Anyone inherit money, and it wasn't good for you.

[Mooshamoo]

I inherited a large sum of money 4 years ago. Large to me anyway, it was over 200,000 and less than 500,000.

It was good in one way, but I also feel it was bad in other ways. I feel like I became really reckless, and lost my grip on reality, and made stupid decisions.

I had been quite poor before. When I surprisingly inherited the money, at age 34, the smart thing to do would have been to buy a house. However, I had never really traveled. And I decided that I would go and travel for a year. I left a good job to do this.

I ended up travelling for longer and longer. periods I ended up travelling for four years, and not working at all. I began to see this way of life as normal, when it really wasnt!

Oh I'll just keep travelling for a bit longer.

I also travelled around some quite poor and dangerous countries, as I chose cheap places to stay, to make the money last longer. I dont know, I just feel like I lost a bit of grip on reality. I shouldnt have gone travelling for four years in my mid thirties. I didnt enjoy much of the solo travel at all. I dont think it was good for me. I dont know why i kept doing it. I just kept making bad decisions. It was because I had money, and I didnt really have to work.

Ive come back home now, and back to renting in one place and applying for jobs. Now Im back in reality, I think what the fuck was I doing for the last four years, I went a bit mad with money.

Did anyone else inherit a large sum, and kind of go a bit crazy?

Not as much money as you, but enough to have really made a difference in our lives. We frittered it away, whereas if we'd received it a few years later, we had some good ideas and could have used it to buy some land. We were just younger and naive about it all.

Do you have any of yours left op?

You did the best you could at the time. And you must have been getting something out of it, or you wouldn’t have kept doing it.

That’s a pretty incredible experience to have had, it may well turn out to be far more useful to you than having bought a house.

It always helps in life to look forward. So you just had a really interesting chapter, and you will have gained skills and learned things about yourself, other people and other cultures that buying a house could never match. That could lead you to all sorts of jobs involving travel or working with or in different cultures.

If you are feeling at a loss career switchers has some good courses. If you aren’t working right now do some volunteering or sign up for a course or something. You’ll be suffering from culture shock and you seem very caught up in your head. You need not get caught in a negative spiral.

But above all focus forward and when you think about the past think about the positives. There is a very true saying that to build your future you have to give up all hopes of a different past.

If I inherited that, I would have bought 2/3 houses and used the money from rent to travel. £300k is life changing and I can understand why you feel like you've wasted it.

@rhowton I didnt waste all of it. I actually bought a house when I came back. Im just renting right now, while I wait to move in.

I didnt waste the money. I bought a house

Its more I feel like I wasted the time. I wasted the four years.

I was away from my family, I ended up in some really dodgy countries, I didnt put those four years into building a career, or maintaining good friendships.

When you move around and travel a lot you dont make good friendships. I ended up being alone a lot for those four years, and i dont think it was good for my mental health.

I think when you inherit a large amount of money you can make some reckless and stupid decisions alright.

You travelled the world, something the average person could only dream of.
You bought a home again not something everyone can do.
Sounds amazing!
Don't look back, look forward.

So you travelled the world for 4 years and brought a house?
im missing the reckless part?

possibly goady

@ZekeZeke I know travelling the world sounds great. And I really thought it was what I wanted to do. But i didnt enjoy it.

Travelling alone for a long amount of time, is actually a lot of effort and hard work. I think it really badly affected my mental health. You really need work to give you structure in your life.

I was just reading Daniella Moyles's, (she is an Irish radio presenter)'s book. She quit her job because she thought she wanted to go traveling alone. She went traveling alone for a year.

She said by the end of her year's travel, she was burnt out, exhausted and depressed from travelling.

Traveling alone means you are often alone, you are constantly moving, constantly having to book flights and go through airports (which is a lot of hassle these days), never seeing the same faces, no support, always with strangers . I thought it was what i wanted to do, but i actually didnt enjoy it.

Now Im home, I feel sad I missed those 4 years with friends, building a good relationship, career. Im 38 now.

Oh well, ive learned i guess.

I get what you are saying but if you didn't enjoy it why do it for 4 years? Why not come home?

DH will inherit around €250/300K in the next year.
He will put a huge chunk of it into his pension (we own our own home).
I would love for us to use some for travel while we are relatively young and healthy.
He is Mr. Sensible when it comes to money.

You learned that you don’t want to be alone so much, so now you focus on building a life you like in your new home. Think about what social things you might like to get involved in or a voluntary job.

