Scientifically speaking, <5 years is not enough time to savely invest even into an index fund. If you have about 10 years, you get into ranges, where you cannot

Scientifically speaking, <5 years is not enough time to savely invest even into an index fund. If you have about 10 years, you get into ranges, where you cannot find any examples of losing money. Picking stocks on the other hand means being outperformed by the market (again, scientifically speaking). Since you asked us what we would do personally: I would probably use some of it for something like an extra vacation and would put the rest on top of my current assets, divided up exactly like my assets are already allocated. If you do not have any assets invested, you should probably first follow some very conservative advice about how to handle money in general. In the US I know of Dave Ramsey. This depends highly on where you are located because of social systems, retirement funds, taxation etc. To me it's strange, that the question even comes up. You should either be paying off debt or already have your asset allocation figured out.