Navratri Special - Financial Mantra: Learn the Steps to Unlock Your Financial Freedom

The festival of Navratri symbolises the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness, and knowledge over ignorance. During this festival, each day is dedicated to honouring the nine avatars of Goddess Durga, along with Goddesses Saraswati and Lakshmi, who represent wisdom and prosperity.

Each Navdurga avatar possesses qualities that we can learn from and apply to our lives. These qualities may help us learn how to navigate many aspects of life, such as difficulties with money. Shailputri, Brahmcharini, Chandraghanta, Khushmanda, Skandmata, Katyayini, Kaalratri, Mahagauri, and Sidhidatri are the nine incarnations of Goddess Durga.

Navaratri is celebrated in many different ways, including reciting legends, playing out stories, chanting mantras, staging competitions at pandals, fasting, dancing to folk music, and indulging in delicious traditional delicacies. The Navratri event presents a unique perspective that transcends the spiritual realm.

Surprisingly, Navratri provides knowledge about wealth and money management by contrasting age-old traditions with modern financial practices. Navratri is an ideal time when devotees invoke the blessings of Goddess Durga and embark on a spiritual journey to seek strength, wisdom, and prosperity.

This article elucidates the significant relationship between Navratri and financial freedom, emphasising the powerful 'Navratri Financial Mantra' that can help you attain financial stability and a secure financial future.

How Navratri Can Help You Achieve Financial Freedom

The Navratri festival is divided into three parts where the initial three days are dedicated to Goddess Mahakali, who is known as the destroyer of evil. The next three days are dedicated to Goddess Mahalaxmi, who brings us plenty of wealth and prosperity. And the final three days are devoted to Goddess Saraswati, who inspires us and increases wisdom.

This is the perfect time for introspection and to take control of your finances. Consider this festival as inspiration to improve your financial standing. The 'Navratri Financial Mantra' signifies the following principles, which one must take into consideration for financial well-being.

• Discipline And Financial Planning

  As Goddess Mahakali eliminates the negative aspects of our lives, one needs to eliminate their debt burden on priority, causing a delay in wealth creation. Navratri involves fasting and self-discipline; this symbolises that you need to get more organised and disciplined about your finances and eliminate any debt burden.

  In order to attain financial freedom, it is crucial to maintain financial discipline so that one can easily practice budgeting and save regularly. One must concentrate on creating a solid financial strategy that aids in reaching financial goals, reducing debt burdens, and making wise investments. Make some modifications to your financial habits throughout this Navratri season.

  [Read: How Frugal Money Habits Can Help You Attain Financial Freedom]

• Build a Wealthy Corpus

  During Navratri, people worship Goddess Lakshmi, the divine figure associated with riches and affluence. It is thought that seeking her blessings can bring about financial prosperity. Enhancing your financial potential and living a financially secure life are the major themes of the Navratri Financial Mantra.

  Create a wealthy investment portfolio holding worthy avenues like mutual funds. Given the dynamic market conditions, invest wisely and ensure that your investments are aligned with your goals, risk profile, and investment horizon. Investment planning plays a crucial role in the path towards your financial freedom.

• Enhance your Financial Knowledge

  Seek blessings from Goddess Saraswati, who encourages us to gain more knowledge. You must arm yourself with the tool of financial literacy if you want to achieve long-term stability and growth. There are several benefits to being financially literate. It helps one take control over their money by developing better spending habits. It can also be beneficial in aiding in setting and reaching financial goals.

  [Read: Empower Yourself With Financial Literacy To Avoid Investing in Wrong Financial Products]

Financial knowledge helps you stay updated with financial developments and information that may affect your investments. In addition, financial literacy can help you become your own financial planner and a financial guardian for your family.

Chanting this 'Navratri Financial Mantra' can help remove financial hurdles and create a path toward prosperity. As you can see Navratri with its rich tapestry of traditions, stories, and rituals, serves as a metaphorical guide for life's many challenges, including your pursuit of financial freedom.

You see, the opportunity to live a life free from financial constraints and according to one's preferences is what financial freedom embodies. It denotes a state of financial well-being where you possess the means and flexibility to pursue your goals, sustain a desired lifestyle, and achieve long-term financial goals without depending solely on conventional norms.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to achieving financial freedom, certain financial mantras/steps can help you attain financial freedom.

Steps to attain financial freedom:

1. Endeavour to live within your means

One of the fundamental principles of achieving financial freedom is to live within your means. This means it's essential to create a budget, track your expenses, and prioritise saving and investing over unnecessary expenditures. This approach encourages a lifestyle that emphasises financial security in pursuit of long-term goals over excessive spending.

