How do I go about growing my money while serving NS?

Yes in addition to what Chris has mentioned, Endowus does have a minimum investment sum of $10,000 but do keep them on your radar especially eventually when you want to invest your CPF.

Broadly speaking, financial planning also consists of protecting yourself and getting rid of high interest debt.

Insurance coverage and emergency funds are two keys to protection that you should look into. At this stage, your requirements may not be high but they are still requirements.

In terms of debt, as Chris pointed out, do set aside money for university fees, unless you already have or are planning to get a scholarship.

Lastly, use your time in NS to learn. You may decide that you want to pursue value investing, or passive investing, etc. NS is a good time to find out more about yourself.

Hi Joe,

Good on you for thinking about growing your money at such a young age! Wish I had that kind of foresight at your age HAHA

I think you have the right idea regarding savings and investing. For savings, I think what's important is what's the plan after NS. If you're going for further studies, it would be good to set aside some for tuition fees (assuming no scholarship, if have then yay).

If you're not going for further studies, you can take the time to build an emergency fund to protect yourself when you go to work in the future. If you're saving up for big purchases (e.g., BTO, I know, rare but it happens), you'd want to set aside a bit more for such purchases.

Looking at investments, if you still have excess after your savings portion, you can look to roboadvisors as one of the options. Personally, my pick would be for Syfe due to their more aggressive approach. Endowus is not bad too but I believe they have a higher minimum invested amount which may be hard to hit as you're still young.

Another way to get into growing your wealth is through Passive investing (also known as index investing). You're essentially investing your money into diversified ETF(s) to attain a reasonable return while keeping risk and effort low. In order to do so, you'll also need a broker. My personal recommendation would be Tiger Brokers to start as it boasts low commissions and the account set up is really quick. If you wish to check out your other options, you can also check out my article here comparing some of the brokers available.

P.S. if you choose to open a Tiger Brokers account, you can use my referral link below: https://www.tigersecurities.com/accounts?invite...