Dude this is a great gift from the rents take full advantage of that. Personally I would take 4k and max out an IRA for the year. Get your MEI and instruct. Whatever is left over stick in a high yield savings account and forget about that money. Trust me it's a nice piece of mind knowing I have enough money to get by for about 5 months for those times in between jobs.

One thing I learned from my old man is that your never to young to start putting money away for retirement. Another thing he taught me is always have some backup sitting around just in case your company goes under or some other unforseen event happens. These are things he learned the hard way.