A Salaried Worker's Personal Finance Checklist (2025 Edition)
Early this year, there was a lot of talk about personal finance around me, so I put together a checklist based on what I actually do.
Step 1. Understand Your Cash Flow
- Calculate available amount after excluding fixed expenses from your salary
- Separate accounts (living expenses, emergency fund, investment)
- Keep at least 6 months of living expenses in savings as an emergency fund
Step 2. Start with Safe Assets
- Deposit the maximum amount into the youth-preferential housing subscription savings account first
- Compare fixed deposit rates every month and switch if needed
- These have nearly guaranteed rates, so they serve as a baseline without taking losses
Step 3. Investment Allocation
- Put 70% of your monthly available amount into stocks (domestic + overseas ETFs)
- Use 15% for rebalancing into bonds/deposits
- Keep the remaining 15% and only buy more when a specific theme drops sharply
Step 4. Track and Review
- Update net worth in Excel on the last week of every month
- Every quarter, review whether you're investing too aggressively
The most important thing I believe is to never invest with borrowed money, and that no strategy beats consistency. Let's all slowly get rich this year too.
9 answers
Got a source? Curious if it's based on stats or something.
Well, that's a bit iffy. 70% in stocks—people have different risk tolerances, and without even specifying an age range, isn't it risky advice to generalize? Especially in a volatile market like this year, a beginner could get burned following that.
Hmm... I think six months' worth of emergency savings is a bit much. Wouldn't three months be enough? It's also a waste to just leave that money sitting around.
Yeah, putting 70% into stocks is a bit risky... but still, looking at the long term, it's not bad.
I just replaced bonds with short-term bond ETFs, and it worked out better than switching CDs. Also, quarterly rebalancing turned out to be more annoying than I expected, so I switched to semi-annual lol.
Oh, I didn't know this.
That's true lol. Especially the 'don't invest with borrowed money' part, I really relate. I've seen quite a few people around me get burned from buying stocks with an overdraft.
Putting in the maximum amount for the housing subscription is the way to go. I've been contributing since last year too—the interest is decent, and I like that it feels like forced savings.
I'm also running something similar, and splitting up bank accounts really seems key. Back when I managed everything with a single account, I'd always hit 0 won by the end of the month lol.