Had been working on some of the investment calculators to work on plan for long term investments. We are talking about Equity investment only here, with time horizon of 5 years.

Have choosen 5 years as time horizon, as that is typical time horizon for investments done by our parents in erstwhile investment instruments like NSC, which in 1990's used to double the money in 5 years.

Having seen parents invest the money in NSC and then forgeting about it and enjoying the good forgoten money showing up with good returns was always welcome.

My long term vision is based on these good memories and hence keeping the time span of 5 years.

Running through the calculators, saw some interesting numbers on the screen, with following return assumptions:

• Low Return : 12%
• Medium Return : 20%
• High Return : 40%
  

For an Investment of Rs. 10000/per month (Total Money Invested: Rs. 6 Lacs over 5 Year)

• Low Return : Rs. 816697 (8 Lacs+)
  
• Medium Return : Rs. 1017582 (10 Lacs+)
  
• High Return : Rs. 1845594 (18 Lacs+)
  

As you can see, with low investment of Rs. 10000/per month, one can almost triple the money in 5 years with average return of 40%.

If you are not an active investor, you can invest via the mutual fund route. The top 5 mutual funds have given average return of 50% + even in the volatile last year.