How and where can I deposit money to generate future payments / income?
Reversing your math, I am assuming you have $312K to work with.  In that case, I would simply shop around your local banks and/or credit unions and have them compete for your money and you might be quite surprised how much they are willing to pay. A couple of months ago, you would be able to get about 4.25% from Israel Bonds in Canada on 5 years term (the Jubilee product, with minimum investment of $25K).  It's a bit lower now, but you should still be able to get very good rates if you shop around tier-2 banks or credit unions (who are more hungry for capital than the well-funded tier-1 banks). Or you could look at preferred shares of a large corporation.  They are different from common shares in the sense they are priced according to the payout rate (i.e. people buy it for the dividend). A quick screen from your favorite stock exchange ought to find you a few options. Another option is commercial bonds.  You should be able to get that kind of return from investment grade (BBB- and higher) bonds on large corporations these days.  I just did a quick glance at MarketWatch's Bond section (http://cxa.marketwatch.com/finra/BondCenter/Default.aspx) and found AAA grade bonds that will yield > 5%.  You will need to investigate their underlying fundamentals, coupon rate and etc before investing (second thought, grab a introduction to bonds book from Chapters first). Hope these helps. If you're in the USA and looking to retire in 10 years, pay your Social Security taxes? :P Just kidding. Do a search for Fixed Rate Annuities.
I don't know which online casino we are talking about, but I would venture to say that online casinos, in general, are probably not the most trustworthy of businesses.  Caution is certainly in order.  That having been said, this isn't an e-mail from a stranger that contacted you out of the blue; you obviously trust them enough to have deposited some money with them, and it seems that they now owe you money. Let's assume for the moment that they are legitimate, and that they sincerely want to pay out your winnings.  If they are to pay you via a wire transfer, they would need your account number and routing number.  (This information is on every check that you write.)  In addition, if this is an international transfer, they would also need your bank's SWIFT number, or possibly an IBAN code. It does seem odd that they would pay you a partial payment with a check, but the rest has to be done via a wire transfer.  You could request that they send the remainder as a check, but I would imagine that if they refuse to send you a check, there is nothing you can do about it. If you decide to go ahead with the wire transfer, you could open up a new savings account with your bank first.  Then you could provide the account number for this new account, and if they are intending to clean out your account, there will be nothing in it.  (For extra protection, when you set up the account, you could ask the bank if they can set up a savings account that will accept incoming wire deposits, but no outgoing electronic withdrawals.) Either way, when you deposit the check you have and you receive this wire transfer, don't spend this money for a while.  Just let it sit in your account (you could transfer it to your main account, if you like), and wait a few weeks.  That way, if there is a problem with these payments and your bank insists on the money back, you will not be in trouble.  If they send you more than they owe you and ask for some of it back, it will be a clear indication of a scam.  Don't send them any money back. After a few weeks, you should be in the clear.  Good luck. By the way, online gambling is a terrible idea.  The fact that you don't trust the casino to pay out should tell you a lot about this industry.  After you receive these winnings (or even if you don't), the best advice I can give you is to stop gambling. "Short answer: If you bought the car -- as opposed to leasing it -- there is no one to ""turn it in"" to.  The reality of cars and car loans is this: The value of a car tends to fall rapidly the first couple of years, then more slowly after that. Like it might lose $2000 the first year, $1000 the second, $500 the third, etc. What you owe on a loan falls slowly at first, because a lot of your payment is going to interest, but then as time goes on you pay off the loan faster and faster. So you may pay off $1000 the first year, $1100 the second, etc. (I'm just making up numbers, depends on the value of the car, and the term and interest rate of the loan, but that's the general idea.) Combining these two things means that in the first few years after you buy a car, if you had a small or no down payment, you might well owe more on the car than it is worth. That's just how the numbers work out. If you keep the car long enough, eventually you hit a point where it is worth more than you owe. Keep it until you've paid off the loan and you owe $0 but the car is still worth SOMETHING, exactly how much depending on its condition and other factors. If you just use the car and pay off the loan, i.e. if you don't sell the car or refinance the loan or some such, then this doesn't matter very much. You make your