<p>I know what I’d love to do with a $50K windfall, but I wouldn’t invest any of it! Family vacation (we haven’t really done one in a long, long time), split some between our three ds for grad school (obviously just to help out a bit, not to foot the entire bill), and the rest would go to a brother and a cousin who’ve been hit especially hard by the recession. It would make me so happy to be able to do something for my brother. I pray every day that he can manage to hold on to his house.</p>
<p>toblin: Exactly! Take “my” $50k, add the $8k credit and I’m done. Good job!</p>
<p>I did not realize condos are that cheap in Palm Beach, FL. Maybe I should retire now, why work. :p</p>
<p>I would pay for one year tuition, instead of taking it out of our savings.</p>
<p>Someone from my kid’s school won the mega million lotto with other people in her office - $8 mil. Now, that’s something to think about.:)</p>
<p>Tuns out, I actuall have to do something with a real $50K (actually, a bit more than that). One of my old employer’s 401(k)s need to be moved because they are dissolving. I do not have a 401(k) plan now, so this means I have to find a place to open an IRA. Does anyone have any suggestions?</p>
<p>Call me vain…but I would take about $5K and get my eyes done. The rest would go into money market accounts for my kid’s education.</p>
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<p>All of the above, please. </p>
<p>My husband will probably retire in 15-20 years. Me, I will probably never really retire, but I don’t make much money, so it doesn’t make much difference either way (at least I can say I love my work). I tend to be the dogged saver type (a few $$ a month), rather than the high rolling risk taker, partly because of my lack of knowledge. I’ve actually done OK being the tortoise in this race.</p>
<p>Bunsenburner, you could put that 50K into a 529 plan if you have any more kids to educate. Of course, that doesn’t actually help you directly since you won’t be able to use it for yourself except to relieve you of tuition burden. Well, I guess that could help you directly.</p>
<p>A group of 10 people just won the $216 million dollar lottery in NJ. I just saw it on the news last night. They had been pitching in to buy 50 tickets weekly for a while. They will take the pay-out, which amounts to about 14 Million dollars each. They seem like very nice, regular folks – one of them even talked about helping those he loved.</p>
<p>BB
I’d talk to Vanguard or Fidelity about roll-over.</p>
<p>I would put them under mattress.</p>
<p>Buy property as a possible retirement location - got way too much in the stock market now. We began looking at land/houses early last fall with the idea of diversifying some of our investments, but now we’ve lost one quarter of our potential down payment (half was in cash and half we planned on raising by selling some investments - didn’t sell soon enough) and don’t fell inclined to use our cash.</p>
<p>How do you know that property will be yours few years down the road? Government might say tht somebody else needs it much more than you, and just take it from you.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, I’m sure we have another president when that really happens and one with a new slogan “bring the old crappy policy back, I’m sick of changes”.</p>
<p>Columbia_Student, only in my dreams! We will be voting for unlimitless Presidency very soon, in Chavez’s style!</p>
<p>I’m not a fan of Fidelity; with a “small” portfolio I wasn’t treated very well. At the time I was recommended to Fidelity by someone with a “generous” portfolio - even they couldn’t get over how poorly I was being treated and the fees I was being charged monthly. </p>
<p>Currently I “manage” myself at TD Ameritrade.</p>
<p>I moved my money out of Fidelity to Vanguard. Money market accounts at Fidelity were not as safe as Vanguard.</p>
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<p>Careful ebeee (and others). That line of thinking will lead you to the next Bernie Madoff, because I don’t think you can earn a totally safe liquid 3% today with interest rates close to zero. 3 month tbills yield .2%, 6 month .4%, 1yr .6%, FDIC insured deposits are going to be 1 - 2%. Right now it’s not about return on principle, it’s return OF principle.</p>
<p>During the height of the banking crises in the '30’s the Fed auctioned 1 year Treasury Bills @ NEGATIVE 5 PERCENT. People were willing to give up 5% of their money for the assurance of getting the rest back.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for suggestions. Vanguard sounds like a good place to look into. The dissolving company’s 401(k) was all in money market (they automatically sold my holdings and parked the proceeds in a money market fund when I left the company - I was not happy about it when it happened, but for obvious reasons I feel quite differently now).</p>