I believe it was John Astor who commented once that someone with a million dollars could live as well as a rich person...

But that was in the late 1800's.

Certainly the $3M provides LW with an opportunity to strucure a life that has some different parameters, but only if LW and hubby choose to plan carefully. Otherwise, that money can, indeed, be piddled away.

A financial advisor has access to large-cap investment tools that are not generally available, and can construct with you , a portfolio that has variety, depth and some level of risk//safety. His/her role is to shelter the core capital in order to provide resources to address both short term and long term goals for LW and Hubby. A skilled and creative finacial advisor will work with LW and Hubby if they do choose to open a business, prractice a craft, etc... that is not all that initially lucrative.

The raw reality is that, carefully invested, that money will yield about 4% in conservative capital maintenance investments, enough to yield a tidy income, but not one to proffer foward charter jets and gilded condos. Will it go farther in Costa Rica, a currently trendy site for expats to live like pashas? Yep, if Costa Rica appeals to you........

The choice as to what to do with the partial freedom from structured income resources (jobs) is something that LW and her hubby need to think about..... that money can go to attending Obama events and by extension, supporting political activism via contributions, travel, etc. It could serve as seed money for supporting naescent careers in creative fields and/or businesses. It could simply sit and accrue, capitalizing on its own growth, and serve as a retirement fund.

what will be fatal is to assume that $3M in the bank creates, through magical thinking, some form of fiscal security. Having money means learning how to manage, use and play with it. That does NOT include squandering it......

I might suggest that LW and her hubby take a deep breath, look at their five year goals - where do they want to be, what do they want to be doing - in five years - and THEN look at how the money may assist in achieving that goal. Perhaps it can create a goal that would not otherwise be possible, or facilitate a goal that would be sustained only with some hardship "flying solo". Or, perhaps the money is simply "there".

My own circumstance is one of quiet Midwestern affluence poured down the drain by alchoholic parents, who then lived in the shadow, I fear, of the life they could have lived. My wife's family is one that coughs up the occassional trust, and with that fiscal security, my wife and I have been able to play, travel and have a financial security that has supported us through her failed health. The capital, in true Quaker trdition, is sacrosanct. And to that end, although we skied in Jackson Hole, she drove a used compact. It is about security, and it is about priorities and it is about creating a sustaining environment for the long haul - and, it is about solving certain problems that are best solved by applying money, and it is about having selected fun.