A few useful steps to accumulate gold for marriage or investment

Investment

oi-Sunil

By Sunil Fernandes

Updated: Saturday, August 15, 2015, 7:11 [IST]

Though Indian society has evolved over the last few years and the significance of gold in marriage is declining significantly, at times accumulating gold in small quantities is a great investment option by itself. You cannot all together eliminate the significance of gold in Indian marriages and even if it remains, you have gifted away an investment to your child in the form of gold. Let's see a few steps that you can take to accumulate gold.

Step 1: Buying in small quantities

Let's assume you had a 2 year old daughter in 1990, when gold prices were at Rs 3100 per 10 grammes. Today, she would be ready for marriage and you would not have to buy gold at Rs 25,000 per 10 grammes. If you had been constantly buying small quantities at low rates that have been prevailing since 1990, when your daughter was born, today it would eliminate the need to buy at Rs 25,000. In 1990 the rates for 10 grammes gold in India was Rs 3200. In 1995 it was Rs 4650, Rs 4400 in 2000, Rs 5800 in 2004, Rs 12,500 in 2008 and Rs 25,000 in 2015. By buying in small quantities you would have got it cheaper, than buying in one shot, at the time of marriage.

Step 2: Look at other options

If you do not want to buy physical gold, look at electronic options like Gold ETFS and E-Gold. Both track gold prices, which means you are investing in gold. You can sell them and buy physical gold at the time of marriage, without having to worry about theft and robbery as well as storage costs like locker rentals. Read how to buy e-gold here

Step 3: Decide on the quantity and time frame

If you are looking at a marriage or event say 10 years from now, you need to decide on the quantity of gold you would want to have after the end of 10 years. You need to divide and invest each month to achieve the target.

Step 5: Do not try and predict gold prices

Gold prices in India depend on a number of variables including international prices of gold, import duties, value of the rupee against the dollar etc. Hence, do not try to predict the price of gold and say that this month it is expensive, so I will buy together next month. In reality nobody knows where gold prices are headed.

Step 4: Adopt a disciplined approach

You need to adopt a disciplined approach to achieve your target. If you keep skipping the investment each month, chances are that you may not achieve your goals.

Conclusion: Though the government discourages gold as an investment, the fact is that prices have increased almost 7 times in the last 14 years. That's a great investment option and a good hedge against inflation.

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