In most Indian households, arrival of a newborn is celebrated with gifts from near and dear ones. It’s an occasion to rejoice and shower love on the family. Visitors usually bring gifts, clothes, those that are very close bring gold or silver and most of the people give hard cash. Personally, I prefer to give cash money so that the new parent can choose to buy things of their own choice.
I remember at my baby’s welcome ceremony, our near and dear ones gifted envelopes filled with money anything from Rs 101 to Rs 5001. Yes, there were some who gifted me Rs 101 also, like old grandaunts etc.
After the ceremony, I remember counting the money and keeping it aside to be invested such as to be solely used by my baby in her future. Years have passed by since, I don’t recall as to how I actually used that money. Most of the money at least! I actually intended to put that money as a long term FD, but somehow in the hustle bustle of daily life it all slipped my mind.
Then again, another set of envelopes arrived on the first birthday and subsequent birthday parties. Or every single time grandparents came visiting, when we went to bua’s house or mama’s house.
Somewhere in my head I wanted to accumulate those gifts as savings for her future, at least from her important milestones but they were probably too little for me, just a few thousands, to make the significant effort towards a systematic investment plan.
So in reality I probably was just spending all that money for my routine everyday expenses, as grandma says “Paise ke das paair hote hai”. I got occasional treats for my child, because I don’t really want to be buying gifts for my kid EVERYTIME a relative hands over a Rs 500 note while visiting.
Looking back today, what I could have really done was to have invested that money in Gold. But 9 years back who would have given me gold for Rs 500? I mean, the logistics were too much for such a small amount. However, now it’s a different story. I have downloaded the #Augmont App on my phone.
This app allows me to transfer any amount of money, however small, from my linked bank account to Augmont. This money is then used to buy 24 carat gold coins of proportionate denomination and physically stored at IDBI Trustee’s locker. It is upto IDBI Trusteeship as to which locker they store the Gold in, IDBI issues the certificate for all the gold deposited with them on customer’s behalf. Once I accumulated gold worth 5 grams, I requested for home delivery of that gold coin, although Augmont allows me to request for delivery of any amount of gold, even as small as 0.1 grams. The gold was hand delivered to my house and it was hallmarked. The delivery charges were quite nominal.
With so much simplicity and flexibility, investing and accumulating GOLD is almost as simple as buying a movie ticket. The app is really simple to use and if this pans out well, I see a significant chunk of gold getting accumulated over the next 20 years. This kitty can be used to fund her higher education or gifted as jewelry.
Gifting in our country is the quasi -equivalent of showing love and there continues to be dozens of occasions when she is handed over an envelope of cash. As I can invest even really small denominations like Rs 101-501 just at the click of a button, I can make sure that ALL my baby’s gift money is invested ONLY and ONLY towards her future.
Download Augmont App