Where can I invest for the Short Term and protect against Inflation?
Emergency funds, car funds etc tend to have to be accessible quickly (which tends to rule out CDs unless you have the patience to work something like a monthly CD ladder, an I don't) and you'll want your principal protected. The latter pretty much rules out any proper investment (ETFs, mutual funds, stock market directly, Elbonian dirt futures etc). It's basically a risk-vs-return calculation. Not much risk, not much return but at least you're not losing from a nominal standpoint). Another consideration is that you normally aren't able to decide freely if and when you want to pull money out of an emergency fund. If it is an emergency, waiting three weeks to see if the stock market goes up a little further isn't an option so you might end up having to take a hit that would be irrelevant if you were investing long term but might hurt badly because you're left with no choice. I'd stick that sort of money into a money market account and either add to it if necessary to keep up with inflation or make sure that my non-retirement investments over and above these funds are performing well, as those will and should become a far bigger part of your wealth in the longer run. Your goals are mutually exclusive.  You cannot both earn a return that will outpace inflation while simultaneously having zero-risk of losing money, at least not in the 2011 market. In 2008, a 5+% CD would have been a good choice. Here's a potential compromise... sacrifice some immediate liquidity for more earnings. Say you had $10,000 saved: In this scheme, you've diversified a little bit, have access to 50% of your money immediately (either through online transfer or bringing your bonds to a teller), have an implicit US government guarantee for 50% of your money and low risk for the rest, and get inflation protection for 75% of your money. "If you are concerned about inflation, here are a couple of ""TIPS"". You can buy a mutual fund or ETF which adjusts for inflation. Here is one link which you may find useful: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-smarter-mutual-fund-investor/2010/12/02/etf-basics-how-to-fight-inflation"
The main advantage of commodities to a largely stock and bond portfolio is diversification and the main disadvantages are investment complexity and low long-term returns. Let's start with the advantage.  Major commodities indices and the single commodities tend to be uncorrelated to stocks and bonds and will in general be diversifying especially over short periods.  This relationship can be complex though as Supply can be even more complicated (think weather) so diversification may or may not work in your favor over long periods. However, trading in commodities can be very complex and expensive.  Futures need to be rolled forward to keep an investment going.  You really, really don't want to accidentally take delivery of 40000 pounds of cattle.  Also, you need to properly take into account roll premiums (carry) when choosing the closing date for a future.  This can be made easier by using commodities index ETFs but they can also have issues with rolling and generally have higher fees than stock index ETFs. Most importantly, it is worth understanding that the long-term return from commodities should be by definition (roughly) the inflation rate.  With stocks and bonds you expect to make more than inflation over the long term.  This is why many large institutions talk about commodities in their portfolio they often actually mean either short term tactical/algorithmic trading or long term investments in stocks closely tied to commodities production or processing. The two disadvantages above are why commodities are not recommended for most individual investors. "Pay off the credit cards.  From now on, pay off the credit cards monthly.  Under no circumstances should you borrow money.  You have net worth but no external income.  Borrowing is useless to you.   $200,000 in two bank accounts, because if one bank collapses, you want to have a spare while you wait for the government to pay off the guarantee.  Keep $50,000 in checking and another $50k in savings.  The remainder put into CDs.  Don't expect interest income beyond inflation.  Real interest rates (after inflation) are often slightly negative.   People ask why you might keep money in the bank rather than stocks/bonds.  The problem is that stocks/bonds don't always maintain their value, much less go up.  The bank money won't gain, but it won't suddenly lose half its value either.  It can easily take five years after a stock market crash for the market to recover.  You don't want to be withdrawing from losses.   Some people have suggested more bonds and fewer stocks.  But putting some of the money in the bank is better than bonds.  Bonds sometimes lose money, like stocks.  Instead, park some of the money in the bank and pick a more aggressive stock/bond mixture.  That way you're never desperate for money, and you can survive market dips.  And the stock/bond part of the investment will return more at 70/30 than 60/40.   $700,000 in stock mutual funds.  $300,000 in bond mutual funds.  Look for broad indexes rather than high returns.  You need this to grow by the inflation rate just to keep even.  That's $20,000 to $30,000 a year.  Keep the balance between 70/30 and 75/25.  You can move half the excess beyond inflation to your bank accounts.  That's the money you have to spend each year.  Don't withdraw money if you aren't keeping up with inflation.   Don't try to time the market.  Much better informed people with better resources will be trying to do that and failing.  Play the odds instead.  Keep to a consistent strategy and let the market come back to you.  If you chase it, you are likely to lose money.   