NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - I've got $132,000 to invest for retirement. I'm 56 and still working a little. I don't trust brokerage firms since I lost, for me, a lot of money the past two years. I want to handle my money on my own, but am not sure what to do. Should I go for the CD ladder I've been hearing so much about or what? Any ideas?

-- Bill, Key West, Florida

I don't have any problem with you putting a portion of your $132,000 into CDs. And laddering them -- that is, staggering the maturities or terms so that a portion of your CD stash comes due every year or two -- is also a good idea since you'll always have money coming due that you can re-invest at prevailing rates. This way, if rates rise, you won't have all your money languishing in low-rate CDs.

But you don't want to go overboard with this CD ladder. After all, at the tender age of 56, you've probably got at least 20 years of life ahead of you, maybe plenty more if you live that laid-back Key West lifestyle. So your $132,00 is going to have to last you a long time.

CDs have recently been paying rates in the neighborhood of 1.5 percent for six-month to one-year terms and 4.5 percent or so for those with five-year terms. With those kinds of returns, you would either have to keep your withdrawals very small, or run the risk of outliving your money by many years.

What you need to do is put part of your stash in stocks or stock mutual funds, part into bonds or bond funds and a bit into CDs. I realize that the stock market may be the last place you want to be, especially considering your experience losing money with a brokerage firm. But if you're investing money for the long-term -- and as someone in his mid-50s approaching retirement, you definitely are -- then you still need some of the growth that stocks can provide.

Granted, they haven't provided much growth lately. But now that a lot of the air has been knocked out of stock prices, their prospects are actually looking pretty good over the long-term. Indeed, one of the ironies of investing is that when stocks are really, really racking up the gains and everybody loves them, their future prospects aren't so hot, as we found out in the late '90s. But after stocks have taken a beating and people loathe them, they're usually a much better long-term value.

What I recommend you do is first try to arrive at a mix of stocks, bonds and CDs that makes sense for you. You can do that by taking the quiz at our Asset Allocator calculator. This tool will give you a recommended asset allocation, suggesting how you might divvy up your assets among stocks and bonds. You don't have to adhere to it exactly. Think of it more as a guide that you can adjust to your own tastes. By the way, our Asset Allocator doesn't specifically include CDs in the mix, but you can just consider CDs with maturities of a year or less the same as cash and longer term CDs the equivalent of bonds.

If you just scroll down a bit from the asset allocation pie chart, you'll also find some recommendations for stock and bond funds. Don't just buy these funds on our say-so, however. Do a bit of research first by clicking on the ticker symbol of any funds that seem attractive to you. This will bring you to a Morningstar Snapshot report on the fund, which gives you plenty of performance details.

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If you want to cast a wider net to examine more fund choices, I suggest you check out our Fund Screener, which allows you to sift through a large database of funds in search of ones with such desirable traits as solid performance, low fees and a risk profile that jibes with your own tolerance for risk.

Finally, for whatever portion of your money you do decide to put into CDs, you'll want to get the best rate possible. You can do that by going to the Rate Search tool in our Banking and Borrowing section.

Oh, and after you've followed my advice there's one more thing you might want to do. Head to Mallory Square and take in one of those famous Key West sunsets. You'll enjoy it a lot more now that you've got your retirement fund in shape.

Walter Updegrave is the author of Investing for the Financially Challenged and can be seen regularly Monday mornings at 8:40 am on CNNfn.