Hello! So I'm pretty new around these parts, and would like some advice. My wife and I currently have about $27k stashed away in a savings account and I've been trying to get her to let me invest it in something that will at least gain some sort of interest. Her concern has always been liquidity, as we are wanting to use at least some of that money to put down on a house at some point in the next year or two. I explained the whole "needing to beat inflation or you're losing money" thing to her, and now she's come around to investing. The only problem is I'm not an investing guru, and don't want to screw this up...saving that money wasn't easy when all your friends are out partying and eating out all the time.
From reading a bunch of articles on here and elsewhere, I am pretty much sold on Vanguard, and from what I understand of their ETFs, those sound pretty solid. I rolled a 401k over into an etrade IRA a while back and purchased some of the Vanguard technology ETF with that, and it has performed well, however I am open to other investments, as well.
So, I'd like some help figuring out what to do from here, and would also appreciate your advice on any pitfalls I might be overlooking. I plan to open new Vanguard account and transfer over somewhere in the neighborhood of $24,000-ish (leaving some cash on hand for emergencies, etc). From there, I'm trying to decide if I should invest all of it in something fairly low risk, like short term bonds (VTI), or intermediate corp bonds (VCIT) in case we need to sell and pull some of the cash out for a house purchase, etc.
OR
Should I put a fraction of it into a low risk investment and do something more risky with the other part, like put half into something like what I mentioned above, and then the rest into the S&P 500 or the energy sector (or anything else....really not sure what to be looking at other than which ones are experiencing solid growth currently and since inception, and which are more risky than others, according to Vanguard's site?)
OR
do something else entirely and/or outside of ETFs/Vanguard?
Thanks in advance for your wisdom.