Many individuals focus on satisfying their instant gratification and end up splurging on unnecessary things. For example, getting your hands on the latest electronic gadget like 'iPhone' might be satisfying today, but what about three months from now? If you have purchased the smartphone via a consumer durable loan to satisfy your instant gratification, you will incur an unnecessary debt burden with obliged EMI payments.

[Read: 7 Ways to Control Your Habit of Overspending]

Instead, you may consider practising delayed gratification. The ability to delay the impulse for an immediate reward to receive a more favourable reward later is a standard definition of delayed gratification. The practice of delayed gratification helps you control overspending and save in a systematic manner to work towards your future goals.

2. Save first, spend later

Precedence should be given to one's savings and investments before allocating funds for discretionary spending. This involves setting aside a portion of the income for saving or investing immediately upon receiving money and treating it as an essential aid in planning for retirement, emergencies, or other financial goals.

This fosters financial discipline and gradual accumulation of wealth by making savings a primary objective. One must always apportion a certain amount from their salary for savings and investing purposes and then plan on spending to avoid non-essential expenses.

[Read: How Millennials Can Apportion Their Salary Smartly to Achieve Their Financial Goals]

Additionally, you must build an emergency fund that will act as a safety net in times of need. Ideally, an emergency fund should consist of 6-12 months of expenses, including loan EMIs.

3. Invest early and diversify your portfolio

This step emphasises the importance of making well-informed investment decisions and starting as early as possible. By investing wisely and commencing your investment journey at an early stage, individuals may benefit from the power of compounding and have the potential to achieve long-term financial goals more effectively.

Put simply, it's the snowball effect of your money growing over time. The longer you leave your money to compound, the more wealthy corpus you will build. Additionally, it's important to diversify your portfolio across different market caps and asset classes. This will help you create an all-weather portfolio that could sustain the volatility during various market phases.

[Read: How to Choose Mutual Funds For Your Investment Portfolio]

In addition, as circumstances evolve rapidly, your financial plans need to be revised, so reviewing budget, investments, and goals regularly will ensure it is relevant and aligned with one's aspirations.

4. Debt management is the key

Having debt is not bad; however, being unable to make timely repayments is what affects your financial well-being. Managing debt is indeed a critical aspect of personal financial well-being and stability, high-interest debts can be a significant obstacle to financial freedom.

Individuals should prioritise paying off high-interest debts, such as credit card balances, as quickly as possible and avoid accumulating new debt unless essential. Put a debt reduction plan in place; some popular debt repayment methods include the debt snowball method, the debt avalanche method, and the debt consolidation loan.

[Read: 5 Steps You Can Follow to Create a Debt Reduction Plan for 2023]

Responsible debt management, which includes making on-time payments and reducing outstanding balances, can positively impact your credit score. This Navratri! Take control of your finances, free yourself from the evil of high-interest debts, and maintain a debt-to-income ratio of below 40%. It will help you get a step closer towards your financial freedom.

5. Secure your financial future

When you light a lamp to offer puja to the Goddess Durga during Navratri, you focus on the deity's divine power and pray to secure your family from any evil. Similarly, you should focus on your inner power and insure yourself against life and health risks with adequate insurance coverage.

Life is unpredictable, but you can secure yourself and your loved ones with adequate life and health insurance. Adequate insurance plans help in situations like abrupt health problems, the death of a family's sole earning member, etc. Ensure you have an adequate insurance plan to mitigate the risks associated with life and health, and as far as possible, do not merge your insurance and investment needs; keep them separate.

[Read: Importance of Insurance | Why Do You Need Insurance Cover]

When it comes to life insurance, consider a term plan which can replace your income in case of unfortunate demise, and for health insurance needs, opt for a Medi-claim policy with worthy features, as medical inflation is skyrocketing.

In conclusion...

Financial freedom may seem like an elusive dream, but it is an achievable goal. People can progressively work towards financial freedom by making well-informed financial decisions, living within their means, prioritising financial goals, investing regularly, and exercising self-discipline.

You must embrace this sacred time of Navratri to strengthen your connection with the Goddess and lay the foundation for a secure, prosperous financial future. May your Navratri be filled with vibrant colours and brim with happiness, spirituality and prosperity!

Wishing you all a Very Happy Navratri!

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MITALI DHOKE is a Research Analyst at PersonalFN. She is an MBA (Finance) and a post-graduate in commerce (M. Com). She focuses primarily on covering articles around mutual funds including NFOs, financial planning and fixed-income products. Mitali holds an overall experience of 4 years in the financial services industry.
She also actively contributes towards content creation for PersonalFN’s social media platforms in the endeavour to educate investors and enhance their financial knowledge.
 

Disclaimer: Investment in securities market are subject to market risks, read all the related documents carefully before investing.
This article is for information purposes only and is not meant to influence your investment decisions. It should not be treated as a mutual fund recommendation or advice to make an investment decision in the above-mentioned schemes.