re: How much of an emergency fund do I really need?

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I go back and forth all the time on how to handle my money. I just started working full-time out of college last June, so I'm exxtremely new to this and really don't know what I'm doing. I've got 9k into my Roth IRA, and will soon hit my limit for this year. I can't contribute to my company's 401k until I've been here a year, and I don't even know if I will contribute (Company makes a discretionary contribution each year to each employee regardless of their individual contributions).

I have a heavy cash flow for someone my age. I have no debt, and I live at home rent free. I make $1300 every 2 weeks, and my only bill is car insurance each month, plus groceries and gas. The extra cash, I just put into savings to build a nest egg but it hardly gets any interest.

I'm wondering if I should just keep around 1-2k in savings, and just open a brokerage account to invest the remainder in. A buy-and-hold account. I wouldn't be day-trading or trading often, but buying a bunch of stocks and just holding them to build up a portfolio. It seems risky because basically all my money would be in stocks (as my Roth is 95% stocks also). But with no debt, why wouldn't I do this? I'm asking because I'm young and dumb and sometimes don't see things the way I should due to inexperience.

My philosophy is 1-2k should cover any emergency expenses, and with my current cash flow I can easily readjust and stop putting all my money into stocks. Living so frugally would suck for now but taking advantage of my current situation with little to no expenses and 0 debt, could pay huge dividends later in life when these stocks mature.

And if I go this route, should I invest in individual stocks or mutual funds?

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