Every year from about now until Diwali, a version of the same conversation happens. Somebody has decided to start investing, we've worked out the amount, and then they say they'd rather begin on an auspicious day. Would I mind waiting a few weeks.
I never mind. But I've watched what happens after that sentence often enough to want to write about it carefully, because the honest answer has two halves and most people only ever hear one of them.
The half I am not going to argue with
Buying gold at Dhanteras, starting something on a chosen day, keeping a family tradition around when money moves. That is culture, it's older than every scheme on my desk, and it is not my place to talk anybody out of it.
I'd also say something practical in its favour. A date that carries meaning is a date people actually act on. Somebody who has decided to begin on a particular day has a deadline, and deadlines produce action in a way that "sometime soon" never does.
So if a festival gets somebody to finally do the thing they've been meaning to do for two years, the festival has done more for their finances than I have.
The half people do not hear
Here's what I actually see. Somebody decides in September to start at Diwali. Diwali arrives, the house is full, nobody has time, and it slips to after the wedding season. Then it's March and the financial year is ending, and then it's summer.
Nine times out of ten, the person who postpones to a date does not start on that date. The date wasn't the obstacle; postponing was, and the date gave the postponing a respectable name.
That's the pattern I'd want somebody to know before they say "let's wait". Not because the day doesn't matter to them, but because the waiting has a cost they haven't priced.
What the market does not know
Separately from tradition, there's a belief that some days are better to invest in market terms. That one I will address directly.
Nobody knows. Whether a Tuesday in October is better than a Thursday in November is not something anybody can tell you in advance, and our page on rupee cost averaging explains why the whole point of a monthly instalment is to stop having to answer that question.
The date that genuinely matters for a SIP is a boring one: a few days after your salary arrives, so the debit doesn't fail. That's it. Our page on the cut-off time covers why even the NAV question is smaller than people think.
A suggestion that keeps both
This is what I usually propose, and most people take it.
Do the paperwork now. KYC, folio, bank mandate, all of it, which takes some days anyway and can't be rushed on a chosen morning. Then set the first instalment date for whichever day you wanted.
You get the day. You also get the thing done, because the part that can drift is the paperwork rather than the instruction. And if the day passes and the mandate hasn't been approved yet, you've lost nothing except a symbolic start.
Our post on registering a SIP sets out how long each step takes, and it's usually longer than people expect, which is another reason to begin the paperwork early.
The festival version of a different problem
One more thing worth naming, since it's the same season.
Money arriving around this time, whether a bonus or a gift, tends to be committed quickly and loosely. Somebody suggests a scheme at a family gathering, the money is there, and it goes in without the usual questions. Our post on the relative who tells you what to invest in is about exactly that conversation.
An auspicious day is a good reason to start something you already decided on. It's a poor reason to decide something on the day.
The other thing people wait for
Not always a festival. Sometimes it is a number.
People tell me they will start when the market falls a bit, or after a correction, or once things settle. It sounds more rational than waiting for a day. It is the same behaviour wearing a suit.
The difficulty is that there is no signal telling you the settling has happened. Markets do not announce it. So the person waiting for calm is waiting for a feeling, and the feeling tends to arrive after prices have already risen. Our post on markets at an all-time high deals with that version.
At least a festival has a date on it. That is genuinely an advantage over waiting for conditions.
The one thing I would not postpone
Whatever you decide about the start date, there is a piece of this I would not delay for any reason.
If you have no buffer, that is not an investing decision and it does not need an auspicious day. Money set aside for an emergency is not an investment, it is protection, and delaying it means going a few more weeks with nothing between the household and an unexpected bill. Our page on building an emergency fund covers it.
The same goes for a credit card balance rolling over. Clearing that has a certain outcome, and no day of the year makes it a better or worse thing to do.
Save the chosen date for the part that is actually an investment. The housekeeping can happen on a Tuesday.
What about gold
It comes up in the same breath, so briefly.
Gold bought for the household, to keep and hand on, isn't an investment decision and I'm not going to treat it as one. Gold bought with leftover money because it feels safe is an investment decision, and it deserves the same questions as any other, which our page on gold versus mutual funds sets out.
Both can be true in the same family on the same day. The useful thing is knowing which one you're doing.
What the day cannot decide
Worth separating out, because a good start date gets credited with things it had nothing to do with.
The day you begin does not decide the amount, and the amount matters far more. It does not decide whether the instalment survives a difficult month, which is what actually determines whether you are still investing in year eight. It does not decide the horizon, or whether the money matches the date it is needed.
Our page on how much to invest covers the decision that does most of the work here, and it is entirely unaffected by the calendar.
I mention this because I have seen people put real thought into choosing a date and almost none into choosing an amount they can sustain. The date is the part that feels significant. The amount is the part that is.
If a chosen day helps you commit, use it. Just spend the same care on the figure.
What I say now
When somebody asks me to wait for a date, I say yes, and then I ask whether we can complete the paperwork this week so the date is actually available to them.
Nobody has ever objected to that. And the ones who do the paperwork in September are, without exception, the ones who are still investing the following September.
Myfolios is an AMFI-registered mutual fund distributor (ARN-145870) working from Indore since 2014, and we're happy to have everything ready for whichever day you have in mind.
