I am a graduate this year, and about to start my work soon. I have 15k of savings in total. Should I invest part of it, or should I simply use this money to build up my emergency funds?

Let me share my journey with you, hopefully you can pickup some actionable items here to secure your financial future. Pls do this in this sequence (very important) so things dont become stressful along the way.

1. Finish school and get a stable job - assume you are already here, keep it up and pat yourself in the shoulder....well done. Save up at least 20-30% of your income, stick to that religiously no matter what. If you think you can save more then do so.
2. Insure yourself - as you are now a productive member of society and provider for yourself and your family (I assume), its important to insure yourself -- get (1) accident insurance, (2) life insurance, (3) hospitalization cover. All these to account for any unforeseem circumstances so you dont put burden to your family and to your savings in case something is to happen.
3. Start investing - in my experience it was good to have some foundation in real estate investment early on, whether its for yourself (i.e. your own bachelor pad, house, etc) or purely for rental income. Real estate is something that is low touch in terms of maintenance as it is proven to appreciate over time specially in a country like Singapore. Once you have this under your belt (meaning you have some experience investing in RE), you can be more aggressive and brave and look into stocks, fixed income (bonds, etc), even crypto but always make sure you only invest up to a level/amount of money that you think you can end up losing without impacting your life. Dont over bet on something...
4. Lastly, once you have all of the above - do not forget to ENJOY LIFE. Invest in yourself by learning something new, or a hobby that you love doing....Financial journeys are more enjoyable when at the end you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor and hard work....do not forget this ever.

Dear friend.

Firstly you need to designate how much of an 'emergency' is an 'emergency.

For instance, for some, not working is an emergency, but now there are various options to earn extra money (GrabFood deliveries, for instance, and private tuition). So for that, I would classify 'emergency' as when you are too sick to work, or too injured to work, and you still require cashflow without drawing excessively from savings or from external sources. (i.e parents)

A person can spend 15k in a year, so I would consider it as a form of emergency fund, but you absolutely MUST HAVE a Medishield health insurance with hospital rider. (2nd tier rider will do, really).

You also should equip yourself with a whole life insurance that guards against critical illnesses. For instance, 3 of the people in my social circle already have kidney failure, and 1 has passed away. (that guy was about 38). So you need to get those insurances young, before your body starts to fail.

Term insurance against accidents also would be very useful.

You don't really need to invest all of it, divide some for the ease of use so you can withdraw money from ATMs or digital payments, and some in a high interest savings account.

You can also put some of it in a monthly investment or dollar cost averaging into various funds. You are young, so the risk profile and tolerance can be higher. But if you're the kind of person that loses sleep over a loss in value of $50..... perhaps you can adjust accordingly. Oh well. Time will tell.​​​

Hi Anon,

I am 24 right now and am graduating next year, I believe we are around the same age. I totally understand that you are overwhelmed by the tons of options available out there, and everyone tells you different things due to their personal interest/ experience/ knowledge. I would like to share with you what I would do once I graduate next year for your reference.

1. Out of the $15k, save $3-5k in a high yield savings account as your emergency fund just in case something bad happen (you lose your job, an urgent medical situation, etc). Just leave the money in your existing Singlife account, since SCB Jumpstart has dropped the interest rate to 1%.

2. Get a term life insurance and hospital insurance. If you have any trusthworthy friends selling insurance, get these 2 insurance to protect yourself against any uncertainty.

3. Yes, time to start investing! We are still young, so our goal now is to grow our capital as fast as possible and as aggresive as possible (but hey I am not asking you to gamble). We have at least 3 decades to grow our wealth, so invest in something that can generate us higher return (though riskier) instead of the safer ones such as fixed deposit and bonds. So aim higher! Below are the options you can explore, pick 1, or even do both:

3.1. Regular Savings Plan, if you do not have sufficient knowledge and confidence to start picking individual stocks yet, start with RSP, it will not go wrong. Options available now are POSB, OCBC, Phillip Capital and FSMOne. I'd suggest go with FSMOne RSP as they have the lowest fee ($1) and provide the most options (even international ETFs). You can DCA a couple hundreds into each ETF every month, such as iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, iShares FTSE A50 China Index ETF, Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF, Fidelity® MSCI Information Tech ETF (note: these are my choice, you can choose other ETFs that you personally like on the platform)

3.2. Robo-advisors. They are pretty solid option as well, you just have to answer some questions and they will provide you with a customized portfolio that cater to your goals and risk level you are comfortable with. If you want to maximize growth (comes with higher risk), choose a portfolio that has the highest risk-reward. You can invest a lump sum or just DCA every month. Some options are StashAway, Syfe, Endowus, Digiportfolio, Kristal, etc. Personally, I would go for StashAway for general investment and Syfe for their newly launched REIT portfolio.

4. Both of the options above are pretty 'passive' as it requires minimal effort on your end, so you can focus on your work and maximize your earnings as much as possible (learn some new skills, impress your boss, get your promotion, and invest more!). In the meantime, start learning about investing and stock picking. There are many courses and investing books to get you started. Once you have equipped yourself with sufficient knowledge, you can start to invest in stocks with high growth potential (instead of dividend stocks). This will further accelerate your FIRE (financial independence, retire early) journey. Of course, if you think stock picking is time consuming and you have no interest to do this at all, you can definitely stick to option 3.1 and 3.2. If you start to invest consistently at the age of 20+, you can live a very comfortable life when you are around 50 years old (instead of 65 :D)

Hope it helps, cheers!

Go to libbyapp.com and login via your NLB account, and go borrow as many personal finance / value investing books. Borrow books that are written from a practictioner perspective. Can start with beginer friendly:

The Five Rules for Successful Stock Investing by Pat Dorsey

The Ultimate Dividend Playbook: Income, Insight, and Independence for Today's Investor, Josh Peters

If books are not your cup of tea, there are a couple good US financial youtubers to follow

Graham Stephan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV6KDgJskWaEck...

PPCIAN: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXtrYuGksGkkyl...