ok so my grandfather passed away last month and my siblings and i will be splitting what would have been my mothers portion of his trust(she is deceased). the lawyer needed our ss#';s because it was set up that the trust would pay all taxes so it will definately be over 10,000.00 i won't know the final amount until i get the statement with the check. my grandfathers wife said it will be a substantial amount . she was left plenty to take care of her for the rest of her life so i guess my question is what should i do with the money this is what i was thinking but could use some wise opinions in the matter.

take $5,000 and put to emergency fund(this is where we are always short)
put $1000.00 in each of the kids accts
then take remainder and pay off as much debt as humanly possible with the money to help us get out from the pay check to paycheck trap....

does that sound like a good idea or do you have any other suggestions obviously without knowing an exact dollar amount i can't make any real decisions but i would like to have a concrete plan.. thanks for any input and ideas...

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'The will of God will never take you where the
Grace of God will not protect you.'

Honestly, I would use what I could to get all the "bad" debt paid off, and then do the other two things (emergency and Kids). I just hate debt on my shoulders though, so this is just my opinion on what I'd do with it if it were me! Good luck though, those are three good ways to use it, no matter which way you do it!

Well, this is what I would do... I believe that it is what Dave Ramsey would say...I would take $2K and put it into an emergency fund and then take all the rest and pay off any debt (CCs). I think that by doing this you are going to help your children more in the long run than putting $ into an account for them. If you have CC debt I am going to assume that you are not able to save much for retirement. If you have debt and can't save for retirement you are going to be hurting much more come the age of 65 or so than your children will at the age of 18 when they choose to go to college. Your children can always get loans if necessary to go to college. No one will give us a loan to retire on.

I hope that doesn't bother you. But I think that you are better off paying off debt first.

I would ask an accountant what your tax liability would be first.

If I am not mistaken, I may be, the first $125,000 is tax free per person with inheritances.

First off, sorry about your grandfather. How unfortunate that your mom has passed away too. It is fortunate that you will be able to put the inheritance to such good use though. I think your ideas are all good. It is really difficult to plan too much until you have the final figure, but it sounds like it will be enough to at least be a big help to you.

i will be checking into the tax thing to make sure it was all taken care of so i don't get into a pickle at tax time. very good idea.

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'The will of God will never take you where the
Grace of God will not protect you.'

i did not think of it that way about paying off the cc first before paying the kids. we do save for retirement thats why we are so paycheck to paycheck since we are paying for our retirement frist before we get dh's checks we put some in his 401k(co matches) and we both contribute to an ira every week we don't want to be even worse off when we are older. i do think you are right about the cc's fisrt and we have some misc medical that needs to be paid. thanks for your advice

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'The will of God will never take you where the
Grace of God will not protect you.'

i would pay off all the outstanding debts,like credit cards, bank loans, etc. then put the rest into an emergency fund.

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Kimberley

"there is nothing to worry about, just plenty to think about" from an episode of Extreme Makeover House edition

check out my blog:
http://mommysavers.com/boards/journa...owjournal&j=21

I'm very sorry for your loss.
Maybe it is better that you don't yet know the actual amount. It's easier to think with a cool head when you think in percentages instead of dollar amounts. For example, you will immediately put 50% into your emergency fund. 10% will go to your church (if you believe in tithing.) 10% will be divided between your children's accounts. With percentages you have the advantage of deciding your priorities instead of letting the cash amount decide it for you.

I agree with the some of the others.

If you have $2K already in emergency funds, I would put the whole thing on consumer debt (credit cars and cars). It's going to reduce you're interest payments substantially so it's like your inheritance will be saving you money every month.

(We also live month to month and pay into our retirement fund every month so we're not worse off when we're older. )

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