My First 3 Years in the Workforce: A Money Recap (Savings, ISA, Pension Savings)
I joined my first company in 2019, and I'm just writing up the results of a little over 3 years of managing my money since then. I'm not an expert—just a regular office worker's record.
1. Emergency Fund
- I put 6 months' worth of living expenses in a high-yield savings account (around 3% annual interest)
- The key seems to be truly not touching it
2. ISA
- I set up a monthly auto-transfer of 500,000 won for a 3-year term
- I wanted to cash it out once midway, but I held off
3. Pension Savings Fund
- My goal is to fully max out the 9 million won tax credit limit
- The return is... honestly, it's negative right now
My takeaway is that setting up automatic transfers and not checking on them was harder than choosing the products.
How many months' worth of expenses do you all keep as an emergency fund?
10 answers
Fr, autopay is the real answer.
Judging pension savings returns over just 3 years is a bit... it's a product you go into with a 20-year horizon.
The most impressive part is that you didn’t break your ISA midway lol. I broke mine twice and just canceled it.
I started out aiming for six months of emergency savings, and after going through a three-month gap between jobs, I found that six months really is just right. You also need to account for the extra month it can take from interviewing to actually starting the job. It'll vary from person to person, but if your job stability is low, I recommend six months; if it's high, three to four months.
Even if your pension savings are in the red, once you factor in the tax credit refund, most people come out ahead. Don’t just look at the account value—look at it together with your year-end tax settlement refund.
An emergency fund of 6 months is pretty generous, isn't it? I set mine at 3 months.
No source, but it's a personal experience, so whatever. Still, maxing out your tax credit limit is truly the most basic of basics. Just doing that gets you over 1 million won back per year, so if you don't max it out, you're losing money.
If we're talking 2019, the interest rate environment was completely different from now, so many people will probably misunderstand if they take the talk about a 3% annual interest parking account at face value. These days, it's hard to even find rates in the 2% range.
Same here. Setting up automatic transfers and deleting the app was the most effective for me.
Well, isn't a 6-month emergency fund a bit much? When you consider the opportunity cost of having that money tied up in a high-yield savings account, I think 3–4 months is realistic. And if your job is stable, you can cut it down even further.