Developing financial literacy in young people is essential for assisting them in saving money, obtaining credit, and avoiding debt. With the use of both conventional money management techniques and contemporary digital tools, youngsters today can maintain control over their finances.
Improved financial literacy will benefit the whole population and significantly increase their ability to provide for their future. In this series, we aim to collect the views of students and young working professionals on investing and finance.
Aayush Banka of Shri Ram College of Commerce tells MintGenie in an interview about how he plans to spend money on anything and everything that would add value in his life. A native of a small town of Renukoot, Varanasi, he loves creating educational and motivational content on LinkedIn with a follower base of 12,900+ and over 1 million viewership from people around all over the world. Additionally, he is passionate about playing and watching cricket as well.
Edited Excerpts:
What does money mean to you? Is it the most important factor when it comes to your life decisions like what to study, career and so forth?
Money to me is the reward of efforts I’m putting in everyday in the monetary terms. Though, I am not earning at the moment but its something that influences my daily livelihood decisions. There’s always a upper limit which I use to set before spending it on anything. But when it comes to education, it’s always secondary and comes after quality. Yes, it is indeed an important factor but being grown up in a family who always wants his child to get a quality education at any price is something that I am blessed with.
What do you spend your money on every month at the moment? Can you give a breakup in percentage terms?
Currently, I’m a student at Shri Ram College of Commerce. So, most of my spending are happening on accommodation, travelling and food. Breaking them even further, accommodations make around 60% of my total spendings, 20% for foods, 10% for travelling and 10% miscellaneous expenses.
What are the things you want to spend money on?
I would love to spend it on anything and everything that would add value in my life. Having said that, sometimes it also becomes important to get out of your zone and try out new things. Outstation trips, playing professional sports and trying out different types of foods are few things I would love to spend my money on.
Do you save money? If yes, how frequently and what do you do with this money?
Yes, I do. After shifting to a new city for higher studies, I think this habit is something that helped me a lot. I always try to save a fixed amount of money every month but the amount of savings remains flexible.
What does having a job mean to you? What are the top two factors you will want to think about when deciding a company to work for?
Getting into corporate is something that excites me a lot. Job to me is a place that would help me to reach where I want to be in next 5-6 years and would also help me in holistically developing my skill set. It should be a place which would give me the opportunity to express myself along with following my passion. The two major factors, I’ll think upon are, the type of work they are offering me, if its interests me or not and the working environment of the company.
What do you think about investing your money? If you have a certain amount of money set aside, will you want to invest it in the stock market, mutual funds, or do you just keep it in your bank savings account?
It’s really a good idea to start investing at a very young age but its also important that you have the fair knowledge about it before you start doing. Don’t go for investing just for the sake that others are also doing the same. Its something that interests them and can be a possibility that it does not interests you. In future, I would like to invests in stock markets as it interests me a lot and I have been following it since very long time now.
Do you think you have an understanding on how to save and invest? If yes, how did you learn? If not, are you trying to learn?
I have the basic knowledge on savings but not sure about the best mode of investments. I am trying to get well versed with these things by following up daily news on them and reading out articles present there on LinkedIn.
Do you follow social media influencers and follow their investment advice?
Yes, I do listen to few social media influencers like Ankur Warikoo, Rachana Ranade but I’m still processing their investments advices as it is something which is quite new to me.
Do you talk to your mother or your father about money and learn from them or follow their advice?
They are the ones, along with my elder brother, who helped me in fixing up my increasing expenditures issues. They always encourage me to spend enough money on things, that would help me in living a healthy life. One thing which they always ask me to do is, to maintain a certain amount of money in the bank account, which genuinely helped me a lot.
