How seriously are you going to take this? If the answer is "seriously", then Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor is a pretty good follow up if you've already read A Random Walk.
I was in a similar situation in my early 20's but yours is tougher. I believe the best thing you can do right now is to increase your income as much as you can. The more you earn, the more you can invest. Go abroad if you have to. Salary levels in Pinas are shit. In my case, I accepted more and more freelance (programming) work from abroad and eventually quit my corporate job. I started with about $11/hr and was able to find a good and stable client willing to pay $30/hr after a couple of years. That was last decade. You may be able to get more now.
For investing, please start with reading The Intelligent Investor. It's worth it even if you eventually go with a different investing philosophy. I can only honestly recommend managing your own stock (and other assets, if you want) portfolio. If I went with funds, the value of my investments would've been worth just 10 to 15% of what they are now. But there's no guarantee that the same performance can be replicated, so you really have to find what works for you. I graduated with no honors so you're probably smarter than me. I'm sure you can do this :D.
This is an old book but I believe this is where everyone starts with value investing, Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC12C8/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 Or try the sub r/investing not WSB, GL!
I just bought the Intelligent Investor, but the copy I bought had just as much commentary than the actual material. It's being returned while I wait for another copy to come in the mail.
Read the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.
I'm sure there's a newer version but I just linked the first one I saw that looked right.
> I've been informing myself about trading stocks/forex/(specifically) cryptocurrency
Forex is going to be gambling for the vast vast vast majority of people. Crypto is pretty much the same thing unless you have some inside info or insight. However, value investing is always legitimate.
Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, ie the Bible of Buffet. Even if you're not into long value investing like Buffet, the book teaches a lot of good core concepts and investing discipline. The commentary by Jason Zweig in the latest issue is also a great read with lots of updates on Graham's theories and horror stories of the dotcom bubble.
You would be better off spending 99p on intelligent investor ... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000FC12C8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_dlT2_5wfbGbH1VMZAX
Read the intelligent investor
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Collins-Business-Essentials-ebook/dp/B000FC12C8
Old but good.
It's great that you are seeking advice on how to build a stable financial future, no matter how difficult the current circumstances are for you.
Your current plan of building up an emergency fund and then branching out into saving for your future is a good strategy. One of the best resources I've found that answers many of your questions can be found in this wiki page from r/personalfinance. It outlines a step-by-step process in how to think about saving for your future.
If you want to read up more on investing effectively, <em>The Intelligent Investor</em> (written by Benjamin Graham) is perhaps the most highly-recommended book in all of finance. For an interesting opposing viewpoint (but equally valid, and perhaps more modern), Burton Malkiel's <em>A Random Walk Down Wall Street</em> is also quite highly recommended for individuals looking to invest in the market.
Wow, your pile of bullshit is stacked so high I can't even tackle it all at once so I'll address it one piece at a time.
>You're just a gambler, dude. You have no true understanding of economics or investing, you're just gambling. You literally have no clue how the bitcoin market will react, you're just crossing your fingers hoping for the best.
If you had any understanding of investing you'd also realize that no one knows how any market will react. If you think you can predict movements you should start a career as a fortune teller.
>My investment portfolio pulls in 14% per annum, real profit from an actual diversified portfolio.
Wow, I bet you have a big ol' dick too, don't ya? Over what period of time is that, exactly? Because you underperformed the S&P 500 last year.
>Reading internet websites is not the same as an actual education, its a little pathetic that you think it is. I know multiple MBAs personally, why should I trust idiots on the internet who are mostly frauds?
What are you, like 100 years old? The internet has more information on it than every library in the world combined. There are plenty of quality "internet websites" and there are plenty of crappy ones, just like there are good books and crappy ones.
I don't know why you have your panties in a bunch over cryptocurrency, but you're spewing ignorance. Cryptocurrency is high risk, high reward but that doesn't make it gambling. Maybe your beef is the lack of traditional metrics for evaluating the health of different assets: we don't have earnings reports, or P/E ratios, or net tangible assets. Here's my response to that: who gives a fuck? Put 5% of your portfolio into the top 20 coins and forget about them for 20 years. That's similar to what I'm doing. I don't need to know everything about every coin, but I know enough to say that there's tremendous promise in this arena and trashing it while at the same knowing next to nothing about it makes you look ignorant.
Some books I recommend you read regarding investing. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FC12C8/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00H2ZE6H4/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o06_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
So here's some advice I wish someone told me when I was 21 - get educated about investing.
I recommended reading something like The Intelligent Investor (https://www.amazon.com.au/Intelligent-Investor-Collins-Business-Essentials-ebook/dp/B000FC12C8). The book was written in 1949 but the revised edition has some extra content to relate it today's markets. It's US-centric so some concepts might not apply to Australian investors but it will give you a very good overview of the psychological aspect of being a successful investor. After reading that spend some time on http://www.investopedia.com/ to learn about all the various financial instruments that are out there.
At some point you will work out (well I hope you do) that the best course of action is to invest the majority of your money in a variety of index funds for the long term (7+ years).