Help My Mother Retire.. lol

Hey all,

Long story short, the company that was acquired was employee owned. The acquiring company paid cash for the FMV of the current ESOP position, so my mother will be soon receiving a check for the value of her shares (roughly $250k-300k). Obviously a lot of us on this site clear this amount annually, but this will be the base of her retirement savings.

Unfortunately, she doesn't have the slightest clue what to do with the money. She is a single parent and has lived the majority of her life paycheck to paycheck(labor worker). Obviously I could set up a tax shielded acct and trade the hell out of her balance, but that just isn't rational. I plan to set her up with one of the FAs at my firm, but lets be honest, what the hell do they know about investing? I also think it might be a conflict on interest considering my desk is the one trading on the majority of FI portfolios at my firm.

My main concerns are as follows: -Would she be better off rolling the balance of her ESOP shares to the acquiring company's 401k and then transferring the balance to an IRA at an AM firm? I believe this would avoid ordinary tax income?

-Will she be taxed LT capital gains if she continues to work for 5 more years(till 65) if her AGI falls in the 10% tax bracket?

-This one is just for fun--any recommendations on portfolio allocations?

If anyone has any good resources on retirement plans I'd love to read up on it. Please don't direct me to vanguards website.

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