<prompt> Human: First post and using a throwaway for privacy. In a nutshell, my wife is dying of stomach cancer, metastasized to her brain -- she has months left -- and I need some advice. Here are the details:Her salary is 75,000year. Shes on disability now, currently 80 of salary, dropping to 60 in a couple weeks and then no salary 8 weeks later. I make about 110,000year, sometimes plus a 10 bonus. We have two children under age 10.Weve had a lot of expenses due to her illness. Two credit cards, balances are 15,000 and 7,000. I have been paying these down as best I can. We also have a big mortgage. We owe maybe 250,000 were paying roughly 2,000month and a home equity loan with a 30,000 balance due to home improvements we made several years ago. I have slowly been paying that off too. We also have about 20,000 in annual child care expenses and obviously those cant go away. Theres nothing else beyond general gas, water, elec every month. We have about 1.5 million in various retirement vehicles. In addition, she has 150,000 in life insurance through work and I have a 50,000 spouse policy for her from my job. Should I pay penalties to use some of the retirement funds to pay off the credit cards and the mortgage? Should I sell the house and significantly downsize? I dont really want to further disrupt my kids lives but Im seriously concerned that Im not going to be able to pay the bills once I become a single parent. Thanks to all those who offer advice.Edit: Just wanted to thank all of you for your compassion, your support and your excellent advice.  <response>: I am not an accountant, but I would think that if you are a single head of household, your tax burden would go down quite a bit, which would improve your cashflow.Your retirement savings sound like they are in great shape. I would avoid touching them if at all possible. You might even be able to get away with lowering contributions of course, get any employer match if necessary.I think your kids will do better with a sense of permanence if you keep the house, but do not drive yourself bankrupt doing so. After youve got the equity loan paid off, would refinancing help with the monthly payments?I hope you and your wife can make the most of the time you still have together. I wish you and your kids the best during this difficult time. 