loan payments, and you have use of the car. What difference does the book value of the car at any given moment matter to you? If the idea of owing more than the car is worth bothers you in principle, then in the future you could make a larger down payment. Or make extra payments on the loan the first couple of years to knock the principle down faster. That's about the only things you can do. Well, you could buy with cash so you owe zero and the car is always worth more than you owe. But given that you are where you are: If you just keep the car and keep driving it and keep paying the loan, then you are exactly where you thought you would be when you bought the car, right? I mean, the day you bought the car, you presumably weren't thinking that at some future date you could refinance at a lower rate. How would you know? So I think the easy answer is: Don't sweat it. Just enjoy the car and pay your bills." Are financial institutions less likely to lend me money because of my age Yes.  But they are especially unlikely to loan you money because you have little income.   or because they know I avoid interest by paying things off aggressively? This won't affect them.  But you might ask yourself how much credit history you have.  Credit history can include all of loans, credit cards, rent, utilities, etc.  You mention three loans.  But you don't mention rent or utilities.  You may simply not have much credit history, even if what you do have is good.   But again, the biggest thing that they will look at is your income history.  If you have a small income, then it doesn't matter what your payment history is.  They don't want to loan money to people who need money.  They want to loan money to people who don't need to borrow but are instead bringing a future purchase into the present.   The ideal recipient is someone who has a high income and spends it all every month.  Such a person is likely to borrow heavily but be able to keep up the payments.   Obsessing about your ability to borrow is probably the wrong approach.  Instead focus on how you can meet your goals without borrowing.  Eventually your ability to pay will catch up.  Then they'll offer you money.  Of course, you might not need it then.   Note that when I say little income, I'm talking about their perspective.  You may be fully on track and making decent money or even very good money for your age.  But they're looking for people who are mature in their careers and regularly bringing home large sums but who spend it faster than they can get it. Source:  Business owner for 13 years.  Unfortunately you may be hard-pressed to get that money back.   You can try sending him to collections, but at that point it often starts to cost  you more than what he owes you, in my experience.   In the worst instance I lost $2100 on a single invoice that I never received a dime for.   Nearly 20 hours of my time wasted for nothing!  A bit of unsolicited advice:  I've found that when working on a service-basis, obtaining billing and payment info up front and taking a deposit makes sense.   I take 1 hour's worth of deposit and bill the rest after.   Not only does it verify the payment method works, but it also gives you a way to confirm the customer's ability to pay in the future.  If the customer balks at this, just walk away.  It's not worth the risk.   As a business, your goal is to make money in exchange for goods or services.  If your customers don't understand that and aren't willing to front a bit of money to secure your services, you'll likely going to lose time and money. Unfortunately, in this market environment your goal is not very realistic. At the moment real interest rates are negative (and have been for some time).  This means if you invest in something that will pay out for sure, you can expect to earn less than you lose through inflation.  In other words, if you save your $50K, when you withdraw it in a few years you will be able to buy less with it then than you can now. You can invest in risky securities like stocks or mutual funds.  These assets can easily generate 10% per year, but they can (and do) also generate negative returns.  This means you can and likely will lose money after investing in them.  There's an even better chance that you will make money, but that varies year by year.  If you invest in something that expects to make 10% per year (meaning it makes that much on average), it will be extremely risky and many years it will lose money, perhaps a lot of it.  That's the way risk is.  Are you comfortable taking on large amounts of risk (good chances of losing a lot of your money)? You could make some kind of real investment.  $50K is a little small to buy real estate, but you may be able to find something like real estate that can generate income, especially if you use it as a down payment to borrow from the bank.  There is risk in being a landlord as well, of course, and a lot of work.  But real investments like that are a reasonable alternative to financial markets for some people. Another possibility is to just keep it in your bank account or something else with no risk and take $5000 out per year.  It will only last you 10 years that way, but if you are not too young, that will be a significant portion of your life.  