Before Cup Match, I ran into a friend I haven?t seen for a while. He surprised me ? greatly ? by revealing that he was 65, even though he looked about 38. His face was almost entirely wrinkle-free, on which I commented. ?My wrinkles are all on the inside,? this hard-working and successful Bermudian said.

Being 65, he was thinking about the modern equivalent of retiring, which is called ?cutting back?. He had been able to divest himself of one or two of his business interests, but Nature abhors a vacuum, and no sooner was he able to shed one responsibility than another came along to keep him busy.

The topic turned to investments. ?I?ve worked hard, made all the right moves, got my house, and now I have some savings,? the fellow said. ?My question is: what do I do with them??

So, a few words this week about investment mix. It?s for people who have a bit of dough, but for those without, there?s no time like the present to start asking yourself what sort of investments your portfolio might hold when your new sensible financial habits bear fruit.

For these purposes, let?s say you have a million bucks to invest.

I know you don?t, but let?s just pretend. How you are going to invest the million isn?t a question that comes up all that often, except with lottery winners, because money accumulates, rather than arriving out of the blue with a bang.

People build their fortunes, and by the time they have a million, most of the big decisions are made.

The traditional wisdom is that first you should buy a house, and then you should invest in a mix of stocks, bonds and cash. The mix, they say, should grow more conservative as you age. The younger you are, the more risk you can take on, because time allows errors to be corrected and also lets compound interest do its magic work.

You could, at the million-dollar level, own some gold, and perhaps some quite speculative investments.

But the experts say this should be offset with ?capital preservation? investments like bonds and certificates of deposit that do not offer the highest returns, but contain less risk than gold or some equities.

You may want to make an investment in a business that you would own and someone else would manage. (Or you might not.

I would rather be struck dead than try to get rich worrying about having to watch someone else manage a business I owned.)

You might want to add a room to your home, or buy a bungalow in County Cork. You might have children or grandchildren to educate. You might want to invest in some futures, other derivatives or foreign currencies.

Unless you really enjoy taking risks, you should probably steer clear of the last group of investments, because their main function is to reduce the amount of time before you have a heart attack.

Here is a point I like to make. Having a million dollars, or any amount over about $25,000, means making a decision on how to invest that money every day. Not that you would get out of bed, kick the cat, and announce: ?I?m off to make a decision about my investments?.

More that, at some time during every day, you decide whether to change any of your portfolio. On most days, you do nothing at all. You probably wouldn?t even think about your portfolio. Weeks might go by before you gave it a thought. Rich people don?t spend a lot of time in their counting houses.

But not thinking about something ? and here I tread with caution on a very Bermudian character trait ? involves making a decision, every bit as much as the decision not to think about it does.

Any day you don?t think about your investments, or your girlfriend, or starting a diet, is a day on which you have decided that things are fine the way they are, a day on which you have effectively said that you will be happy to end the day as it began.

Most days, that?s a winning strategy. Most days, it pays to do nothing with your money. If you made good decisions when you invested it, and the world?s not on fire, not changing your investment mix today may be the smartest thing you ever do. Medium- and long-term investments need time and space in which to pay off.

Some of you, including my friend with the internal wrinkles, will have noticed that I haven?t answered his question. I can?t, because I don?t know how much money he has, what his commitments are, whether he wants to spend time in a ski lodge in Vermont or start an art collection, how much (if any) risk he has in mind, whether he is content to drive an old car or must have a sexy new one every year, or the million and one other details that go to making the need of this fellow and his wife unique.

I do know that, in his case, it almost doesn?t matter, because he?s a smart guy who has made smart decisions, and he?s in a good place, very unlikely to suddenly depart from a lifetime of sensible financial habits and suddenly mess it all up.

Like some of the people I meet, my friend (who brought the subject up) started by saying that he and his wife had always adhered to the school of thought that I dabble in here. It?s always the ones who need help the least who are most ready to accept it. I have little to teach such people, although I am probably able to echo the wisdom of the choices they have made.

It?s the rest of you I worry about. This week, it was reported that US citizens now have a minus savings rate, i.e. they are spending their savings, rather than adding to them. That last happened at the time of the Great Depression. I guess not enough Americans are reading this column regularly.

I hope you are. What I?m saying rubs off, you know, just like the ink on the newspaper page used to rub off on you. Keep reading, and one day you?ll be filthy rich.

Or (if you read but don?t inhale) just filthy.

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