<prompt> Human: Im a 31-year-old and Ive been sending money to a Betterment account as a means of investing. You can share between stocks and bonds and I currently have a 66 in stocks and 34 in bonds. Im mostly saving for a down payment on a house. The challenge is I have no idea when Ill need the money. It could be as soon as two years but as long as 10. Im living abroad and there are so many unknowns in terms of living situation, visas and so on.What would you advise in my situation?Assistant: I would say the exact allocation would be up to you but you should be looking at 40-80 bonds given the potential short timeline. If you were more confident that youd not need for 5 years at least, 40 bond would be pretty solid and if you thought it was for sure going to be under 5 years 80 bonds would be closer to what you wanted. Human: Thanks, this does seem to make sense but I cant escape the feeling that Im leaving money on the table by playing too safe. Is this just the responsible thing and I should look past all that? Or if my tolerance for risk is higher I could go for a bigger mix of stocks?  <response>: Thanks, this does seem to make sense but I cant escape the feeling that Im leaving money on the table by playing too safe. Is this just the responsible thing and I should look past all that? Or if my tolerance for risk is higher I could go for a bigger mix of stocks?No one knows whatwhen the market will do. Yes, you could possibly make more money by investing in stocks. However, you could be SOL if you want to buy a home in 3-4 years, and another 2008 level recession hits before then. It is about your risk tolerance, and only you can really decide that. 