If you don't spend money this year, you can save it for next year.  Anything beyond $200,000 in the bank accounts is available for spending.  In an emergency you may have to draw down the $200,000.  Be careful.  It's not as big a cushion as it seems, because you don't have an external income to replace it.   I live in southern California but would like to move overseas after establishing stable investments.   I am not the type of person that would invest in McDonald's, but would consider other less evil franchises (maybe?).   These are contradictory goals, as stated.  A franchise (meaning a local business of a national brand) is not a ""stable investment"".  A franchise is something that you actively manage.  At minimum, you have to hire someone to run the franchise.  And as a general rule, they aren't as turnkey as they promise.   How do you pick a good manager?  How will you tell if they know how the business works?  Particularly if you don't know.  How will you tell that they are honest and won't just embezzle your money?  Or more honestly, give you too much of the business revenues such that the business is not sustainable?  Or spend so much on the business that you can't recover it as revenue?   Some have suggested that you meant brand or stock rather than franchise.  If so, you can ignore the last few paragraphs.  I would be careful about making moral judgments about companies.  McDonald's pays its workers too little.  Google invades privacy.  Exxon is bad for the environment.  Chase collects fees from people desperate for money.  Tesla relies on government subsidies.  Every successful company has some way in which it can be considered ""evil"".  And unsuccessful companies are evil in that they go out of business, leaving workers, customers, and investors (i.e. you!) in the lurch.   Regardless, you should invest in broad index funds rather than individual stocks.  If college is out of the question, then so should be stock investing.  It's at least as much work and needs to be maintained.   In terms of living overseas, dip your toe in first.  Rent a small place for a few months.  Find out how much it costs to live there.  Remember to leave money for bigger expenses.  You should be able to live on $20,000 or $25,000 a year now.  Then you can plan on spending $35,000 a year to do it for real (including odd expenses that don't happen every month).  Make sure that you have health insurance arranged.   Eventually you may buy a place.  If you can find one that you can afford for something like $100,000.  Note that $100,000 would be low in California but sufficient even in many places in the US.  Think rural, like the South or Midwest.  And of course that would be more money in many countries in South America, Africa, or southern Asia.  Even southern and eastern Europe might be possible.  You might even pay a bit more and rent part of the property.  In the US, this would be a duplex or a bed and breakfast.  They may use different terms elsewhere.   Given your health, do you need a maid/cook?  That would lean towards something like a bed and breakfast, where the same person can clean for both you and the guests.  Same with cooking, although that might be a second person (or more).  Hire a bookkeeper/accountant first, as you'll want help evaluating potential purchases.  Keep the business small enough that you can actively monitor it.   Part of the problem here is that a million dollars sounds like a lot of money but isn't.  You aren't rich.  This is about bare minimum for surviving with a middle class lifestyle in the United States and other first world countries.  You can't live like a tourist.   It's true that many places overseas are cheaper.  But many aren't (including much of Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc.).  And the ones that aren't may surprise you.  And you also may find that some of the things that you personally want or need to buy are expensive elsewhere.  Dabble first and commit slowly; be sure first.  Include rarer things like travel in your expenses.   Long term, there will be currency rate worries overseas.  If you move permanently, you should certainly move your bank accounts there relatively soon (perhaps keep part of one in the US for emergencies that may bring you back).  And move your investments as well.  Your return may actually improve, although some of that is likely to be eaten up by inflation.  A 10% return in a country with 12% inflation is a negative real return.   Try to balance your investments by where your money gets spent.  If you are eating imported food, put some of the investment in the place from which you are importing.  That way, if exchange rates push your food costs up, they will likely increase your investments at the same time.  If you are buying stuff online from US vendors and having it shipped to you, keep some of your investments in the US for the same reason.  Make currency fluctuations work with you rather than against you.   I don't know what your circumstances are in terms of health.  If you can work, you probably should.  Given twenty years, your million could grow to enough to live off securely.  As is, you would be in trouble with another stock market crash.  You'd have to live off the bank account money while you waited for your stocks and bonds to recover." We frequently get whole insurance vs term insurance questions; and most of the answers will support term insurance.  We get questions regarding getting insurance before there is a need in case there is a problem getting it later. And for most people it doesn't make sense to over-insure early. You have asked from a slightly different position, you have a more solid reason to be concerned about your health. You don't have a need now, and can't estimate what your need will be, or when it will be. Those numbers you quote may seem high, but when you don't know how many kids you may have, or what you will need to protect against, they may turn out to be inadequate when you do need the insurance. You need to sit down with a fee only financial planner. They can lay out your options today, and as your situation changes.  