What should I do with $14k?

[tripods68]

Best to pay down all your debt. That's probably your best option.



Aside from you're wife's cheating while still living in the same house you're just asking for trouble. Best to move on.

[clatoden99]

Speak with a divorce lawyer because there's a lot of red flags in your post as far as your marriage goes - having been divorced, I can tell you that whether you own the home or not she has a good case to get 50% of whatever you own including equity in your home if there is any, retirement funds, etc. My husband owned our home, it was in his name, he had a large retirement fund, among other things. When we divorced, I got about half of his retirement fund but I wasn't looking to ruin the guy so I waived the $20k he was supposed to give me for the equity in the home. I also took my debt with me and let him keep his debt although if either of us threw a fit about it, we would have had to share the debt equally down the middle.


Honestly, you guys share debt too in a divorce like I stated above, so you may want to suck it up, tell your wife, use some of the money to hire a divorce lawyer and pay off as much debt as possible. If you hide the money (you have to disclose EVERYTHING in a discovery) if it is found out you did not disclose it you may be found in contempt of court and have to share or give her all the money in the end. I knew a couple that divorced and the man received $8k in a settlement and they spent together probably MORE than that to argue who got the money. In the end, the judge ordered that the money be split equally between the parties. Just a word of the wise, if you do keep the money in limbo it may be easiest just to split it with her in a divorce instead of arguing and paying a ton of money to lawyers to get the same judgment in the end anyway.


Also, if you're serious about a divorce, do not do your basement renovation, put it on the back burner there are more pressing issues at hand. Also, if you file and she doesn't have money to pay for a lawyer, you may also be required to pay her lawyer fees.


I am not a lawyer, I just have gone through the process myself in a messy divorce and also know lots of other people who have gone through messy divorces as well.

[scfr]

Just for the record -- I don't know for sure that we're getting divorced. It just seems to be moving in that direction with infidelity, general unhappiness in the marriage, etc.

I would hope for an amicable divorce -- she wouldn't go after my 403b; I wouldn't go after her 401k. She'd let me keep the property valuation in the house because I'm the one that bought the house and paid for the renovations.

But, not gonna hold my breath. I know this stuff can get pretty messy.

Still looking for a clear answer for what I should do with the money. Right now, leaning towards $5K in an IRA and $9K to pay down some of the credit cards. What do you guys think?

I think the answer to the question of what to do with them money is completely dependent on whether or not it is likely there will be a divorce. If a divorce is likely, stick the inheritance in a completely separate savings account, assign a name to the account to make clear that it contains only the inheritance money, and keep scrupulous records for that account. Why? So that the inheritance is kept 100% separate from marital property. Once you co-mingle the inheritance in with other funds or assets, your wife may have a claim on them. Until the divorce is finalized, don't worry about whether or not it is earning money. The primary goal would be to keep it completely separate.

If you don't think it's likely that there will be a divorce, then by all means use the funds to pay down the credit card debt and/or fund an IRA. Personally I'd pay down the cc debt first but that's just me.

Sorry for all you're going through.

[disneysteve]

I think the answer to the question of what to do with them money is completely dependent on whether or not it is likely there will be a divorce.

I'm sure OP is long gone due to some really ignorant responses he got, but I agree with you. OP was looking for a simple straightforward answer to a really complex question. We can't tell you how best to use this money without knowing the whole marital situation because the answer is totally dependent on that situation.

[Spiffster]

1. Max out your Roth IRA.
2. Establish emergency fund
3. Pay off YOUR high interest debt (if any)
4. Look into bitcoin (*)
5. Look into Peer to Peer lending (*)

*Im probably the only one here that would suggest these options, but I have done well with both.

Bitcoin is up over $1000 and appears to be holding. One year ago it was at ~$435. Who knows, we may see a correction soon but ultimately it will go higher by the end of 2017. At least thats my prediction. Definitely want to do your own research on this one. IMO the more you understand about bitcoin, the better it looks. There are a lot of silly misconceptions floating around mostly by folks who have no idea what they are talking about.

[Nutria]

First off, you're in luck -- PA is not a community property state.

Even in CP states, inheritances are explicitly yours. Just don't complicate things by commingling.