I'm 57 years old, I have a financial adviser that recommended I put 1/2 of my investments in Bonds, so I moved 40% to Vanguard Tax -Free Municipal bonds. After the beating I took in 2008 he said this would be a safer option for now.
The other 60% is spread out in Large-cap and Small-cap mutual funds.

My returns are much lower than when I had most of them in stocks. All of the funds have <1% expense ratio. Is this the price I have to pay for safety.

Any second opinions?

High returns come with a high risk, meaning high volatility. Being close to retirement you can't take a chance of a dive in the market not recovering to a point higher than before , when retirement age comes around...

Historically in the long haul... its alwauys been on a upswing... however at 57, you aren't looking 10+ years out... you are looking at a much shorter time frame which HAS proven to be far more volitile.

Yes, yield is opposite safety. I would only be in Muni's if I was in a very high tax bracket. GNMA would pay more. If you had have just left everything alone, you would be way ahead, Dow and S&P 500 just hit new highs. Why not a targeted fund, Vanguard 2020 retirement fund for example? Since 2006 it has averaged almost 7% return per year. That way you don't even have to manage anything.

Hi! My 1st post on this board. I'm 55 (right behind you), and I truly believe that we are headed for both a Stock and Bond market collapse - we are in bubble territory on both, and it is just a matter of time (I believe), before the roof caves in on both. That said, it is very rough sledding finding investments that garner yield, but mitigate risk at our age. What I've adopted is a modified 7Twelve portfolio (Google the book that describes this method; sold at Amazon), which allocates money equally into 12 different asset classes. Given my age, I have modified the core tenor of this book, to put more into Cash (even though it pays virtually Zero %). Forget these Financial Advisor types who just follow the herd; take more control of your own portfolio, and check out this method; best I've found. Good luck!