By all means you should increase your childs awareness about money. He should be made aware that money is a scarce resource and it needs to be earned. Youve to get him to learn on his own in a fun way so that he can take pride in managing it well. Implement a sound allowance plan depending on the kind of spending he may need to do. Give this allowance money at a regular interval and do not encourage borrowing money in between. For example: One could start with some basic expenses like say,snacks after school. The child may want to buy a drink or grab a quick snack from the canteen during or after school. Sit down with the child and find out how much he normally would spend on this snack every day. Lets say he spends Rs 20 on the daily snack. For five days in a week he would spend Rs 100. So every Monday you could give him Rs 120 20 per cent extra for the child to use his discretion.

I made some bad choices in stocks and faced losses last year. This year I have made a profit,which amounts to the same as last years loss. Am I liable to pay tax?

Shardul Bhatnagar,Mumbai

If you have stocks,which have lost money,you can use them for saving taxes. Short term capital loss can be used against short term capital gain to save taxes. For example,if you made losses of Rs 50,000 in stocks 2 years back and made Rs 50,000 in the current year,your tax liability in short term capital gain will be 0. However,you need to be careful while booking the short term losses. If the company is excellent and the stocks have come down as a result of market crash or temporary conditions,you should not book losses. In a few quarters or years,the stocks will go up. Nevertheless,if you see that prices will remain subdued for some time,you can book the losses and buy the stocks again so that the loss can be offset against your gain and you still retain share.

Could you suggest a few ways I can increase my loan eligibility?

Manish Pant,Pune

If your spouse or parent is working,you can club their income with yours and apply for a loan. Sometimes,banks allow two brothers to take a loan together as well. Explore these options or try and increase your down payment by liquidating a few assets.

The expert is CEO,Bankbazaar.com
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