Machan, parking money is an actual issue these days (for people who have savings), not only in SL (Rupees) but even in other economies. I understand that the issue is even worse with a currency like SLR which is prone to depreciate more.
Think about: 1.) short term, 2.) medium term and 3.) long term
For 2.) and 3.) try to find a stockbroker where you can buy stocks from U.S stock exchange. I am not sure how to do this from SL, but if you have way to transfer dollars into the stockbroker account, this should be doable. This looks like one example:
https://www.ustocktrade.com/lk/ . Their trades are cheap at $1 per trade (if that is the actual charge), but $5 a month fee is high. Another list of brokers here :
https://comparebrokers.co/compare/sri-lanka-brokers/.
Once you have a broker account, the most convenient and a low risk option is to buy ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). For example the following is tracking the S&P 500 index (top 500 companies in the US) :
https://investor.vanguard.com/etf/profile/overview/voo . These popular ETFs are quite large (this one is almost 740 Billion in net assets) and have high liquidity (e.g. can sell anytime).
Again, ETF`s are good for medium to long term, they may not have quick returns as some small cap stocks. ETF`s do have distributions (which is dividends returned by all companies bought under the ETF minus any operating fees, distributed to all holders of the ETF).
From 2010 to 2020 as an example, the S&P 500 index have an annual return of 13.6%. which is not massive, but enough to beat inflation and have some extra return on your investment.
