you're on the right track. A savings account can gain you about 0.03% a year. woo hoo. If you open up a broker account (ie. tdameritrade, fidelty, scottrade, tradeking, schwab, vanguard, ....etc) you can invest your $1k into stocks and mutual funds. The risk behind that, though, is that unlike a goverment sponsored account (like a savings account) where you can't lose money, you can lose money in a brokerage account. However, the rewards far outweigh the risk, in the long run, historically speaking.

Look at a Roth IRA. Vanguard's STAR (all-in-one fund) low min. investment, low expense ratio and I believe no service fee for singing up for electronic documents.

The Franklin Income Fund (New York Stock Exchange symbol FKINX) is a fund which can earn approx. 5% or more since it invests in a variety of corporate bonds, dividend bearing stocks and bonds. It rates highly for total return, consistent return and expense for the fund.

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fun...

first, get a discount brokerage account.

next, consider diversification (not all one stock type)

you could consider some long term plays like AAPL, and some short term plays like ebola vaccine stocks NLNK. do your homework, check out yahoo finance and read about all companies BEFORE you invest

60% IWB

http://www.ishares.com/us/products/23970...

40% IJH

http://www.ishares.com/us/products/23976...

IRA

Im a 19 year old kid in college. I have about 5K just sitting in my bank account. What should i do with say 1,000 of it? Looking for a relatively safe investment, but ill take some risk. But please don't say a savings account because the 25 cents id make a year isn't worth going to the bank and opening the account.