Inheriting a windfall can make a lot of problems disappear. But, as one caller to The Ramsey Show discovered, it can also create pressure to get every decision right.
Kayla from Texas is about to receive a $200,000 lump sum inheritance from her grandparents’ trust, with taxes already paid. She and her husband plan to use $30,000 to pay off their car loan and put another $30,000 in an emergency fund. That still leaves $140,000 available and they want to make it count (1).
With $320,000 remaining on their $340,000 mortgage and the possibility of moving within three years, they wanted to know: Should they pay down the house? Invest the money? Or do something else entirely?
The personal finance experts and hosts, George Kamel and Jade Warshaw, offered guidance that ran counter to what many listeners might expect.
The couple is financially stable; they earn approximately $150,000 per year and consistently contribute to their retirement savings each month, taking home roughly $8,600-$8,700 between their two salaries after all the deductions.
Their first instinct is to set aside six months of expenses in a savings account (think: emergency fund to cover anything unexpected, urgent and necessary) and to eliminate their non-housing debt.
The caller didn’t reveal the interest rate on the couple’s car payments. However, the cost of these loans is typically high and paying them off effectively delivers a guaranteed return equal to the interest rate on that debt (2).
The show’s hosts agreed with this plan, which aligns with the first priorities of Dave Ramsey’s seven “baby steps,” with Kamel putting Kayla and her husband on steps four, five and six.
Thereafter, the broader financial planning guidance encourages recipients of sudden wealth to stabilize their finances before making long-term investment moves (3)(4).
That leaves the bigger question of what to do with the remaining $140,000 so they can make the most of it.
The couple considered paying down a large chunk of their mortgage.
However, the caller adds, “We don’t know that we want to stay in this house long term.”
They’d like to move closer to the caller’s father in a different state. Additionally, Kayla says, “The neighborhood is going in a direction they’re not truly happy with.” So this move could potentially happen within a year, if the right job opportunity materializes.
The couple also floated the idea of investing the money in a mutual fund, but the Ramsey Show hosts had other advice.
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Under Ramsey’s traditional “baby steps” framework, aggressively paying down the mortgage would be a natural next move.
Mortgage rates today remain well above the historic lows of 2020 and 2021, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly survey and a large principal payment could save substantial interest over time (5).
But this situation isn’t textbook, with Kamel and Warshaw arguing that the decision largely hinges on their time horizon.
If the couple expects to move within a year, Kamel suggests keeping the money accessible. “I would just kind of keep it loose and put it in a high-yield savings account and just park it at, you know, 3.5% right now. ‘We’re not trying to make a bunch of money off of this, we’re just sort of buying ourselves some time to make the next decision.’”
Warshaw agrees “If you piled it all into the house and just for some reason the house took a long time to sell or it for some reason went down in value, that might make you feel some type of way,” she said. “Moving is expensive and it’s just nice to have cash on hand.”
Maintaining liquidity would allow the couple to use the $140,000 as a down payment on their next home, potentially without rushing to sell their current house first, possibly at less-than-ideal rates.
However, if the move is more than three years away, Kamel argued that putting the money toward the current mortgage could make sense. The caller agreed and said they’re on an informal timeline of a year — if they don’t move in the next 12 months, they will apply the large lump sum to their mortgage.
“Yeah, I like that plan!” Kamel agreed: “The money’s not disappearing,” he said. “It’s just a forced savings plan.”
In both cases, the play is to eventually use the money to pay down a mortgage; it’s just a question of which one. Kamel and Warshaw agreed that this should be the priority for now beyond their retirement plans, over investing in the stock market.
“You can enjoy some of it too. There’s nothing wrong [with] going, ‘Hey, you’re debt-free with an emergency fund.’ Maybe use some of it for enjoyment,” Kamel said.
The hosts recommended setting aside about $5,000 to enjoy a little bit of the windfall — perhaps on a memorable trip — as well as saving roughly $100 per month in a separate “sinking fund” for home and car maintenance.
Windfalls often create urgency. A large sum sitting in a bank account can feel like a problem that needs solving immediately.
But there is a lot riding on that money, including opportunity cost.
Spent wisely, it can enhance a person’s quality of life. Spent poorly, it can lead to years of regret over missed opportunities.
As this caller learned, blindly following generic advice can be dangerous.
The traditional smart moves, such as locking cash into home equity and exposing it to market swings, aren’t always the best immediate play for everyone.
In this couple’s case, flexibility and maintaining liquidity took precedence over squeezing out the highest possible return. And it took personalized advice to realize that.
When inheriting, it’s also an important reminder to check how much of the money you actually get to keep.
While there is no federal inheritance tax in the U.S., residents of Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey and Pennsylvania may owe state inheritance taxes depending on the relationship to the deceased and the size of the estate (5).
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The Ramsey Show Highlights (1); Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (2); SFP Board of Standards (3); Tax Foundation (4); Freddie Mac (5)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.
