What to do with Life Insurance Money Pay Out

If you've recently lost someone, my condolences. I know it's difficult managing life right after tragedy. I lost my husband in 2021 when my twins were 11.5 months old. You can read more about our story and how I became a widow here. I also wrote a post on the 10 things I did after becoming widowed. Figuring out what to do with your life insurance money pay out can be overwhelming. I hope these ideas help you out.

Take Financial Inventory

When I became widowed we were renting a town house, but my husband's life insurance allowed us to buy a brand new home a couple years later. Here's some questions to answer:

• What are your monthly expenses? If you don't have those numbers, download this free Financial Blueprint.

• How many years are you able to pay your mortgage or rent with your life insurance?

• Are you planning on buying a home?

• Are you maintaining a job for extra income or will you be relying on life insurance? For how long will you be able to rely on life insurance? What's your plan for after your life insurance runs out?

This will allow you to get an overview of your finances and prioritize what's the most important and what needs to be handled right away. It will also help you plan ahead so you know your next moves.

Invest

• If you've calculated that you can live off your life insurance or your income outside of your insurance for the time you need, you may want to consider investing. When it comes to investments you have different options with high risk or minimal risk. We specialize in products with minimal risk like indexed products. Take a look at this page on retirement planning. You can also look into apps like Robinhood to start IRAs or even invest in crypto, which are riskier.

• Track your finances with a planner like this one from Amazon: Financial Planner. There's this phrase, "What you track grows." If you track your investments and growth you're more likely to achieve goals.

• Open a high yielding savings account like this one at Marcus. I've been using this to save my money that if I need access to, I can easily transfer it to my main bank. While my money is in there it's growing higher than a

Financial Protection

• Depending on your new situation, you may want to consider getting more life insurance for yourself. Here are some different types of life insurance you can get. When I became widowed, I bought myself more coverage and got a living trust because I needed to determine what happens to my daughters if I were to pass away.

• Living Trust. In case you're skimming through, I wanted to make sure you saw this. If you're the remaining parent I think it's vital to get a living trust. Get some information on a living trust here.

Debt

• What debt can you pay down? If you need help with reducing debt, go here. You'll have much more peace of mind if you're able to reduce some of those pesky credit cards and debt.

When someone passes away it can be difficult to manage everything. My last bit of advice is to write a list of everything that needs to be done. As soon as you think about something, write it down in your master list. I kept my list on my Samsung Notes. I had well over 100 tasks to complete and I finished them all. I added things and crossed them off.

If you'd like a free no obligation phone call to take a look at your personal situation, please click here.