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How best to grow my small amount of money starting at a young age? [duplicate]
(Congrats on earning/saving $3K and not wanting to blow it all on immediate gratification!) I currently have it invested in sector mutual funds but with the rise and fall of the stock market, is this really the best way to prepare long-term? Long-term?  Yes! However... four years is not long term.  It is, in fact, borderline short term.  (When I was your age, that was incomprehensible too, but trust me: it's true.) The problem is that there's an inverse relationship between reward and risk: the higher the possible reward, the greater the risk that you'll lose a big chunk of it. I invest that middle-term money in a mix of junk high yield bond funds and "high" yield savings accounts at an online bank.  My preferences are HYG purchased at Fidelity (EDIT: because it's commission-free and I buy a few hundred dollars worth every month), and Ally Bank.