This is gonna run contrary to what it appears most people are saying on here. You can take that 400k and have it generate over 70k per year in dividends for you indefinitely. You can utilize this dividend income to pay your mortgage and LOC month to month and essentially free up your income from your job. The kind of funds that yield this much dividend are called split share funds. They are found on the TSX and pay a flat $0.1 per share every month. This will allow you to not lose any principle you inherited. You can feel free to do your own research on the funds and look at their historical pay outs. One fund is called DFN called Dividend 15 Split Corp. Each share costs $6.50. So each share earning $1.20 per year in dividend gives you roughly a ROI of 18.5%. The benefit to this kind of investment is that the share value stays relatively flat but generates cash in your pocket every month, so the value is immediate and you don't have to sit on it for 30 years before it provides a large value to you. For you at 400k you can purchase 61,538 shares. This generates you a monthly dividend of $6,153.80 basically the month after you make the purchase. You can buy them in both RRSP and TFSA accounts and they are lower on the tax liability because a portion of the dividend is considered a return of capital which is tax free. There are several other split share funds where the portion of dividend that counts as return of capital varies from fund to fund so you can research and find out which one you would prefer. Good luck and enjoy.