picpoule, merely a suggestion, but you might look for tax free bonds and/or stashing a little bit each month over the next year or three into safe harbor stocks, like KO, JNJ, BUD or UFCS (examples, NOT specific recommendations). These type have global reach, are fairly steady (most days–not today ;^) )and/or generate a decent dividend (taxed at 15).
Even though you are retiring in two yrs, money that you plan to need 10 yrs from now is still typically game for stocks.
IMHO right now is not the time to dump your money into stocks, but with the dollar cratering, you might want to consider slowly dribbling money in during this bear market rather than sitting on it all. It is nearly impossible to time or measure the exact bottom or top. Better to pick good companies or index funds and invest long with dollar cost averaging.
One last suggestion, if you really don’t know what to do with the cash, hire a professional FOR A FLAT FEE, not a percentage, to explain your options. (If you work for a large company, your retirement fund company for 401k/403b or the like will have seminars every few months. They typically steer you to their own products, but mine at least tells you other options.
Finally, websites like clark howard or motley fool have free and fee info sites that are helpful.
Good luck.
-one muggle
ps. Ditto bsrsharma–but that is too complicated and scary for me. I sleep better buying foreign stocks to leverage off the weak dollar.
