Smartest thing to do with 5-10k dollars?

Send it to me :)

I'll pay for shipping

But do it wisely. You can make some money playing in the stock market, but do not put all your eggs in that basket. Moslty, I would buy STUFF and buy gold and silver too (mostly silver)! Tangible Things have intrinsic value, paper money, digital money, and stocks do not. So first, buy the things you want and need (or will need if we find ourselves in a worstening economy). Buy yourself computors and other fun and usefull gadgets and make sure you have a reliable fuel efficient car (Cars can be bought for CHEAP, do not go buy a new one - get an old, but nice, car with low miles that can be fixed mechanically by you.) That is the "fun" stuff, for yourself and for your entertainment. Next invest a good portion in Silver or Gold and buy some nonparishable goods and food. Precious metals maintain purchasing power over the long term, so it is a way to make sure that you have "money" if the dollar crashes. Same goes for food. If you have a supply of food, you will not have to waste money purchasing food at higher dollar costs. Lastly, play in the stock market some. I would be thinking short term if I were you and would not invest more than 2-3K tops. Use this money+return to pay back student loans. Just remember this: Gold and Silver are great to maintain purchasing power, but they too may be useless if things get REALLY bad, b/c other people must have things themselves for you to buy from them. STUFF (Things) and food, are valueble by themselves (you do not need a second party to benefit from their use), so make sure that you have all the stuff you need and want first. In times of inflation (better yet, when your predicting inflation) don't hold cash. Buy things (ie: "invest" in things) with lasting, meaningfull and intrisic value. Use the rest for play. :) This is just my 8 cents on the matter! =)

1. Go to News.google.com
2. Search for "Jim Rogers"
3. You will get very bright ideas what to do with your money

With the dip in silver prices buy silver! buy a lot of it! Then buy food/seeds because you can't eat silver. Now that you have real money and food supply buy guns and ammo to secure your assets!

If you live with parents, have a girlfriend you love and can afford to burn all the money, then go for around the world trip.

If not, spend $5K for a trip to Japan and China and $5K for tools you may need for your future profession (computer, books, private tutoring, etc.)

Finally, if you are concerned with your loan, contact the lender and ask if you can start repaying now (which may be foolish considering money will become cheaper.)

College is now a complete SCAM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llrmq8q3E24 ...10 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A75KERKwEQM ...1 hr documentary

I have a close family member who graduated from a
prestigious law school, close to top of her class.
She's been waiting tables for over 2 years.

buy silver- 1 oz coins or any kind of real silver.
Silver is not an "investment".
It's REAL money. as opposed to the fed's paper monopoly money.
(silver will keep it's buying power).
the fed paper dollar is finished.
silver is about to explode in relation
to paper dollar notes

The student-loan debt bubble is the next
to pop, and it's BIGGER than the
housing market bubble was.
We heading into hyperinflation.
The paper dollar will tank.
Keep working. and buying necessities and Silver.

Gold is not an investment. It's a safety precaution. You said you are looking to make money short term, so a long term investment like gold only makes sense in you are simply trying to protect your money until retirement. Plus, gold and silver are too expensive to be considered an investment. If someone had told you to buy .com stocks in the late 90s or an investment home in 2006, each time, you would look at the price and say, "why the hell would I buy something who's value has shot up so high." The old saying is "buy low, sell high", not "buy high, sell high", because that doesn't work, you end up buying high, and losing out. Every time you see a bubble burst and folks lose a buttload of money, there was some financial advisor showing them a chart where prices where going straight up, and he promised that prices would continue to skyrocket. Gold will not continue this path. Even if the economy collapsed and gold became the only form of money, you'd still only have enough to get you by a few months. When you only have 10 grand, gold isn't a short term or long term solution for anything.

When someone tells you to consult a financial advisor, just imagine they said, "Consult a stock broker", and see if that sounds as good. Remember that financial advisors don't work for free. They are stock brokers who make their money by "handling" your portfolio. They need you to invest for them to make money. And they have specific investments they are told to sell, so they will be halfway looking out for your money, and halfway investing it in what's going to give them the largest commission while making their bosses happy.

I would buy some silver. I would buy a canned food stash for myself and those close to me. I would purchase seeds to grow food. I personally am a nurse so I would buy seeds for medicinal plants and herbs. I would also buy medical supplies. These are the things I would do/am doing...you must find your niche and invest in yourself. The future is uncertain but it is certain that there are skills that will always be in demand....it's the supplies that will be scarce.

But that's just my 2¢

First off, Harry Browne was an investor, 2 time Libertarian presidential nominee, and friend of Ron Paul: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul313.html

He is known for predicting that Nixon would close the gold window in 1971 (if I recall, he even predicted it down to the month but he says he was lucky on that). Here's his 1970 book, "How you Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation":
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0006W0A2K/o/qid=253D...

Anyway, his advice for investing in money that you *CAN'T AFFORD TO LOSE* is to go into what he calls the Permanent Portfolio: 25% stocks, 25% gold, 25% bonds, 25% cash. Why? Because it allows you to hedge all your bets and still win every time - when one or more of these items falls in value for a particular year, the other components more than make up for the loss:
http://harrybrowne.org/PermanentPortfolioResults.htm

He discusses this strategy in his book "Fail Safe Investing":
http://www.amazon.com/Fail-Safe-Investing-Lifelong-Financial...
and also in his financial radio show "The Money Show", archives of which can be found here:
http://crawlingroad.com/blog/harry-browne-permanent-portfoli...

It's not get rich quick - as he often said, it's for investing money that you can't afford to lose (if you want to speculate, you might put some of your money into this portfolio and the rest into something more risky - $2500 in the permanent portfolio, $2500 into silver bullion for example). If you looked at the chart I posted from Harrybrowne.org, the permanent portfolio has done very well.

For a contrarian opinion that acknowledges it has done well but latecomers should be cautious, take a look at this:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-25/markets/30071...

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