Whether you're aiming to retire early or do it the old-fashioned way and call it quits in your 60s, you've likely received advice to start putting money away for your nest egg, like, yesterday. After all, the most powerful asset you have as an investor, the thinking goes, is time. The earlier you invest, the more time you have for the effects of compounding interest to potentially grow the value of your portfolio.
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But if the answer to "when is the best time to invest" is nearly always "now," it raises another less heralded but equally important question: Where?
The answer depends on when you plan to use the money, say Grant Sabatier, the author of "Financial Freedom" and co-founder of BankBonus.com. "Any money you want to use in the next five years or for a 'mini-retirement' is money you don't want to risk," and may be best left in savings, he says. "Everything else, you invest for the long term."
Here's how he and other experts break it down.
