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Children's education follows retirement very closely in every financial plan. Blame it on traditional Indian mindset: child's higher education and marriage tops the list of long-term financial goals for many individuals. Sensing an opportunity, mutual fund houses have launched dedicated children's plans to help parents to realise their dreams for their children. But do you really need them to plan for your child's education and marriage?

Here is the monthly update on our recommended small cap mutual fund schemes. We are happy to inform you that there are no changes in the recommendation list in November. Both the small cap mutual fund schemes that were in our list in July managed to retain their spot even this month. The small cap mutual fund category has offered negative returns (-1.55%) in the last one year. However, many mutual fund advisors say investors should not write these schemes off.

Parents worry a lot about their specially-abled children. They are always concerned about how they can ensure the financial well-being of the children. Mutual fund advisors say the first thing the parents with specially-abled children should do is to start the financial planning process without any delay. They believe proper investments with the existing resources can ensure the financial independence of the child.

Children’s Day is celebrated across India today. While we all wish to gift our children the life that they would want, a life they would have dreamt of, what we need to plan is how we are going to achieve this goal. Their dreams might change from time to time, might get bigger and better, but your financial plan has to have the potential to take care of all their needs.

Tata Asset Management has launched an open-ended equity scheme called Tata Focused Equity Fund. According to the press release sent by the fund house, the scheme will invest in a concentrated portfolio of up to 30 stocks across market capitalisations.

Parents spend a lot of time hoping to provide the best of everything for their children. Mostly, they want to ensure that the children are provided with the best education. However, undergraduate and postgraduate fees are increasingly getting expensive. Even if you don’t have any kids yet, it is always better to start planning in advance to ensure that you are able to fund your child’s education.

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago,” said the famous, billionaire investor Warren Buffett. To your children, you’re the tree that provides and protects. How you manage your money today will directly impact your children’s finances in the future. Therefore, it is imperative that you think deeply about financial planning for your children. Here are some dos and don’ts to help you along the way. What better time than the occasion of Children’s Day to explore the subject.

Where to invest for child education: If you are contemplating to save for your children’s education needs, it is time you act fast and avoid any kind of procrastination. As against general inflation, education inflation is rising at a much faster pace. “From primary to secondary to higher education, parents are increasingly finding it difficult to meet the growing fee structure and other costs associated with education,” informs Tarun Birani, Founder and CEO, TBNG Capital Advisors. It is, therefore, imminent to save in assets that are capable of generating inflation-beating returns. And, even before you start saving, make an approximate estimate of the inflation-adjusted cost of the course that your child could be interested in a few years down the line.

When it comes to planning for their child’s future, there are various issues that parents face. Most don’t know where to start, what to exactly save for, how much to invest and where to put their money. Earlier parents did not face this problem. In the recent few decades, with the skyrocketing education cost, parents now have to think through their finances for their children.

Assets of mutual funds grew by over 7 percent in October but equity mutual funds inflows hit a 5-month low in the same period despite a rise in equity markets. Amid intermittent bouts of volatility, BSE's benchmark Sensex rose 3.6 percent last month while the Nifty50 index registered a rise of 3.5 percent in the same period and second consecutive month when the index closed in the green.

Due to the NBFC crisis, fund houses have become cautious in their debt investment strategy and are majorly investing in safe instruments. The exposure of mutual funds into the various debt instruments of the NBFC sector has declined while the exposure of corporate debt paper saw a notable increase in October.

With fixed deposit rates coming down drastically in the last one year, investors can look at small-saving schemes. Debt mutual funds, with maturities up to three years, are a good option too, Sunil Sharma, Chief Investment Officer, Sanctum Wealth Management, says in an interview to Moneycontrol’s Kshitij Anand.

A mutual fund is an investment option in the market. In a mutual fund, the investment amount is pooled in from various investors. Then the money is invested in a variety of underlying securities. In ratio to their investment amount, a mutual fund house issues unit of mutual funds to the unitholders. If you’re investing If you’re investing in a mutual fund, remember to read the fund’s investment objective in the offer document. Profits or losses are proportionately distributed to the unitholders. Before it can collect funds from the public, mutual funds in India must be registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

The yield on the 10-year government bond closed lower on Thursday as traders exercised caution anticipating larger monetary easing because of deteriorating economic growth amid a jump in retail inflation. The yield on the 10-year India government bond was at 6.520% compared with its previous close of 6.53%.

Why do we invest? The answer is very simple: to create wealth. The trouble is that most of us have a single source of income and there are various needs that are immediate, medium term and long term. If we move from one goal to another with our accumulated savings, we would be left with almost nothing for our long-term goals. This is why it is important to not just save money, but to use it to make investments that will help create wealth over a long period of time. Which is why a good head start can make all the difference. They say if you lose an hour in the morning, you will spend all day looking for it. When it comes to investing, a late start can mean you will spend years effortfully trying to build wealth you would otherwise have easily made.