Ask HN: Financial advice for a graduate student

The real choice isn't between stocks, cds, mutual funds, etc. It's between conventional and unconventional investing.<p>The conventional route is easy and standard. Emergency funds in a bank, set up a schedule to buy index funds automatically, put the rest into CDs.<p>The unconventional route is real estate or business. 30%, 50%, or more is possible, and even easy, once you discover the way. But you have to find the way yourself, overcoming obstacles, inertia, and common wisdom.<p>For example, I learned how to buy foreclosures at courthouse auctions and resell them. 30-50% in 6 months. People doing real estate transactions regularly pay out over 15% for hard money loans secured by real estate.<p>Hacker News is great for learning how to create a business. Go to biggerpockets.com for real estate ideas.

is the $5k the only money you have in total, including savings? if it is, put it into a good online high yield savings account and keep that $5k for emergencies. having a supply of liquid cash on hand can literally be a life saver.<p>do you already have some emergency savings and you just have that $5k to throw around? then i would stick that $5k into a Roth IRA with someplace like vanguard. get it started now, and if you need that money back further in the future, you can pull out the original $5k after a few years. put it into a reasonably diverse set of investments, but heavier on the risk/reward side of things. look for funds with lower expense ratios.

Why not research a few stocks you like and divide the money up into a few companies? Might be a fun learning experience.