If you were 65 years old and had $300,000 in savings, where would you invest it to earn some annual income?

I would like to use the interest earnings to finance my retirement, while keeping the principle $300,000 intact. Any thoughts on specific investment vehicles?? (CD's, savings accounts, annuities with no risk)

Thanks!!

Diversity would be the key. If you put $300k in an investment, and the investment tanked, you'd be sunk.

Real Estate (particularly non-public-traded real estate investment trusts, or REITs) is a good thing. You could also considere a variable annuities. Bonds are good, but if interest rates rise, the bond value will go down.

Also it's important to look at tax diversification. Would you rather pay tax on the seed or the harvest? It's important to consider that as well.

A trusted financial planner is the best option. Go to an independent firm that has a wide range of investment vehicles. If you choose a bank or a company like Edward Jones or AG Edwards, you're stuck with fewer options and typically a lack of customer service.

It depends on how much you need to withdraw annually. To withdraw $30,000 you would need a 10% annual return on the principle after taxes.

Since you are risk averse, you may consider an annuity, which should pay you an income for life. Alternatively, there are fairly safe mutual funds that invest in fixed income securities. You can arrange for a periodic withdrawal from the fund.

Another alternative is a series of CDs or government bonds maturing at different times so that as they mature, you can keep what you need and reinvest the rest. You can expect about 5 percent return , or $15,000 per year if you want to keep the principal safe.

It would be a good idea to talk to an independent financial planner, one who charges a fee for his advice rather than one who is free but leads you to investments on which he earns commissions. The former is going to be more objective.

If you are intrested in investing in vehicals, it might be wise to start investing in hybrid vehicals or in ethonal gasoline. Soon everything will be running off ethenol. A saving account might be a better option however. you have no risk and could let it sit there for years. Try to find an account that offers a high intrest rate.

The best investment I've ever found for no risk is the online ZionsBank account. It pay 5%+ a year.

And the really nice thing is you can take your money out at any time (I hate places where I have to keep my money in for 3-5 years).

Go to, Zionsbank.com for more details. It's pretty nice.

Another good one is Paypal.com online account. You also can set it up in the money market account and get 5%+ a year for all the money you have in the account --- then, you hook up your account with their debit card and earn 1.5% cash back on every purchase you make.

If you use one of these places, with your $300,000, you should safely make $15,000 a year while keeping your $300,000 intact. If that seems low, you could concider moving somewhere where that really goes a long way (like the Phillipines).

If you need more, you could try Prosper.com and ONLY loan to "AA" members (I've never had 1 AA member not pay back their loan). You could make 12-15% there, and it still is pretty safe. You could make $36,000 a year there.

I hope these help. Good luck!

Avoid annuities like the devil. They were invented by him for complete idiots.

If you want perfect safety and convenience, invest about $30,000 in a no notice bank D/A and the rest it in bank term deposits. The money will earn about 5.5% interest which will give you an incomeof 16,5000pa, or more if interest rate rise.

If you can live on a lower initial income, invest most of it in equity income type mutal funds. These will pay about 4% initially but that should keep increasing every year and protect you from inflation and will eventually surpass the term deposits.

I would be very careful about people making specific suggestions, especially if they list their company's website (the website I listed provides the best rates, sorted by 1 year jumbo CD's), email address, phone number, or other contact information. Just because they are eager to earn a hefty commission does not mean it is in your best interest to buy it.

I would put $100K in inflation-indexed US bonds that pay a set percentage plus a variable rate based on inflation with virtually no risk. I am not sure what rate they are paying. They can be bought directly through www.treasurydirect.com

I would put $200K in 2 jumbo $100K CD's. The reason for splitting the amount is to keep the great jumbo rate while splitting it for maximum FDIC insurance. Countrywide is advertising a 1 year CD paying 5.65%. ETrade is paying 5.1%, and Advanta and Discover are paying 5.02%.

Interview several planners to see if their ideas are in tune with your

If you can find an advisor with a tax background that would be helpful as a good investment decision could be a bad tax decision and vice versa

Good Luck