After a few years in the workforce we may find ourselves with a little extra cash. Maybe it's a delightfully large tax refund or an apartment deposit you finally got back, but it's the first significant sum of money you've had that doesn't need to be spent paying back loans or furnishing an empty apartment. For the first time, you want to save or invest that money, instead of spoiling yourself with a spray-on-tan.

I spoke with five financial advisers about what a young investor should do with a small windfall: $2,500. I created a profile of a twentysomething novice investor who doesn't have debts and is diligently paying into a 401(k). Investor X doesn't necessarily want to lock up this money until retirement. He or she may want to buy a house, fund a year off or have something socked away in case of a car crash or other emergency.

After each planner made a recommendation, I asked for numbers on the performance of their picks from the beginning of 2002 until this May. (See chart.)

Set up a Roth IRA

Charles Buck, a financial planner in Woodbury, Minn., recommends that you set up a Roth IRA, as he did for his 27-year-old son. The nifty thing about the Roth is that we don't have to pay taxes when we finally withdraw the money after age 59 ½. We don't get a tax refund now on our contributions, but it's likely that we'll enter a higher tax bracket by retirement and will thus save the difference in taxes. In special cases, like when buying a home for the first time, all of the money in a Roth IRA can be tapped pre-retirement without penalties. We can also withdraw our contributions -- but not returns -- early without penalties. Keep in mind Roths are only for singles who make less than $110k or marrieds who make less than $160k.

Mr. Buck advises that the twentysomething investor's Roth IRA include shares in a diversified mutual fund targeted for retirement withdrawal in 2045. "Target-date funds are good for young people," he says: "Pick a fund, forget about it and it takes care of itself." Mr. Buck's fund pick is the T. Rowe Price Retirement 2045 Fund. It charges a fee of 0.76%. T.Rowe Price has reported returns of 17.01% from the fund's inception on May 31, 2005 to April 30, 2007.