Hi I'm a beginner with 20k savings currently serving NS, how much should I allocate for emergency funds and how much to invest?

It's great that you are considering putting aside some emergency funds in your savings account and consider investing the rest.

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I am currently using Hugo Save which is a digital account that helps you spend, save & invest, starting with gold. I personally found investing in gold super interesting particularly as I want my money to grow but without the volatility that comes with investing in high-risk options with the added advantage of liquidity for when I need cash.

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Based on my research, gold had an average annual returns of 10.61% between January 1971 to December 2019, which shows why having some amount of gold in ones' portfolio makes sense. Here's the stats: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061434/gol...l/

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Gold works best as part of a diversified portfolio, particularly when it is acting as a hedge against a falling stock market & inflation. Here's sharing some insights from an article on why you should start investing in gold: https://bit.ly/case4gold

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Since you mentioned you are currently serving NS, I think you would be able to resonate with this article which talks about how you can manage your NS allowance and practise healthy saving habits in general: https://bit.ly/NSHugo

I had the same question before.

The answer is..... It depends.

If you are planning to pay off your student loan (for uni) with that money, I would not recommend investing. But if you are lucky enough not to be burdened by student debt. Sure.

For investing:
5K as an emergency fund should be good enough. But you would still need to ensure that you have sufficient holding power (insurance and some income assets) before investing.

For student loan:
Recommend that you keep the money in a high-interest savings account or short-term endowment so that you can pay your student loan immediately when you graduate. (this is cos bank loan rates are at around 5%)