If you are young, you can work and add to it. Unfortunately, financial markets don't magically make people rich.  If you make a lot of money in the market, it's because you took a risk and got lucky.  If you make a comfortable amount with no risk, it means you invested in a market environment very different from what we see today. --------- EDIT ------------ To get an idea of what risk free investments (after inflation) earn per year at various horizons see this table at the treasury.  At the time of this writing you would have to invest in a security with maturity almost 10 years in order to break even with inflation.  Beating it by 10% or even 3% per year with minimal risk is a pipe dream. Looks more like an idea for a business rather than an actual business -- especially since it hasn't even launched. That said, it does have its merits. What bank actually holds the deposit funds becomes irrelevant, and may actaully change from time to time as they forge better partnerships with different banks.  Think of it like a mutual fund -- the individual stocks (if there are stocks) in the fund are less important than the balance of risk vs. income and the leveling of change over the course of time. It offers services banks offer, without fees (at least that is the proposal) with the addition of budgetting capability as well. It does have downsides as well There is an increased level of indirection between you and your money. They propose to simplify the banking business model, but in fact are only hiding it from you.  The same complexity that was there before is still there, with the added complexity of their service on top of it.  It's just a matter of how much of that complexity you would have to deal with directly. With that in mind, I would reiterate that they are not a business yet -- just a proposed business model.  Even the sign up process is a red flag for me.  I understand they need to gauge interest in order to forge initial relationships with various banks, but I don't see the need for the 'invitation only' sign up method.  It just sounds like a way to increase interest (who doesn't like feeling exclusively invited), and is a bit too 'gimmicky' for my taste. But, like I said, the idea has merit -- I have my reservations, but will reserve full judgement until they are an actual operating business. Firstly, sorry about the accident. I am afraid you will need to do your own legwork, because you cannot trust other people with your money.  It's a good thing you do not need to rush.  Take your time to learn things. One thing is certain, you cannot let your money sit in a bank - inflation will digest them. You need to learn about investing yourself, or you run a risk of someone taking advantage of you.  And there are people who specialise in exploiting people who have money and no idea what to do with them.  There is no other way, if you have money, you need to know how to deal with it, or you are likely to lose it all.  Since you need to have monthly income and also income that makes more money to make further investments, you need to look at two most common investments that are safe enough and also give good returns on investment: Property and index funds. You might also have a look at National bonds as this is considered safest investment possible (country has to go bust for you to lose money), but you are too young for that.  Young = you can take more risk so Property and shares (indexes). You want to have your property investments in a country that is stable and has a good ROI (like Netherlands or Lithuania). Listen to some audio lectures: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Health-Personal-Development/Investing-in-Real-Estate-6th-Edition-Audiobook/B008SEH1R0 https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Business/The-Secrets-of-Buy-to-Let-Success-Audiobook/B00UVVM222 https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Non-fiction/Economics-3rd-Edition-Audiobook/B00D8J7VUC https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Advanced-Investments-Part-1-Audiobook/B00HU81B80 After you sorted your investment strategy, you might want to move to a country that is Expat friendly and has lower living costs than US and you should be able to live like a king... best of luck. "I don't think credit cards support depositing money into to begin with. Anyone could deposit money to a Credit Card acccount.  All they need is your bank's name, Visa/Mastercard, and 16 digit number.  It is done through the ""Pay Bills / Make Payments"" function in online banking.  So tell me, what does it mean that PayPal will transfer the money to my VISA card You can use the new balance for spending via Credit Card, the effect is same as making a payment from your chequing account to credit card account.  Will it simply just get transferred to my bank account by the local bank after that Some banks would refund the excess amount from your Credit Card to your Chequing Account after a while, but most don't. People keep credit balance on credit card to make a purchaes larger than credit limit. For example, if your credit limit is $1000, balance is $0, and you made $500 payment to the credit card, you can make a purchase of $1500 without asking for credit limit increase."