financial or in the shape of fours

"Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"

Is there any reason why you have a financial adviser? Do you have enough other assets that getting professional advice (or management) is worth the fees?

If you are planning on living off this windfall as part of your current income and want it to last then you need to invest it in a low risk instrument with a steady return. I don't know if you are covered by US or German (or both) tax laws, so how to best shield the income from taxes will require the advice of someone who is an expert.

The rule of thumb is that you can withdraw 4% of the amount from a fund a year with a very low probability of it running out before you die. If you can find something that earns slightly more than this (say a long-term bond at 5%) then your capital will also have a small amount of cushion against inflation.

Anyone who gives you advice for money can only recommend something riskier and/or eat up part of your returns. You can, for example, buy US treasuries directly from the treasury for no fees and they will send you a check on a regular basis.

Advisers tend to charge a percentage of the amount under management as a fee even though the work involved has no relationship to the total capital involved. It's a scam.

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I think anyone here will be loath to give you advice in case they get it wrong - you seem understandably risk averse and anything other than some fixed interest product therefore looks risky.  The problem is that with increasing inflation and declining dollar your real return on such products is likely to be zero or even negative - and that is after you pay advisor's and arrangement fees which are often a major rip-off..

What I would do - because I always was a bit of a risk taker - is pick some shares with good long-term prospects, and spend at least part of the money on that.  You only pay a very small brokers commission and capital gains are usually taxed less that income/dividends.

Of course the shares will go up and down, but over the long term stocks always tend to do better that bonds/deposits.  Spread the shares over different countries/sectors/markets to reduce risk - and some bigger companies are well diversified anyway.  Stock market prices are at historic lows and so unless the World economy goes into real melt down (ask Jerome), the prospects over 5 years+ should be ok.

Some stock broker sites provide free advice but you can buy directly on-line if you want reduce costs further.  I use a free advice service from Goodbody.ie for Irish shares for my little nest-egg which is a long term investment for my children, so I am less concerned with short term market volatility.  The key is to pick some well managed companies that can outperform even in difficult times or which are currently undervalued because market sentiment is against them.

The main thing is make sure your "adviser" is upfront with his charges and that he declares whatever commission he gets for the products he sells you.  A lot of these products are like buying a new car.  They are worth a lot less the moment you buy them because "commissions" have "depreciated" your investment from day one.

Hope that helps.

"It's a mystery to me - the game commences, For the usual fee - plus expenses, Confidential information - it's in my diary..."

How about buying long-dated inflation-indexed government bonds in a combination of USD and EUR?

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo