Friend got a substantial windfall and doesn't know what to do with it, advice?

[purplish]

My friend won a lawsuit and got something like $230,000.  She mentioned maybe hiring a financial planner to figure out what to do with the money... I figured I'd ask here for free!  Her situation: She lives with her parents, and is unemployed.  Originally my idea was she should buy property with it, however since she doesn't have a job, she wouldn't be able to pay expenses for that.  Since she has no job, I'm wondering if Index Funds would be too risky, if she were to try to live off the interest now? 

[johnny847]

Well unless she plans to live on an inflation adjusted $9200 a year, by the 4% rule she's not going to have enough to purely live off interest/capital gains from the $230k.

I would tell her to look into the three fund portfolio on the Bogleheads wiki. I wouldn't give her too much direct advice on what to do with her money though - you don't want her to come back to you and blame you if her investments do poorly. She needs to come the realization on her own that whatever she decides to invest in will involve risk (and also, that not investing involves inflation risk).

[TN_Steve]

Start here:  http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Managing_a_windfall

TL;DR.  Take deep breath for a year.  Educate her/yourself.  Haste makes waste.

But, she has to get a job (or ignore that wiki and use the 230 as startup capital)--as Johnny847 observed, 230K isn't going to be a life changing amount all by its lonesome.