<prompt> Human: As the title says, my father passed away recently, and he had quite the life insurance plan and pension put away for us. We had no idea that he had made these preparations or what to do with them. My family has never had a lot of money and my parents always struggled with even keeping a healthy chunk of savings, never mind retirement money or investments. His life insurance policy is worth 150000, which is more money than weve ever had before. That alone is enough that I have no idea what to do with it. On top of that, he had a pretty sizable pension. The choices for the pension is that my mother can either take 533.73 per month for the rest of my mothers life, or 117046.05 in the form of one of a few vehicles. The choices are either a Registered Pension Plan which accepts such a transfer, a Retirement Account LIRA, a Life Income Fund LIF, a Retirement Income Fund LRIF, or a deferred life annuity contract from an insurance company. Now Ive done the math and it would take almost 20 years for the monthly payment to add up to reach 117k, and thats ignoring that 533 will probably not be worth nearly as much by then, so the best idea would be to get the 117k invested and working for us ASAP, but I dont really know the best way to go about that. I dont even really understand what these options entail. We dont have a lot of assets. My parents have been renting for years and we dont own a home. My mom has about 5000 in debt, but our cars are paid off, we have no mortgage, and neither me nor my sister have student loans. In terms of savings, pretty much everything has been spent on funeral expenses and other costs from my dad dying. My mom is 55 and plans to continue working likely for another 10 years. Should we buy a house? If so, is there any benefit to paying a large chunk of the value of the house outright as opposed to just paying the monthly mortgage payment? My mother lives and works in Fort McMurray, where the housing prices are a little ridiculous, so if she buys a house, she thinks she wants to do it somewhere else. On the flip side, like I said, shes planning on working for a good while more, so it might be smart to put money into a house rather than burn an inordinate amount on rent over the next decade. How can we turn the 150k into something for my mother to retire on? We want to spend some money on personal things computers, clothes, furniture, etc, how much do you think we could spend before it starts to eat into the potential returns too much? Whats the best option for the pension? I honestly have no idea how any of these options work, so literally any advice whatsoever is welcome. I know that these are some pretty big, sweeping questions, but honestly any advice would be a big help. I do plan on having my mom speak with someone at her bank about this as well, but I feel like getting some input in the mean time cant hurt. Should we hire an accountant or any other kind financial assistant? Im honestly pretty overwhelmed with the whole thing, so as I said, any help would be nice.  <response>: For now, Id say put the money somewhere and do not touch it until youve cooled down and researched whats the best option for you. Be VERY careful when talking to people in the bank because they tend to sell you something that gives them the biggest commission and not something that would help your situation. If you need to talk with a professional, it should be a fee-only planner information on that here since they dont try to steer you into stuff that gives them the most money. Heres also a nice little wiki you can start off in regarding windfalls. In the meantime, I would recommend you start learning about low-cost diversified index funds to help your money grow. Just google bogleheads and read up on that philosophy. You can find the wiki here This place is a treasure trove of information. Regarding pension, Ill let someone else go over that since im not too familiar with those. Regarding buying vs. renting, using this nifty calculator can help: For the most part, I wouldnt go purchasing a property until youve done all the research regarding costs. If you do it incorrectly, it can become one big money sinker. 