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>As someone who has been burned several times by the stock market and supposedly safe index funds...

I'm curious to know what this means. You can only get "burned" in index funds if you pull your money out when the market is down. Are you investing money you need to pay the bills?

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Bad timing. I'm sure the stock market is fine for people with an infinite time horizon, but I no longer trust it as a place to park savings for 5-10 years that you want to grow in order to buy a house or spend on grad school.

You are not alone. If you look at the "target retirement date" funds Vanguard etc. run you'll see that by the time the target date is 5-10 years out they have shifted largely to bonds to provide defined income.

Sounds like you need better advice. Most advisors will tell you that 5-10 years isn't quite long enough for the risks of stocks to pay off. Sounds like you wanted medium-term bonds instead of stocks!

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