Then as the years go by, have that plan reexamined. The fee only planner will not tell you what company to buy insurance from, or what funds to invest in, but they will help you decide what types of protection and investment you need. "&gt;They will want to step away for a few years. Then will quickly realize, or already knew, holding cash is just as bad of an investment. They will then turn to hedges against inflation, real assets, further devaluing the dollar. They will turn to commodities and energy the only things in the past decade besides entrepreneurial investments which have increased in value.  This is where you differ from the Fed. Not saying either one of you is wrong, but the Fed wants inflation in order to force individuals and, more importantly, businesses to invest their capital in CapEx, equities or other ""risky"" assets in order to combat inflation.  You bring up a good point that if they chose to invest solely in inflation hedges, it may compound the problem. What happens when supply and demand are forced back towards equilibrium though? Gold is a different animal, but for other metals with industrial uses, would demand through inflation hedging be able to fend off decreased industrial and actual demand for the physical material?" The ruble was, is and will be very unstable because of unstable political situation in Russia and the economy strongly dependent of the export of raw resources. What you can do? I assume, you want to minimize risk. The best way to achieve that is to make your savings in some stable currency. Euro and Swiss Franc are currently very stable currencies, so storing your surpluses in them is a very good option if you want to keep your money safe. To prevent political risk, you should keep your money in countries with stable political regime, which are unlikely to 'nationalize' the savings of the citizens in predictable future. As for your existing savings in rubles, it's a hard deal. I assume, as the web developer, you have a plenty of money, which have lost a lot of value. If you convert them to euro or francs, you will preserver the current value (after the loss). You'll safe them agaist ruble falling down, but in case the ruble will return to previous value, you'll loose.  Keeping savings in instable currencies is, however, speculation, like investing in gold etc. So if you can mentally accept the loss and want to sleep good, convert them. You have also option to invest in properties, for example buy an extra appartment. It's a good way to deal with financial surplus in Europe in US, however you should be aware, in Russland it's connected with the political risk. The real estates can be confiscated in any moment by the state and you can't run away with it (the savings can also be confiscated, but there's a fair chance you'll manage to rescue them if you act quickly). 1-2 years is very short-term. If you know you will need the money in that timeframe and cannot risk losing money because of a stock market correction, you should stay away from equities (stocks). A short-term bond fund (like VBISX) will pay around 1%, maybe a bit more, and only has a small amount of risk. Money Market funds are practically risk-free (technically speaking they can lose money, but it's extremely rare) but rates of return are dismal. It's hard to get bigger returns without taking on more risk. Two ideas. EDIT: you should also do alot of research about how to invest this money properly. Something low risk but will beat inflation by a margin. "I'll try to give you some clues on how to find an answer to your question, rather than answering directly the question asked.  Why not answer it directly? Well, I can, but it won't help you (or anyone else) much in two months when the rates change again. Generally, you won't find such in brick-and-mortar banks. You can save some time and only look at online banks. Examples: ING Direct (CapitalOne), CapitalOne, Amex FSB, E*Trade, Ally, etc. There are plenty. Go to their web sites, look for promotions, and compare. Sometimes you can find coupons/promotions which will yield more than the actual savings rate. For example, ING frequently have a $50 promotion for opening a new account. You need to understand that rates change frequently, and the highest rate account today may become barely average in a week. There are plenty of sites that offer various levels of comparison information. One of the most comprehensive ones (IMHO) is Bankrate.com. Another place to look is MoneyRates.com. These sites provide various comparisons, and you can also find some promotions advertised there. There are more similar sites. Also, search the Internet and you can find various blog posts with additional promotions – frequently banks give ""referral bonuses"" to provide incentive for clients to promote the banks. Do some due diligence on the results that appear promising. Not much. You won't find any savings account that would keep the value (purchasing power) of your money over the long term. Keeping money in savings accounts is a sure way to lose value because the inflation rate is much higher than even high-yield savings accounts. But, savings accounts are safe (insured by FDIC/NCUA up to the limit), and very convenient to keep short term savings – such as an emergency fund – that you cannot afford to lose to investments. Sometimes you'll get slightly better rates by locking up your money in a Certificate of Deposit (CD), but not significantly higher when the CD is short-term."