Today, I’ve decided to formally end my Alternative Income reports. I don’t think too many people will miss them since I haven’t done the reports in around months. Some might wonder why I stopped doing them. Well, a wise friend of mine once said that if he ever hit the lottery, he wouldn’t tell a soul for six months, while he set up proper estate planning. Nearly six months ago, I found myself in that exact situation. So behind the scenes here , I’ve been taking his advice and implementing his plan.
With that fortunate bounce of the ping-pong balls, I had been more preoccupied with making sure that it was protected than blogging about my Alternative Income. The few thousand a month that I make is really just a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.
As for the overall estate planning, I should give some details on how I managed it. First, I opted to take the money as a lump sum payment and of course significant taxes were taken from it. The rest of it was divided up in the following ways:
- Spending Spree – 5% – Earlier this week I had a problem of not being able to figure what I wanted for my birthday. This is a direct result of that spree. Once I got a new computer and a few other toys it was time to be a little more responsible.
- Speculative Investing – 5% – This is the money that I put into speculative investments. For instance, some of that money went to Lending Club and some of that money will be used for me to expand this website and expand my web presence elsewhere.
- Annuity – 30% – Putting 30% of the money in an annuity gives us a guaranteed stream of income which will help us live our lifestyle. Think of it as an emergency fund on steroids
- Domestic Stocks – 20% – A simple purchase of Vanguard’s Total Market Index ETF (VTI) filled this easily
- International Stocks – 20% – A simple purchase of Vanguard’s All-World ex-US ETF (VEU) covered this well with no duplication of the above
- Various Bonds – 20% – The Vanguard investing tripod stands strong with the purchase of Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND).
One of the more challenging issues was making sure that I didn’t put too much money in one banking institution. The reason I wanted to spread it around was in the rare circumstance of bank failure, I could still count on FDIC insurance to help out.
How would you have handled a sudden windfall like winning the lottery?
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