need advice and thoughts

[cyclone1]

Get the advice of a good investment counselor

[sandrark]

No one yet has mentioned that the FDIC insurance limits are $250K per institution, inclusive of all accounts.

If your inheritance is more than $250K, you need to split it up to multiple accounts at different banks, to protect it. The rumor is that there will be MORE bank failures this year than last...

Sandi

[Like2Plan]

The company that controls the life insurance sets up the money in a money market. we are trying to decide if we should leave it there and use it only as needed or should we pull it and put it somewhere else? how do those work? thanks.

There are several variables to consider.

One is the MMF is not insured and you could lose money on it. link to article on U.S. Treasury Department's temporary guarantee program for the money market fund industry back in Sep 2008. (This was a temporary guarantee. ) Yes, there were funds that "broke the buck" before they put in this temporary program.

Another variable is you can get a MMF for which the earning are both federal and state tax free. This could be a real good thing depending on your tax bracket and the earnings they pay. Of course, if the earnings could be very low compared to a regular savings account outweighing any tax advantage.

It would be difficult to give you an opinion about the best option without knowing when you plan to pull the money out.

Assuming it is short term (within a year or two), I would compare the rates, the risk and the tax advantages (if any) to make a decision....

[snafu]

I suggest you divide the MMF into several segments so that you can increase the base as the economy improves. For example, by buying a couple of different mutual fund products from Vanguard you will benefit from the improving economy. When you are ready to use funds for your business Mutual funds can be sold with 3 business days lead time for funds to transfer to your chequing a/c/

You could also do several laddered CDs which can be re-invested as interest rates rise.