My First Year of Money Management as a New Grad (on a 2.5M KRW Monthly Take-Home)
Got a job last year, and here’s a recap of what I tried over the past year. This isn’t a perfect answer—just use it for reference.
1. Emergency fund first
As soon as my paycheck comes in, I put aside 1M KRW first and built up six months of living expenses (about 6M KRW). Without this, nothing else works.
2. Pension savings + IRP
300K KRW into pension savings and 200K KRW into IRP. My goal was to max out the tax credit limit, and now it feels routine.
3. Keep installment savings short-term
I ran two 1-year installment savings accounts, but since rates kept climbing at the time, I regretted locking in for as long as a year.
4. Keep investing small
I dollar-cost average 300K KRW into ETFs every month. I don’t touch individual stocks. I tried once last year, hit -18%, and came to my senses lol.
Overall: I don’t have much money left over, but looking at my bank account after a year still feels satisfying. Next goal is to put more into my housing subscription savings account.
4 answers
Wait—if your monthly take-home pay is 250 and you put 100 into an emergency fund, 30 into a pension savings account, 20 into an IRP, and 30 into ETFs, that's 180. Can you really live for a month on the remaining 70? Just rent, transportation, and food alone sounds tight; unless you're living at your parents' place, this seems a bit exaggerated.
With individual stocks, cutting my losses right at -18% and snapping out of it was the best thing I did. I tried averaging down to recover that and ended up watching it go to -40% lol. For subscription savings, setting up an auto-transfer of even 100,000 won a month is the most convenient.
Emergency fund first is the truth, fr. Set everything else aside and do this first—that's the right move.
Rolling installment savings short-term—I really relate lol. I also locked mine into a 3-year term last year and was so frustrated watching interest rates go up. Now I only roll it over every 6 months. And once contributing 300,000 won at a time to pension savings becomes a habit, you actually start feeling anxious if you don't put it in.