I am 34, and a single parent. I run a beauty parlour. My daughter is five years old. My parents support me and I live with them. They are financially independent. I wish to give my daughter a sound education. I also want to expand my business. Please tell me how to go about it.

Narmatha

It is a matter of pride to expand one’s business but do remember, you need the financial bandwidth to hire good hands, manage accounts and inventories, while scaling up.

Any business takes time to stabilise. Hence, factor in the running cost of the parlour for 1-2 years. For expansion, explore the possibility of a tie-up with an aggregator. They will help you on recruitment, accounts, business strategies and inventories.

Although you may need to share some profits, a tie-up will help you scale the business. Your capital will also come down. Moreover, since the aggregator buys high volumes, you can get the materials at a good discount than if you were buying from the market. This will offset the profit sharing.

Set aside the fixed deposits as emergency fund. Since the surplus is limited, invest for business expansion now and for other goals from 2020.

Expand in stages, don’t open too many outlets in 2020 itself. Invest predominantly in debt funds and 20 per cent in balanced mutual fund.

For protection, buy health and term insurance for ₹4 lakh and ₹75 lakh, respectively.

The writer is a registered investment advisor and founder, myassetsconsolidation.com Send your queries to blinefp@gmail.com

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