If you have to sue someone, you’d better prepare for a difficult process. Maybe you can get them to offer you a settlement quickly, but in other cases, the defendant will want to dispute the matter in court. If so, you need to try to collect as much evidence as possible that proves their guilt or culpability. 

Personal injury settlement amounts vary. If you sprained your ankle while in a grocery store, and you sue, then you might collect a settlement worth five figures. That’s not life-changing money for most people, but it can help you while you’re recovering.

However, you might get a much larger settlement in some cases. For example, maybe you will get millions if you’re suing a company because one of their products killed one of your family members.

Once you pay your lawyer the amount to which you agreed, then you can think about what you might do with the cash that remains. You can do something responsible or frivolous with it. Let’s talk about some of the possibilities right now.

You Can Spend It on a New House

Let’s say you sue a person or entity that you allege harmed you. You’re able to force a settlement offer that you accept. You collect a pretty decent amount of money, maybe in the high six-figure range.

With that kind of money, you can usually buy a house in many parts of the country. Maybe you’ve always lived in apartments up till this point. If you’re not making a lot of money at your job, then perhaps you felt like you’d probably never become a homeowner.

Now, you have a chance that’s unlike anything you had before. You might put down enough money to purchase a property, and you can have a mortgage going forward instead of paying rent. If you got enough money in damages, you may even decide to buy the house outright.

If so, you won’t have to worry about any mortgage payments. You will probably only have to think about paying property taxes and school taxes every year. 

You Can Spend It on a New Car

Maybe you decide that you will spend some or all of that money on a new car instead. Perhaps you never bought a new car before because you didn’t feel like you could afford it. You only ever bought used vehicles up till this point. 

If you can buy a brand-new car, though, that’s pretty exciting. You can get one that has all the latest safety features and other bells and whistles.

Having a new car won’t just let you show it off to your friends and neighbors, though. If you have a brand-new one, it will probably come with a generous, multiple-year warranty. You won’t have to pay for any repairs during that time.

Your car also probably won’t break down if it’s brand-new. Having a new car can take away a lot of the headaches that go along with purchasing a used one.   

You Might Use It as a Nest Egg

You may decide that you won’t spend the money on anything at all. Perhaps you will just open a bank account and put it in savings. 

If you do that, then you’re not risking losing any of that money like you would if you put it in the stock market. Stock market investing can certainly pay off, but it’s also a form of gambling. There’s an undeniable risk element that you might not like.

You can also put your money into something like a CD, but when you do that, you can’t touch it without facing a financial penalty. If you simply put that money in a high-yield savings account, nothing can happen to it, and it’s also liquid.

That means you can instantly use it for any expense that you have. If you have to pay for something suddenly, you will have that money readily available. 

You Can Save It for Your Kids

You may feel like you want to do something responsible with the money, but not so much for yourself. You might have some kids, and you want what’s best for them going forward.

That probably means sending them to the best colleges. They might get in on an academic or athletic scholarship, but maybe they have to pay for all of their tuition out-of-pocket. 

If so, then you can use the money you kept in reserve. Also, if you still have very young children at the moment, you can keep the cash in a savings account for them in the meantime. By doing so, it will accrue interest, so you will have even more by the time your kids get to college age. 

You Can Use It to Take a Vacation 

You can also do something frivolous with the money if you like. Up till now, we’ve talked about responsible things that you can do with it. That obviously appeals in a lot of cases, but maybe you feel like you should use at least some of it to take a vacation instead.

Maybe you just went through a very lengthy and difficult trial process. That’s not easy. Perhaps you had to appear in court day after day. Maybe you had to take the stand and testify on your own behalf, and the opposing counsel tried to trip you up or get you to change your version of what you say happened.

You may feel like you earned that money, and you want to spend at least some of it on something nice for yourself and your family. If so, then you might use a chunk of it to take a vacation to a place you’ve always wanted to visit.

Maybe you will to go Tokyo, Paris, London, New York, or some other locale that sparks your imagination. You might use some of that cash for something responsible, but in the meantime, you’ll enjoy the vacation you earned.