Personal Finance

Any good financial advisor would tell you, "it depends." The variables essentially are:

• do you have any debt? If so, you should probably put it toward anything with a high interest rate (e.g. >6%)
• when do you need the money? If <5 years, put it in something safe, like treasure bills, CDs, or a HYSA (should be able to earn ~5%)
• if you don't need the money for at least 10 years, invest it for retirement - broad index funds (or target date index funds) are a good bet

If I assume you don't have any high interest debt or any short-term (<5 years) expected expenses, I personally would:

• reserve 3-6 months expenses in an emergency fund; get a HYSA earning >4% interest
• invest the remainder into an index fund (VOO or VTIAX for Vanguard funds)

You didn't specify which country you're in, but if you're in the US, take advantage of tax-advantaged accounts, like a Roth IRA, up to the limit and invest the rest into a regular brokerage account.

If you're not comfortable with this, find a fee-only fiduciary (look for those specific terms), which should cost something like $100/hr. If you're not paying for the advice, they're most likely going to nudge you into a high-fee fund that's good for them, but not for you. If they pitch whole life insurance or annuities (indexed annuities, or anything that limits downside), run and find a better advisor. A good advisor won't pitch any products, they'll explain your options and suggest something, and they should be able to explain their reasoning for making that decision. In most cases, it'll probably be a few index funds (e.g. S&P 500, international index fund, and bonds) or a target date retirement fund, but the specifics really depend on your situation. Your overall fees for the funds should be well below 0.50%, probably more like 0.10-0.20%, and the funds will likely come from Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard, iShares, or Blackrock (maybe a couple others I'm missing). If it's something else, feel free to name-drop one of those I mentioned and see how they react (every financial advisor would know those companies).