About to cross $1M in savings, what the hell should I do?

VTI instead of SP500, greater diversification and lower fees.

You might want to contact a gentleman in Edmonton, who has a tv script to sell. He is asking 1 million dollars. This might be a steal.

for starters:

1.take a vacation

2. work less

You have plenty to retire on. You'll probably have enough from SS alone.

Now enjoy life.

It is when the answer is really %100 about you.

$35-40k won’t even rent a 1 BR unit in many markets. Even if OP’s house is paid off, there could easily be $1000-2000 a month in taxes or maintenance costs. $1M is not a comfortable retirement number for a couple in their early 40s looking to have an above-middle class lifestyle, unless you’re in a super cheap area. Maybe they’re at $2-3M in total assets with home and retirement accounts, but I would aim for $3-5M before considering full retirement.

Nevertheless, $1M in the bank is a great accomplishment at that age. If you want to be prudent, put most of it in assets like bank CDs, high interest savings accounts, or Treasuries, and put $50-100k per month into a diversified index fund to DCA until 50-70% of your liquid assets are in it. Two years ago with low rates I would have recommended considering real estate investing, but with rates and housing prices where they are I’d stay away in most markets (and I’m a bit hypocritical as I just closed on an investment property today).

I applaud the wisdom of your advice, but if OP couldn’t arrive at this conclusion on his own, does he really deserve the good life?

Crypto, brah. Crypto. FTX if you really want to get richer

hookers and blow

But that still leaves him with $999,995. What will he do with all of that?

That is truly some solid advice right there. Not too bad Mr. Falcon

What’s your age and annual household income?

Great advice. And you don't need for it to be a joint account. A POD works as well.

Travel. Do the Kepler challenge in new zealand and break the record.

Okay, things got more interesting here than I expected.

To answer a few questions: keeping the money available was planned to outright buy a larger house. It didn't happen quickly enough, covid hit, things got out of control.

We max the 401ks, aren't eligible to contribute to Roth anymore.

We are getting okay return (not zero) but I realize it could/should be better.

~300-350k annual income (now). Obviously it was lower 10 years ago.

Someone said each account is $250k per name (not just the account). Thank you! I will factor that in.

My takeaway will be to just go to a financial advisor. We did this years (10+?) ago with significantly less money and came away wanting to keep things liquid for a potential house upgrade. I think keeping 300-500k should be reasonable and give the remainder to a financial advisor and not worry sounds like what I should have done years ago. Appreciate the advice (that has votes in the positives).

My wife is hot as hell, I won't lie. Smart too, makes more money than I do. But not as an underwear model. I got a medium payout from my father's estate, contributing to ~8% of our net worth. That will be a little offset by probably having to owe some money during my mother's final years.

well first thing to note is that treasuries are paying good interest these days. like 4.5%. so a short term treasury ETF would make a lot of sense. they typically pay out the dividends monthly and in cash. so if you put the entire $1M into it you will be getting checks around $3,750 every month. totally free money (well, it will be taxed of course)

I would not keep everything in treasuries forever, long term they always lose to SP500. The market is hard to predict. Many people expect it to crash in the near term, so it might keep going up instead. You just never know. As someone said, dollar cost averaging over a longer period of time would make a lot more sense. So I would probably start slow, say, reinvesting that $3,750 check into an SP500 index ETF, just to see how it feels and to get more used to the idea. SP500 ETF is also going to pay dividends but only about 1.6% and it will be quarterly payment. That one should probably be reinvested back into the same fund.

In time, the usually recommended balance between bonds and stocks 40/60. But, again, that depends on many factors and does not work in all cases. If the fed keeps increasing the interest rates, it will be very hard for SP500 to compete. So right now, near term, I'd probably be like almost 100% in short term gov bonds. Later, when the interest rates fall and the market is done crashing I'd move into SP500 more aggressively. But still dollar cost averaging of course.

Now, while this is all very conservative and solid advice, it is also very boring. So to add some excitement, I would consider risking a small amount, maybe 2-3% of the total, but definitely never more than 5% and try higher risk, higher reward bets. Like some individual stocks maybe, or some crypto or anything that is volatile and has a great chance to go to zero. That money from the start should be considered lost. Which it very well may be. But it would certainly make investing more interesting and you will learn a lot of things. So I would consider it more of a downpayment for education. As long as you are strong and sure of yourself and never gamble more than a small, fixed fraction of the total (and never trade on margin, never short, etc) then it's really not a bad idea. Like a voluntary tax on the other very safe bets described above. And then hey, maybe that stock that you pick will go to the moon, or the crypto sh*t coin will go 100x against all reason. Not likely, but not giving yourself a chance is not right either.

this sounds good, but rather than treasury's, CDs offer a slightly higher rate and virtually all are FDIC insured.

Treasury's have a slight tax benefit over CDs if your state is one that taxes your interest income, but if it doesn't (and some states don't), CDs are the same federal taxable obligation, and they have slightly higher yields for the same duration of your investment.

That said, you might want to spread your CDs around so as to not exceed the FDIC ensured limit of $250 K per individual per account.

1-month CDs right now can be had for a whopping 4.65% APY, and 3-month CDs are over 5% APY.

If you go this route, you might consider a CD-ladder with different CDs each with different maturity dates, thereby allowing you access to the money throughout your investment horizon.

An online brokerage routinely offers these and buying them is safe and simple. I know that Schwab does and Ameritrade does, among others.

FIrst thing you need to do is know your risk tolerance.

Then try to maximize your returns based on that risk tolerance level.

How much do you have in retirement funds?