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Short term investing vs Leaving money alone?
There are three basic concepts finance (as far as I'm concerned). Liquidity is basically an asset's spendability.  Assets range in liquidity from cash (very liquid) to real estate (not very liquid).  You can spend cash immediately, while real estate must first be converted to cash.   Another important concept is your time horizon.  When do you need your money.  Money you need in the near term should be kept in very liquid assets, while money you won't need for a significantly long time can be tied in to something much less liquid. Volatility is the degree to which an assets value is predictable from day to day.  Cash and guaranteed savings accounts have very low volatility, while a stock portfolio will fluctuate in value from day to day, sometimes a lot and sometimes you can lose your initial investment. So really, you need to determine what you need or want this money for, and depending on when you'll need it you can make decisions about whether or not to invest it, or keep it in a savings account, or keep it in literal actual cash. Your TFSA is maxed for the year, so that's out.  Do you have an emergency fund?  Do you want to travel or have other more near term desires that cost money?  If you have a solid financial foundation and already have an emergency fund, you may want to set up a brokerage account and invest in an index fund.  You should not invest money in the stock market unless you are ready to leave it there for at least a few years.  Stocks are volatile but over a long enough period the market generally goes up. In your search for the right index fund, watch out for fees.  Most big brokers will have a list of funds you can invest in with no up front fees and no commission.  The fund itself will charge an expense ratio, look for an index fund with an expense ratio around 0.10%.  This means you'll pay 0.10% of your holdings each year to the fund manager.   No matter how much money we're talking about, I wouldn't put more than half in the market.  Dip your toe in, get used to the value fluctuating.  Don't start reading about technical analysis and derivative trading.  Just put your money in a very low fee big market index and let it ride.