What financial advice would you give to someone who’s currently going through National Service?

Hello there! you might want to set 40% of your income to go to a savings account to park it in there - make your money work for you and earn that sweet interest! i recommend CIMB fast saver as you get 1% interest rate with no strings attached. best of all, you can withdraw anytime with no worries so if there are any emergencies you can get the money ASAP.

as for the 60%, you can just spend the rest on whatever you want! however, i suggest you create a budget and follow it e.g : a monthly food budget of $150. this is to ensure you don’t overspend and also try to get you to spend lesser of the 60%, so you can dump the leftover money by the end of the month into your savings account thus increasing your savings! well for me, i feel that this is the time to start increasing your savings as you’re in NS for almost the whole week and thus will have lesser expenditures and more opportunities to save!

you don’t have to follow per say, work with the percentages and see what you’re comfortable with! of course, this is just my opinion and what i would do if i am in NS.

Do not spend anything on alcohol and/or women who are not your family.

Spend on your education.

Hi Anon, firstly #ORDLOHHH HAHA sorry just had to. But anyway to answer your question. here's some advice! Try to save whenever you can save... If you are in camp week in week out, you get to save quite a bit on transport and food. Some people might think that since they are in camp from Mon-Fri, they have more money to spend on the weekends. NS is also the time when we start doing certain activities which might cause a hole in your wallet especially if you do it often if ykwim. Here's not to say that you should scrimp and save. I understand that there are definitely certain things we want to spend on. You should! It's your hard earned money! But before you do so, it would be good if you could sit down and have a good financial plan. You have a monthly pay of $735, it's not the most and so the more you need to have a plan. You could allocate a percentage to savings, some for Regular Savings Plans (RSP) investment to let your money grow, and leave some for spending. On certain months, when you have nothing to spend on, then you can save and use this money for your future wants down the road. The key here is that you got to plan your finances and be disciplined enough to carry it out throughout this period especially since you don't have much to work with. You should also be paying yourself first, rather than spend first, save later.

Another thing you can do is purchase concession for your EZ-LInk card. Like what Clarence mentioned, try to take public transport to camp instead of GRAB etc. as all of this adds up. It would be a bonus if your parents can fetch you to and from camp hahah

Grow your money if you can!

To grow your money, you can explore doing a monthly investment called RSP. Every month, you are allocating some money for investments. Though it's not alot, it's still something and when you start early, you are giving yourself more time for your money to compound. Isn't that a good thing? You can check out some platforms which allows you to start at a low sum. Some exmples of investment instruments include robo-advisors and local banks etc.

What's the best bank to have?

I used POSB's SAYE/SAYS as the i/r was quite good. By crediting a certain amount of money into the account monthly and by not touching it, you will get a 2% pa interest on the money in that account. For more info, you can check it out here. Make sure you don't touch the money, if not the higher-than-usual i/r won't apply!

Hope it helps!

Perhaps you can look into the POSB Save-as-you-serve account.

It is a savings account with safra tie in promotions, and higher interest rates.