined goals. A family of four, his wife is a home maker and they have 2 kids, aged 20 and 13. He categorised his goals as: 

1. Children’s higher education – which he thought he is probably late 2. International vacation every 

2 years with family – as he enjoys travelling and exploring new places 

3. Respectful retirement – as being in his 50s and in private sector was disturbing him Let’s take the goals one by one and the solutions suggested: 

1. Children’s Higher Education 



The current allocation for the elder son’s higher education was in a saving fund, which generated a meagre return and as the amount was parked was heavy and lying idle, the interest generated would have been taxed at the highest tax rate (as per his annual income tax slab). As the requirement for the elder son’s higher education was very near, we suggested him to shift his idle savings in an arbitrage fund which has the potential to generate higher returns with more tax efficiency. The requirement for younger son’s higher education was still 6 years away, so shifting his fixed deposit money to equity MF through STP (Systematic Transfer Plan) was suggested, which will make the target amount reachable with higher returns and being tax-efficient. 

2. International Vacation 

He is an avid traveler and loves exploring places. To make him realize this goal, which will be more frequent (once in 2 years), an SIP in liquid fund was advised so that in case he has a shorter duration between trips or plans an early trip, the money can be taken out easily without any penalty. A liquid fund will also help him generate higher tax-efficient returns and with SIP, his goal gets achieved with smaller amounts accumulated by a regular and disciplined way. The liquid fund investment for short term serves two major purposes: it parks the money where it has a potential to generate higher returns as compared to a saving account; and it is saved from any potential expenses if left in saving account. 

3. Respectful Retirement


This was something to be worked on seriously as the time to retirement was not too far and the corpus required to maintain the same standard of living in retirement years is pretty big. First of all, we marked those investments with this goal which were left after assigning the other investments with the above goals. We suggested moving out of fixed income options and getting into balanced MF to generate better returns and still ensure some safety of principal amount through exposure in corporate bonds and government securities. Some other investments done earlier just for their own sake were also redirected to help achieve this goal. As he still had a decent amount to invest from his regular income,so SIP was suggested to fulfill the gap to achieve his retirement goal on time. 

The entire plan was drafted keeping all his financial and physical assets at one place and then allocating the investment with the respective goals. For the short term goals (elder son’s higher education and international vacation), no risk was advised as we cannot compromise on the principal amount, a medium term goal had some element of risk to generate better returns and a long term goal (younger son’s higher education and his retirement) were focused with a proportionately higher risk to help achieve the target amount in an easy fashion. As the risk exposure is marked with the markets, we had not suggested him to get directly into equity MF, rather move into equity MF through an STP (Systematic Transfer Plan). 

To realize financial independence and ensure that the financial goals are not compromised, protection against any sort of unforeseen/unexpected risks acts as a strong shield. We suggested him to increase his term insurance, as he is the sole bread earner for his family, wife and children being currently dependent on him. Also, apart from the medical cover provided by his company, he was advised to take a personal medical insurance policy which will help cover his medical requirements during his retirement years. 

As planned for him, it is not a tough task to do a proper financial goal planning to clearly focus on our future goals being achieved with a proper direction and advice. Sometimes, you have all the necessary investments done, but the purpose of those investments is not defined. These investments in various places act like unguided missiles, which will act as a support when required, but may fall short of their targets as they do not have a switch to direct them to the relevant targets. On the other side, most of the times, you have all the resources, but you fail to get into the financial planning process fearing whether the amount will be too high for goal fulfillment. One of the major challenges faced by investors is that they fail to identify their goals in life, and if they know about them, they are not very clear about the amounts required to meet that goal. That is where the discussion with a financial advisor helps give value to the goals and lay a clear path to achieve them. The hand holding in the entire journey is the most important aspect of financial goal planning process. 

Have a 5-step approach to see your financial future smile with you, rather than on you: 

1. Identification of your goals
2. Goal setting and prioritization
3. Review of current financial situation
4. Construction of goal-specific portfolio
5. Ongoing goal monitoring

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