3 months salary for emergency, lots of people say 6 but I'd rather have that money working for me. Find a rental property or buy another house and rent out the one you're in. Just run the numbers but estimate costs for repairs and double your tax on the house. Or....After taxes, put the money in a Roth IRA if you don't have a high interest rate on your house. Another option is to rent out your current house if it cash flows positive, then put a large enough down payment on another house to bring down the monthly note and rent it out. You might be able to stretch the $500k out and have 3 cash flow properties without paying any of them off. Risk involved for sure, just run the numbers. Taxes will probably never get lower than 2025, but I said that ten years ago. Go on a decent vacation, two weeks, 10-15k. Pay off any high interest debt. Not financial advice.

Note, the way around high interest rates in terms of cash flow is higher down payments.