What would you do with 70k?

[Marianneconnell]

Very unexpectedly we have come into an inheritance. After we have cleared our debts ( apart from mortgage) we are left with 70k. What would you do with this amount? All we can really think of is home improvements and maybe a new car. Usually a holiday would be top of the list but given the current circumstances that's out. I'm looking for inspiration !

We're going on a year long holiday around the world with two kids at the end of 2021 with that amount, so that's what I would do!

Oh wow! That's definitely thinking outside the box! Have you it planned? I'd love to hear more about that!

I would pay it off the mortgage. But we only owe 84,000 so it would go a long way to getting rid of it.
If I had a big mortgage I would probably buy 2 new cars (one each) and not have car lease payments.

Would it make a good dent in the mortgage?

I would pay big chunk of mortgage off so I'm paying less interest in long run and maybe keeo a bit for a nice holiday.

The sensible answer would be to pay off your mortgage, or a chunk of it. If you want to treat yourself, save 10% of it in cash and plan something to spend it on next year eg a trip to disneyland, a trip to Australia etc. But long term paying off your mortgage will give you more flexibility in your lifestyle

Mortgage has about 180k left to pay so it wouldn't make a huge difference.

Though I know that's probably the sensible thing to do!

There's a mortgage calculator which shows how mnay years early you can pay off your mortgage from overpaying. I'm paying a little extra every month and it will mean its paid off 9 years early. For me that means I can probably retire at 55 which will be a massive difference to my life.

Oh that's interesting ! Where would I find that calculator?

It's nearly 40% of your mortgage, it would make a massive dent in it.
You could either keep paying at the same rate and cut years off your term, or reduce your payments and have extra cash each month.
Have you any other savings?
I'd probably pay £50k off the mortgage, keep £15k as rainy day savings and spend £5k on things that I wanted / needed.
And I'd keep my mortgage payments as they were not reduce them.

Buy a new car (because I really need one), and use the rest to pay off a chunk of my mortgage.

I would put it towards mortgage if it would make a significant difference in the payments. Or we'd like to build an extension, so I'd put it towards that.

I might put some in my pension and invest some. pretty boring.

We have no other savings. Our mortgage payments are fairly affordable so if we put a chunk off the mortgage we would definitely be looking to reduce the term rather than the monthly payment

Definitely use 40-50k to pay towards your mortgage that still leaves a load of money to have fun with!

Buy a holiday home by the sea (well put a big deposit down on one anyway)

I'd buy a house and rent it out.
Nice 2 bed terrace in good area, here.

id sell our current house and lump all the money together to buy a house back home which is more suited for our family. it would make us 100000x happier than a holiday

Retirement fund

Save it for now, until Coronavirus is not such a current thing, and then potentially invest in a rental property. I would definitely use it for property.

Once your mortgage is paid off what you want is fun money!!!

www.moneysavingexpert.com/mortgages/mortgage-overpayment-calculator/ gives you all the options to overpay either monthly or in a lump sum

When I got an inheritance, I swapped our mortgage to a off set and used it to help cut the amount of interest we pay. It also means that the money is there when we decide what we want to do with it. Be it pay off the mortgage, a home improvement, holiday or helping our kids in the future.

We will be using a bit of it towards our garage conversion this year.

Pay off mortgage, that would leave £15,000. £10,000 into savings, £5,00 on a holiday and we'd set up a savings account which the old mortgage payment could go into to build a fund up for home improvements.