And don't invest with any adviser who makes you feel pressured to invest in any particular investment. You can also decide to start out on your own. Several Internet sites have good, basic information that will help you choose your overall mixture of stock, bond and money market funds. Vanguard , for example, has an admirable online help library. So do Fidelity , T. Rowe Price , and Charles Schwab .
Some independent sites are worth looking at, too.
Morningstar , the Chicago mutual fund trackers, has an astonishing amount of information online. They also have a very good asset allocation program that will help you figure out your basic mix of stocks and bonds. Financial Engines , run by Nobel Prize laureate William Sharpe, is also quite good. If any readers have any other sites they think worthy of mention, I'd love to hear about them. I would like to open mutual funds for them and am unsure if I should put the accounts in my name or theirs.