I’d buy property, or if I couldn’t find anything that that money would allow me to purchase, I’d put it in something very conservative until I saved enough to let me buy said property.
Mostly into moderately aggressive ETFs and mutual funds… market’s kind of in a slump now so it’s a good time to buy, and I’m young so I have time to ride out the ups and downs.
Probably about half stock market (since, long run, that’s generally the best investment, and trying to time the market will fail as often as it succeeds), and half paying off some of the mortgage (since the interest rate, even after accounting for tax deductions, is still probably higher than realistic medium term returns anywhere else).
I’d split into into my current allocation of a variety of index funds.
Me five! Pay off the debt, put it into a newly built home, and/or metals.
There are some really crazy real estate deals out there right now. And though the buy/sell market is not good, rents are as high as ever in my area.
With $100k I could pick up a 2-3 BR condo or small TH and rent it out for $1,800-2,000 per month. With taxes and repair costs, I could still expect to reliably achieve about $1,000 per month for life. That would be a very nice lifelong boost to our income.
I’d buy real estate. Plenty of great deals out there.
5k for vehicle maintenance and other major item repair/maintenance that has been put off far too long, with any balance going to future such needs.
25k for the new business we’re trying to get up and running - that breaks down to about 5k for equipment and the rest for operating costs, marketing, shipping, materials, etc.
20k emergency house fund, in either cash or short term CD’s or other assets that can be quickly converted to cash.
Start a retirement account for both of us - a bit late, but whatever. That’s another 30k or so.
10k to live on for the rest of this year (or until the business starts making money, whichever comes first)
That leaves another 10k to put into some sort of investment account, although I’d probably offer to give it to my sister, who is in even worse financial shape than I am right now.
I dunno… is that way too practical or something?
A million would be easier - you could maybe buy an apartment complex or something.
However, with “only” $100,000 I might look into a franchise, and scout a good location. Opening a Subway or even McDonalds at some location near businesses/schools that might not have many alternatives seems like a fairly safe bet. Yes, there is work involved, but the success rate of a good franchise seems fairly high.
I’d pay my current bills up and into the next couple years (I live on less than 20k already) and pay for my daughter and I to go to community college. Eventually we’d build it back up again if we were careful.
Sure as heck wouldn’t happen fast…unless of course I learn how to cook real good meth. But I hear that’s not without it’s risks.
Yup. I’d pay off the car first, then a big chunk of mortgage, keeping out enough to do some house repairs and install forced air heating/AC. With luck that will pull me out from under water with the house.
First, I’d set up at least $20,000 in savings to get my rainy day fund restored (it got eaten during 2008). To get at least a little interest out of it, I’d probably put $5,000 in savings (earning about 1%) and then split the rest into 3 $5,000 CDs, set up so that one will come to maturation about every 6-8 months. (the exact timing would depend on what rates I could get from them. I think I can find places that would give 1.5%). I might go for some short-term US Treasuries instead, but even that would only push me to 2%. In any event, the goal is $5k available at any moment for little emergencies and $15k available periodically (or available with a penalty) for big emergencies.
Then, I’d sock another $10,000 aside to replace the car. It’s still running well, but is 12 years old and going to need replacing sometime in the next couple of years. I’d invest it as part of the rainy day fund for now.
$10,000 would go into my business to buy a few of those tech gadgets and software items that just don’t make sense in the budget at the moment. In particular, we’d implement a huge overhaul of our payroll processing capability.
The remaining $60,000, I’d have to really think about. It would be tempting to spend it on getting the business back into commercial space with a nice build-out and some in savings to buffer rent. (Probably only $30k would need to go there, but it would depend). On the other hand, the current economy makes me very happy the home office has limited overhead. Maybe I’d spend some ($5-$10k tops) improving the home office.
Anything I don’t spend on an office would go to pay down the home equity line. Right now, that’s the lowest interest rate I have, but it’s a variable rate and the forecast for interest makes me worry that it will go upwards quite soon.
I’m avoiding stocks and bonds as investments not so much because I’m leery of where the market is going right now, but more because those are the investments I didn’t tap when everything tanked in 2008. There’s already enough money and enough risk in those kinds of assets. Even if I didn’t have other priorities for $100k, I’d wait until this debt ceiling stuff is resolved before going into securities.
I’d invest it in my education and go back to school.
Concur.
I’m retiring tomorrow, so that big a chunk of money would be tucked away some place safe against future needs. Since my baby bro is the family financial whiz, I’d be talking to him about the best way to go. Altho I might pull out just enough to go out to a nice place for dinner. 
- Pay off debt.
- Buy some land up north, within easy bicycling range of town.
- Build a passive-solar house with wind and solar electricity, built-in greenhouse for food, greywater-recycling system, and composting system.
- Grow food, make power, help out the neighbours.
- Profit! 'Cause real profit involves making society stronger and more resilient, not only padding one’s bank account. Though hopefully the two happen in parallel…
Edit: Congratulations, FCM! 
Hookers and Blow.
but mostly in the resale market.
See, I’m wanting to do something like this for my retirement. I was wondedring tho’: If I put down all the cash needed to start the business up; couldn’t I also hire a management company to handle all the BS for me? To where basically all I have to do is sign paper work?
I imagine I could but it would cut deeply into my profit margine. I just wonder how much.
$40k into student loans and $60k as a downpayment on a condo.
Gold anyone?