I found this Wikipedia-style page on personal finance advice for "managing a windfall" so well-written, that I was really startled (by the quality!). I came acr

I found this Wikipedia-style page on personal finance advice for "managing a windfall" so well-written, that I was really startled (by the quality!). I came across it earlier today on HN in an "Ask HN" thread: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Managing_a_windfall https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Managing_a_windfall I had to help my Mom with personal finance. She is a first-generation immigrant who entered her late 60s with no stock or cash retirement savings, but with a lot of home equity value built up by sheer luck of buying a house in a booming suburb right before it really boomed, and holding it for 40 years. She lived paycheck-to-paycheck her whole life, and, because she fled communist Romania when she was in high school, she had a real distrust of the US financial system. (Perhaps warranted at times!) So, I had to help her manage the windfall from the sale of her primary residence as she downsized her living space and needed to tap the newly-liquid cash as a kind of pension and healthcare issue rainy-day fund. She wanted to stick all the money under the mattress (quite literally). I was in my mid-20s at the time (and a college-educated programmer, so savvy enough to wade through the systems), so I tried to wise up to the situation to help her out. I dealt with all the issues outlined in this page (on her behalf) via a lot of haphazard ad-hoc research and through expensive advice from personal lawyers and accountants. I am impressed with the way in which the page tackles not just the pragmatic issues, but also the psychological ones -- e.g. that someone facing a windfall will feel temporarily "rich" because they are newly in the money, and thus won't manage smartly toward a long-term future, and may also be more prone to frivolous purchases. Financial literacy is a really hard thing and so much of the information you find is biased and is selling you one thing or another. I wish I had known about this page -- and the wiki overall -- years ago. The "Bogleheads" philosophy aligns a lot with my personal outlook, which has a a lot of trust for the power of markets and financial management, but a whole lot of distrust for financial advisors and money managers. Now that I've been on this side of the table, representing my Mom's interests in retirement, it became really clear to me why fraud against the elderly is so common, and why it's a very legitimate interest to ensure they are well-protected if they don't have savvy family members who can guide them through it.