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[girlbossglitches]

“Time is money”

“Investing early is key”

“Should I focus on emergency fund or investing?”

We often hear phrases like these, but we have to remember that the fundamental of investing that people often want to skip is building an emergency fund. Because they want their money to perform better in the stock market than just sit in their bank.

Yes, investing has the potential to yield more returns than a HISA but why should you have an emergency fund first???

Because if you put all of your money in investments and you don’t have any cash saved, you might be ‘forced’ to sell your investments too early when you face something. Hence having a emergency fund can actually give you more confidence to hold your investments through recessions.

Example: “Warren Buffet started investing at age of 10 until at least 89, and didn’t panic and sell his investment through 14 recessions that he lived through. He had 3rd friend, who was in a rush to become wealthy, Rick Guerin. He had to sell his Berkshire stocks at $40 a piece in the 1974-74 downturn. stock market went almost 70% down in thise 2 years. Rick was forced to sell because he was levered.”, The psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.

Now this is an extreme example, most of us who are reading this probably didn’t start investing at age 10 and who knows if we’ll have the patience to wait until we’re 90 years old. But the key takeaway from this example is that we should not rush when it comes to investment, and the way to take advantage is to let your money keep performing in the market for a “long term”.

Right now we are experiencing a bit of downturn in the market, this is not my first time experiencing this though, its my second. First one was in December 2024, when I had about $100 invested, and it lasted until about April 2025. I still kept investing $250 every week and any extra savings. Now with a low five-figure portfolio, the risk feels greater. As a beginner investor, only investing in ETFs so far, it is not easy to remain calm and confident about my DCA strategy. At times like now, when everyone around me is telling me I should know better when to sell, I am trying to remind myself of this extreme example of Warren Buffet and his friend and hold on. What about you?