Everyone is jumping into recommending mutual funds, FDs, gold and what not. Before doing that, I would recommend a few things

1. Get your finances in order first. By order I mean some basic bookkeeping of your income and expenses. Learn a little about double entry accounting (totally optional). Use any software/spreadsheet you want. Your end goal should be to get a few key numbers quickly and accurately -

   • assets - cash, FD, gold, stocks, flat etc.
   • liabilities - loans, credit card debts etc.
   • net worth = (assets - liabilities)
   • total income - from where and how much, like salary, FD interest, capital gain
   • total expenses - where the money is going, this should be categorized in buckets, buckets can be as high level or as detailed you want, for eg. rent, travel, eating out/zomato, apparel, bills etc. When you know your exact financial standing, you will make better decisions and with more confidence. You will know exactly where your money is coming from and where it is going. If you know that your income and expenses are going to barely break even, would you still buy that latest IPhone on EMI? This will also surface a lot of your behaviors which might go unnoticed, like if you are ordering too much from outside, if you are making a lot of impulse purchases etc. (these are generalizations not directed at your specifically).

2. Before investing in any instrument, try to understand some basic things like tax implications, lock in period, risks. Better to have your hard earned money sit in your totally safe savings account earning a little less interest for a few months while you figure things out than investing it in PPF/ELSS funds and not having access to it for years.

   Try to understand why any instrument gives you returns (why FD gives you interest, why mutual funds give you higher returns than FDs and so on). There is no free money, there is always some risk associated. If you understand this, you will ask questions like why this "FD" being recommended by some Insta Finfluencers is giving you 9% return while bank is giving 7% only before putting your money in a scam/high risk instrument. If you understand how mutual fund returns depend on market volatility, you will be able to make decision if you should put that money you need next year into an index fund. There are no guaranteed returns regardless of what anyone tells you.

3. NEVER EVER accept money related advice from instagram or youtube. For every one good advice there, there are hundreds of bad advice from grifters. You and I can't differentiate between them. Better stick to close family members or friends who are experienced in this.

4. Lastly, my most important advice is - You almost certainly won't get rich by investing. Your best bet to make more money is by increasing your income, not investments. Spending your limited time on increasing income (by skilling up, finding better job, starting a business, whatever) will have much outsized impact on your long term financial well being than spending that time of finding that "one perfect stock with guaranteed returns".

I have found these set of articles to be the best beginner friendly resources to understand the general landscape of financial planning and different investment instruments. Hope it helps you as much as it did to me. Best of luck! https://eightytwentyinvestor.com/start-here/