You just inherited $250,000. What do you do with it?

[wincrasher]

Pay off debt, invest the rest.

This is really a no-brainer, really. Paying off debt is a guaranteed return on the money. Anything else is speculation.

Unless, of course, you are one of the "new breed" of types that think it's OK to walk away from your mortgage.

[grand_canyon]

I'd pay the house off and then invest the rest. You just made a guaranteed profit by saving all those years of interest.

[GrimJack]

For an interesting take on how someone else handled such an inheritance (I don't think she owns a house though) check out BaselLe's blog - she has been blogging about her inheritance for a couple of years now. She might be an outlier wrt how to deal with sudden wealth but it is a good read.

[Homebody]

Personally I would pay off my house and invest the rest in something really really safe that you could not lose. Then maybe get a little aggressive with earned money, but you are so far to retirement you could just save and not do the up and down gambling of the stock market, but that is just me.....

[jpg7n16]

Personally I would pay off my house and invest the rest in something really really safe that you could not lose. Then maybe get a little aggressive with earned money, but you are so far to retirement you could just save and not do the up and down gambling of the stock market, but that is just me.....

Sorry. There is no such animal.

Even an investment that holds its exact monetary value ($100 today=$100 tomorrow) loses to inflation. ($100 today buys $98 tomorrow and only $81.71 in 10 years = loss of 20%, guaranteed) Even treasury inflation protected securities (TIPS) still lose to inflation because of taxes.

There is no difference between earned money and inherited money. Regardless of how it got here, money is money.

There is also a difference between gambling and investing. I suggest the latter. Check out The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. Definitely worth a read.


"Nothing ventured, nothing gained." -American proverb

[christine quast]

Personally i would pay off the house first, this frees up the monthly payments to your house so now you do not have that debt and can put this money elsewhere. Then i would take some of it , maybe like $5,00 and go on a nice vacation. Then if you need to add some to your emergency fund, or put some away for future needs like a car or college. The rest i would invest, this would make a nice jump start so that when you do retire, you will have more than enough.