Jesus Christ, can we stop calling every post that concerns more than about 50 pence worth of money goady?!

You're 38, you've learned a very valuable lesson very early on. Don't beat yourself up. Now you know what you wished you'd done, do it x

"Why do it for 4 years?"

Honestly, I think if you get a lot of money, you can lose a bit of grip on reality. I was single, with no partner or kids

I went travelling, and then I thought to myself, well I'll keep travelling a bit longer, and then maybe Ill go and teach English somewhere for a year. But then I didnt have to work, so I just kept travelling for longer. I had too much choice.

That is why sometimes having a budget is a good thing. If you have too much money you can go nuts with it. I know it sounds amazing. But theres definitely a good and bad side to inheriting money.

At least i didnt waste all of it anyway.

@lisavanderpumpscloset thank you! I really want to stay in the one place, and have a good career now. Thats what I want. And good friendships

have you read the book '4000 weeks' by Oliver Burkeman? I recommend it. It includes an example of how people think that travelling the world or being a 'digital nomad' is going to make them happy but it rarely does. So you are not alone in this.

I didnt get as much money, however it was a long time ago. I too travelled but at the end of my travels was no house. I loved the travelling, I'm glad I got it out of my system before I settled down. I travelled alone too out of choice, went to some very dangerous places (no thought involved, no internet) it made me very self sufficient and confident. I bet you are too after 4 years.

I realise that you look back and you question what you did and how it made you feel - but now you know, right? You're back, you have a house, you have this wealth of experiences under your belt and you know what you want. I'd say that to get to that - knowing what you want - is money well spent. Your travel experiences led you here.

This thread is a bit odd OP as a lot of what you are saying doesn't seem to tie up with what you are saying in previous threads - eg you say in another thread you've been living in Spain but in this thread you've been travelling through poor and dangerous countries . Did you find any of the Covid restrictions on travel in the last few years hampered your travel at all ?

Having done all that travelling you have got to know yourself inside out. Realised what's important to you. What you do/don't want in life. That's priceless

I'd like to have your problems OP.

How old are you?

No travel is ever wasted but....I know what you mean about friends etx.

You have a house also!

Don't look back.

It's not your fault you had no money training..
Mostly people don't..

It's a fine line to walk.
I know DH family is wealthy. Lots of money sloshing around and yet many are scared to spend a penny, parsimonious and cruel.

Their lives could be free but they are shackled.

My upbringing was more relaxed and reckless.

However through bare need and wanting to give DC the best life I could with limiteds resource....I had to forces my self to be very good with money.

Now...any windfall gets spilt a 100 ways eg a council tax rebate went to children school/need's fund.
100 went to my personal child fund.
300 went to holiday..
100 to Xmas.
Most to our emergency saving.

My brother inherited quite a bit of money from my grandmother. 200k.. he used it to but a house at 250k and mortgaged the rest.. he should have been set for life. Two years later he stopped paying the mortgage as he was out of work and the house was repossessed.. what a waste...

Yeah I did live in Spain for about four months , a couple of years ago. It is only one of the many countries that I went to.

The most dangerous one that I went to, and that I regret going to was Mexico.

Just before I went to Mexico, I went to California for a very short one-week trip. When I was in California, several people told me that I should go down and visit Mexico, because of the history and nature.

I didn't research it properly at all. I thought "oh id love to see the ancient pyramids there". Mexico is actually very dangerous. I went to Mexico city by myself, and it was very dangerous and not enjoyable. A lot of criminals, cartels, and fights on the street. Then around this time, Covid happened, and it became very difficult to travel anywhere else. You could stay in Mexico on a tourist visa for six months. So I ended up staying there for about five months. It was really hard to travel anywhere else, because Covid tests in Mexico were slow.

For example, to enter many countries at that time, they wanted a negative Covid test within 48 hours, but Mexico would only give a covid test result back within 72 hours, so they werent any good.

Covid did affect me in doing what I wanted to do. There were several times during Covid that I wanted to come home to Ireland, but it was just too difficult during Covid. With all the tests and restrictions. I wasnt sure what to do. So I just ended up being a digital nomad for longer.

I only meant to go travelling for a year max, and now I look back and think I was actually was travelling for four years in total, it was such an unusual way to live, and I wouldnt have done it without the inheritance. Its definitely given me a lot to think about.

That I need to think things through more carefully, that I need to research things, and not just jump into doing them.

Wish I could be a bit more like you OP. Mines just sitting in various places not being used for any fun.

Thanks, I love new book ideas. I will read it.