You can sell stocks instantly and have the moeny for them in a few days. They are very liquid.
That is a nice chunk of change to invest. If you are going longterm you definately dont want to hold a lot of dollars.
Get a scottrade account.
I would take 20 grand of that and get foreign dividend paying stocks in commodity sectors.
ERF(Enerplus Resources) 7.65% dividend canadian oil trust.
(Line)Linn Energy 7.2% dividend, Linn energy is in the US though, that is why I think ERF is a better buy.
So now you have your oil and natural gas investments.
Now onto utilities:
IPU(Spider International Utilities Sector ETF) This pays a 3% dividend or
DBU(Wisdom Tree Internation Utilities ETF) This pays a 3.89% dividend
Now onto some emerging markets:
EMIF(Ishares emerging markets infrastructure ETF) This pays a 3.84% dividend
DEM(Wisdom Tree emerging markets ETF) This pays a 4.54% dividend
Now onto agriculture:
RJA(Rogers international commodity index)
GRU( another international agriculture etf)
Onto forestry:
WOOD( a great forestry ETF) or
RYN(Rayonier Inc) They pay a 4.17% yield. This is a REIT that owns sells and leases huge amounts of land for forestry operation.
PCL(Plum Creek Timber) This pays a 4.63% dividend. They also are involded with natural gas a bit.
You can look up other companies, these are just some good ones. They all pay dividends except the agriculural ETFs.
at least 50% of your portfolio should be in these sectors. Since you are going long term I would recommend 60% in these sectors.
With the remaining 40% I would invest half in the physical bullion and half in mining stocks.
That leaves you 8000 for bullion. Since silver is undervalued I would use more of this amount to buy silver then gold. Buy 2 ounces of gold and the rest silver. Vary your silver, get some 10oz bars, some 1 ounce ASEs, some junk silver. For the gold get a coin and a bar.
The other 8K you have left should be invested in mining stocks. These are more risky but I have made a lot off of them lately. I must warn you though, they go up in huge spurts and go down in huge spurts. So you need to get in the right ones.
You want to diversify your mining picks.
NG(Novagold) They mine gold,silver,copper, and zinc
HL(Hecla) Silver miner
AUY(Yamana Gold) Gold miner
AXU(Alexco Resources) They found an ore body and is building the mine right now. They are a little riskier but a lot of potential
DNN(Denison Mines) A uranium mine. They have been doing very well lately.
TGLDX(Tocqueville Gold) This is a mutual fund that invests in all sorts of gold miners. I really dont like mutual funds though.
Only do what I listed above if you have no credit card debt. Dont worry about lower interest fixed rate debt. Just get rid of credit card debt.
Make sure you have 3 months of food storage. Also make sure you have a bit of cash in dollars. Not too much though, a couple grand will do. You can always sell PMs are stocks if you lose your job and you really need the money. At that point the stocks are gaining value, dollars in a savings account will not be.