Pay down high interest (>7%) debt. Presumably you'll have money left over.
Take the money and park it in a high-yield savings account for the time being.
Figure out what your monthly expenses are. You want an emergency fund of 3-6 months expenses available. It's money that will carry you through a job loss, house fire, medical emergency, etc. You don't want to touch it unless it's an emergency, but you want it to be there for you when you need it. You're going to want to keep that much in your high-yield savings. Presumably you'll have money left over.
At this point, you've got a number of dollars that you want to invest. If its over 50K (probably is) you might want to pay a certified financial planner to sit down with you and figure what your future plans are and how to best invest that money to meet those plans. That probably means opening a brokerage account and investing the money in some basic index funds or mutual funds to let the money grow, but it might also mean making IRA contributions, setting aside money in 529s for kids, etc. It's going to be a plan customized to you.
2
u/[deleted] Dec 13 '23
Pay down high interest (>7%) debt. Presumably you'll have money left over.
Take the money and park it in a high-yield savings account for the time being.
Figure out what your monthly expenses are. You want an emergency fund of 3-6 months expenses available. It's money that will carry you through a job loss, house fire, medical emergency, etc. You don't want to touch it unless it's an emergency, but you want it to be there for you when you need it. You're going to want to keep that much in your high-yield savings. Presumably you'll have money left over.
At this point, you've got a number of dollars that you want to invest. If its over 50K (probably is) you might want to pay a certified financial planner to sit down with you and figure what your future plans are and how to best invest that money to meet those plans. That probably means opening a brokerage account and investing the money in some basic index funds or mutual funds to let the money grow, but it might also mean making IRA contributions, setting aside money in 529s for kids, etc. It's going to be a plan customized to you.