What would you do with ones years income?

[GregRickshaw]

Spend 98% of it on wine, women and song. The rest of it you can waste.,

[swamp]

Overpay the mortgage.
Go on nice holiday(s).

[WTFH]

Invest the money in time with the people who matter to you.
Life isn’t just about making money, life is for living. Go on a safari in Africa or a yoga retreat in Vietnam, maybe look at doing a 3 month sabbatical with VSO.

[vetran]

A night of unbridled passion with NLyUK - you would acquire some experience (and nasty little rashes) that stay with you for a lifetime?

Buy a bedsit over a kebab shop?

[Uncle Albert]

Invest in "Uncle Albert's shipping line". As safe as the Titanic.

If that's too risky, do a mix of Premium bonds, ISA's and gold. If there's anything left over, put it all on the third horse (alphbetically) in the Epsom Derby.

[d000hg]

Max out your (and spouse if relevant) ISAs if not already done - potentially for 2022 and 2023 tax year given it's nearly April.
See if there's some improvement on the house you were considering having done.
Go on a lavish holiday.
Buy something you wouldn't normally justify like a swanky car upgrade.
Take a 'sabbatical' for a few months next time your contract ends.
Find a worthy charity or individuals you think could genuinely be blessed by the money, or buy people expensive gifts (like a car for a family member or something)
Look at some more unusual/interesting investments that you wouldn't typically use, on top of whatever you normally do - fine wine, a cask of whisky, Crypto, gold bars under the bed, ...

[Unix]

Do you really think the FTSE 100 is going to 16,000 or FTSE 250 is going to 40,000 within a few years?

If you think some individual stocks might double then you need to name them for us.

TSLA

[Fraidycat]

Invest it in the stock market could double it in a few years.

Do you really think the FTSE 100 is going to 16,000 or FTSE 250 is going to 40,000 within a few years?

If you think some individual stocks might double then you need to name them for us.

[Unix]

I have just received a windfall equivalent to about one years gross income from contracting.

I am unsure what to do with it - my heart says it should go in the pension pot but property is also an option. I could also risk the lot trying to escape the drudgery of writing code for faceless corporations and doing something I really want to do.

Anyone been in this position recently and what did you do?

Invest it in the stock market could double it in a few years.

[northernladuk]

Good point. I guess I could hugely overpay pension from contracting and partially live from tax free windfall whilst getting the best interest rate I can from it.

That would be my plan but I'm old. Aldermore have 3.9% 3 year cash ISA's going if you are looking at locking some away, higher accounts that aren't isas but obviously tax is an issue. I'd be having a punt on the premium bonds on what I can't get in the ISA as well. Had about 2/3rds max for 6 months and they've done much better than any savings accounts. Could have done worse but was fun getting the emails.

So I'd probably divi it up from short term to long term, something like an amount of cash to live on, amount in premium bonds for short term, mid term ISA, longer term pension. I wouldn't bother using a windfall on shares or anything personally. It would be nice safe money to fall back on. Riskier investments are done from my daily churn if you get me.