Chin & grabiner, Thank you for your comments and info. This morning while you were posting here, I also posted at the Bogleheads site and added a little more background.

Chin, We are very very conservative so our stock allocation has always been low, now around an all-time low of about 12%. I have also "played the market" with some "mad money" in USAA's precious metals fund, which, at a very small % of portfolio we could have afforded to totally lose but which has netted some substantial % profits we have taken. The largest portion of our portfolio, about 1/3 of it, is at TIAA-CREF, and about 2/3 of our TIAA-CREF account is in Traditional, currently yielding ~6%, varying some due to  "vintage."

Chin & grabiner, it is looking like directly buying individual bonds or notes maybe more trouble than they are worth. It sounds like buttressing our positions in VG's funds with average durations of 1-7 years and quality averaging AA or better would be about as good with a lot less hassle.

Steve