Quote from andrasnm:
why not put $4000 of your cash into a ROTH IRA and the remainder of the $1000 as next year contribution?
Do you realize most of the jokers on ET won't have a pot to piss in when they grow old? You can trade your IRA while you are working at the point it is over $20k you can do some diversification. ..Trade some as options, some as options on futures or index funds, whatever. You have lots of options in a roth IRA.
Just my 2 cents...you'll do whatever your instinct tells you anyway....
but here are some benefits
1) TAX FREE growth
2) 57 1/2 you can take money out - again TAX FREE
3) you can use the money to buy a house as well
4) considering that you might blow the money at least this way you won't get overleveraged and you know that the reason you blew it was purely poor trading...