Smart, sassy and edgy, Gul Panag’s personality reflects not just in her film characters, but also in her financial decisions. “Coming from an army background, money is a means to an end, not an end in itself for me.
But I respect money as it gives me the freedom to do things that I want to do at the time that I want to do them,” says the actress. ‘Keeping it simple’ is her financial formula. “Very early in life, my father told me that one-third of your income should be saved, one-third spent on basic survival necessities, and one-third should be reserved for recreation. Over the years my income may have grown, but my approach to money and spending it remains the same. Besides this, what really works for me is how I mentally create a kitty for something on my wish list. For instance, I recently sold my car, and I am in no hurry to buy another one. But I am not spending the money I got through the sale of the car, rather I have created a car wish list, so as and when I have the finances to buy the luxury car that I desire, I will. In fact I keep a separate account for income through gifts,” she smiles.
Delve further on money matters, and Gul excitedly shares notes on the innovative ‘Wishlist’ application offered by her bank, Standard Chartered under the Breeze Banking initiative. This application not only allows the customer to allocate savings under various wishes within his/her savings account, but the functionality is also connected to Facebook. So every time a wish is achieved, one can share the achievement with his/ her friends on Facebook.
“It seems as if this application was tailor-made for my needs. Till some time back, I was mentally allocating finances between my two recently acquired properties – one is a penthouse in Noida and the other is a vacation home that I am building from a scratch. Thanks to the application, my brain can stop working overtime as the application keeps track of the money saved for both the projects. I have more time now to work on my volunteering portal and other interests,” she shares.
