Got salary hike? This is where you should invest extra money to get best returns

The appraisal season is around! And, most employees would have already started planning what they could do with the extra money. Of course, investing the extra amount is the smartest thing to do. But, most people are not sure how to go about it. There are many financial instruments available in the market for them. As social status, fund requirements, and financial goals are different for each individual, one should take investment decisions which suit their goals. Some schemes would offer you higher returns, but they come with more risk. The other schemes give you fewer returns, but the risk would also be less. 

SEBI-registered investment expert Jitendra Solanki told Zee Business Online that you should set financial goals and work towards achieving them. "When employees get the appraisal, they should first look at what are their immediate needs, and allocate fund towards meeting those requirements. After that, rest of the fund should be invested with a goal to maximise their corpus. One can go for any instrument like PPF, NPS, mutual funds, Post Office saving schemes, debt fund, or good-rated commercial papers issued by companies that should be according to risk appetite and ability take risk," he said. 

Equity mutual fund investments are riskier as compared to debt mutual funds and other instruments mentioned. However, equity mutual funds give better returns, Solanki said. "SIP is the best option for the salaried people for investment in mutual funds. Those who want to take moderate risk, can go for balanced fund, while aggressive investors can go for mutal funds which have higher allocation to the stock market."

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Kartik Jhaveri, Director — Wealth Management at Transcent Consultants told Zee Business Online, "The best option to maximise returns for working-class people in the long-term is to invest in equity mutual funds. One can invest in agressive mutual funds, balanced mutual funds or debt mutual funds. These mutual funds carry different degree of risks. Therefore, one should invest considering their situation. They can invest every month through SIP and that help them build corpus in the long run."

Besides this, these employees also have secured options like PPF, NPS, Post Office savings schemes, among others. To meet the short-term goals, one may go for liquid mutal funds which give slightly higher returns than FD, Mumbai-based tax and investment expert Balwant Jain told Zee Business Online earlier.