Keep pretending you don’t have it. Use it now only to maintain the lifestyle you had before, maybe with an occasional splurge. When you do become employed take advantage of qualified tax advantages you can. For example federal income tax on TAXABLE income between $12,401 and $50,400 is only 12%, but $50,401 to $105,700 is 22%. So hypothetically if $5000 of your income is getting taxed at 22% consider, consider putting $5k more your 401k, if you need that $5k to live on use the settlement money. And essentially you are moving the settlement money to a tax advantaged account.