My mother’s sister died a month ago and yesterday I learned that I have been made co-executor of the estate and have inherited nearly 2 million dollars. Most of the inheritance is in IRAs. I believe they are traditional IRAs, not Roth. There is also a life insurance policy that should cover the estate taxes, and some smaller policies and cash from her bank account. My younger sister and I will both inherit my aunt’s house, which for now we would like to keep.
I already know that the IRAs should be put into a new inherited ira account. I am thinking of going with Charles Schwab or something like that. What I am not sure is what KIND of account should it be? Mutual funds? Annuities? I really don't know anything about finances. The IRAs make up about 1.3 m of the estate, so it is a pretty substantial part. The rest I am thinking we will want in some sort of liquid, low yield account until we get our bearings.
My husband and I are pretty frugal. We have been married for 25+ years, have almost no retirement savings for ourselves, but are debt free and are sending our kids through college with no student debt at all. (State school, paying cash.). We were set to pay off our home's mortgage this year, even without the inheritance.
With the inherited IRAs, we will have to take disbursements. Should we start putting some into IRAs for ourselves? If we do the standard inherited IRA disbursements, the funds will dry up by the time we are about 85. We think we should have some additional funds set aside, right?
Also, if we decide to do some regular (non-IRA) investing, is a mutual fund a good idea?
Finally, I am very ignorant about financial stuff. I have started reading some books, but I wonder if it is a good idea to hire someone, at least initially, who could help us navigate all this. There will be an estate lawyer, of course, and we have a CPA for my husband's small business. I don't necessarily want to pay a yearly fee for someone to babysit our accounts. We just want a good initial set-up while we figure out what we are doing.
Thanks for you help!
PS: background- our income is middle of the road. Together, we gross about 90k. I work for a non-profit with no 401k, he is self employed, also no 401k. 2 kids in college. No debt. We both drive old cars that are paid for!
Submitted April 29, 2019 at 09:16AM by notmyrealname111223 http://bit.ly/2V2ML7g
