BY THE time she was 24, Ms Serene Loong had bought her home - a three-room HDB flat - with her husband. At 29 last year, she and her husband owned another property, a private apartment.
And it was all under their own steam, without any help from their parents.
Adults who start saving and investing early like Ms Loong, a copywriter with an advertising agency, are uncommon.
Mr Lim Cheng Boon, a counsellor at Credit Counselling Singapore, has seen 20-somethings coming into his office to seek help to repay debt amounting to more than $100,000.
Typically, they overspend on their credit cards.
'They didn't consider if they could afford their lifestyle. They were focused only on what they wanted.'
Financial advisers say the earlier you start saving and investing, the better. Time is simply your best friend in investing.
If you invest in something that can grow consistently, the future value in 20 or 30 years will be many times the original amount ploughed in.
Every $10,000 invested in an asset that grows at 10 per cent a year, will increase to $41,772 after 15 years.
However, if invested for twice as long, that is, 30 years, the sum rockets to $174,494 - a fourfold spike.
Starting early also enables you to multiply what you can learn about money, turning you into a savvy investor early on in life.
