gold is probably ok for a small amount if money if you have investments as it doesn't tend to be correlated with other investments (which is good for diversifying) but it also doens't give much return on investment. So I'd sell and put that money in cash if I feared I might need it soon (a good online bank account where you can at least earn some interest - this is very easily accessible, well takes a few days to transfer but ..) or stocks and bond funds if I didn't see any need for it anytime soon.