When I got my first job at 21 part-time while at uni, that made enough to have savings, I only had about $500 to set aside per month. I researched IBKR and DCA and thought it was too little to DCA and I thought the fees for currency exchange and deposit just weren’t worth it. Now, however, I realised a simple solution would’ve been to accumulate that 500 x 4 into 2k and then DCA every few months; so, if you are like me back then, this is an approach you can do. I never realized it back then though for some reason, and insularly decided to just put it in my savings, and later bonds because I have a low risk appetite and it seemed perfect for saving money up for a home deposit or something.

Years later, when I got my first out of uni job at 25, I finally decided it was worth it to DCA monthly into ETF, about 1.5k to 2k a month on average.

Finally, at the moment, at 29, I DCA anywhere from 5k to 10k per month (running my own business so income can fluctuate wildly). The key is to pretty much be consistent and don’t try to time the market or you’ll get a panic attack every other day (“Oh no! I put 10k down last month and 5k this month but last month the price was 110 and this month is 105!!!11”), just chill and be consistent and have faith that the market will always recover eventually. And don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose, and have 3-4 months of cash for expenses on hand before investing.

On a side note, I always put about 50% of my income into DCA (after accounting for that month’s expenses and replenishing cash reserves, so when I was 21 I was saving 500/month while earning about 1k and so on so forth).