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?

I inherited a similar sum in my twenties when both my parents died.

I didn't travel but now wish I had. I bought a house and frittered a lot of it away.

Now I'm skint (although do have a house).

I have struggled with it. The grief over my parents made me feel like I didn't deserve the money. Also I never 'grew up' and learn how to save, invest or anything. It was too much too soon and it's been downhill ever since.

It was too much responsibility and I was so scared of losing it that I didn't really do anything instead of spend it slowly and unimaginatively.

But it allowed me to take time off when the kids were young, so that was a big plus.

I'm having therapy now and a lot of it is about giving myself a break over decisions I made that I wasn't old enough to make.

So by all means regret it a little, but don't beat yourself up.

From your OP I thought you had frittered away all the money, but if you had enough left to buy a house AND you had all those great experiences, then you have done two things that a lot of people only dream of. Do you think you might be having extended post-holiday blues? I don't know how old you are, but four years isn't really long in the grand scheme of things, and I bet you are a more interesting and wise person that you were when you left - travel really does expand the mind :)

In answer to your question though, my DH and I both inherited a fair amount in recent years, but we are in our 40s with a young child and have done a lot of travelling already, so we just skipped a couple of steps in the housing ladder and bought a bigger house. But if we had been young and carefree I'm sure we would have done similar to you.

Oh OP.

I’d love to have this as a problem.

be kind to yourself. You didn’t waste those years. Truly.

I can see how inheriting it would make the experience feel less worthwhile.

I travelled for 3 years, not on my own and we had saved for all of it. Life-changing in a great way but yes it does become 'normal' after a while and hard to adjust when you get back

NC because I’m slightly uncomfortable with this.

I inherited money, although not in cash. Currently about just under a million, which makes me sound disgustingly rich, and I assure you I’m not living the life that goes with those figures! I didn’t manage it badly, but not as well as I could have. I spent some money before I really had the cash, various sales of assets fetched well below what they should have done, I’ve frittered some (by no means all) and made some decisions which weren’t the best in hindsight.

I thought I was set for life. I knew it wasn’t infinite, of course, and I didn’t blow it by anyone’s definition. I am content to
live a modest lifestyle. Of course, I’m very glad I have it, but it won’t keep me, even though I have a modest lifestyle by anyone’s definition. I thought I would never have to work again and, following covid, I will. I’m not so bothered about having to work now, but letting go of the care-free early retirement I was planning on having when my child left home has been hard, as is needing to save for her education.

I didn’t go travelling because I have a child. I did let my professional registrations slide and wish I hadn’t. I didn’t save, or build a cushion because everything hadn’t settled down to a point where I could project the future and I didn’t really think I needed to. I thought (with some justification) that it would always be that good. In retrospect that was naive. Now I’m struggling, living on well below minimum wage and needing to cash in assets and find work and/or reinvest. Obviously we have options, but none of the feel good.

I don’t wish to complain. In the grand scheme of things they are nice problems to have. But they ARE my problems to solve. I don’t know how and I wish I could frankly discuss them with people who understood and concentrate on getting advice and support without needed to constantly check my privilege.

I do think having unearned wealth and no natural restrictions creates it’s own problems. We often think that’s what we want, and it isn’t always fulfilling as expected (although I personally was very happy with my distinctly average home and income and bonus free time, despite more than the usual parenting problems. I wasn’t ‘weathly’ I didn’t flaunt it, and I did deeply appreciate how lucky I was. I was content to wait until she grew up for my time. Only now it won’t happen).

I wi see if you kept travelling because you felt you should be enjoying it, and would if you could just go to such-and-such a place, sort out xyz problem and so on. Searching behaviour as a sort of distraction from real issues are very common.

The experience may be more valuable than you realise at the moment. And you'll never have to wonder "what if I could go travelling?" because you have!

Was the 4 years without really enjoying it a bit of a sunk costs fallacy thing? In my youth I spent a few months working and travelling in the US and Canada. It was one of the unhappiest times of my life (although I loved the places I visited). Some of the people I worked with and ended up in a group travelling with took a real dislike to me. That has never happened before or since (mentioning here as I don't think it's because I'm a horrible person!) One girl in the group broke away to travel just with me but she seemed to resent it after a while, then quite suddenly decided to go home early. I carried on on my own as I had more places on my bucket list but really I just didn't want to admit defeat, that the whole thing I'd saved and planned for so long had ended up being pretty awful, and if I kept taking photos and sending postcards I could try and rewrite it iyswim. Did you keep on going thinking you would eventually "get" the travel experience enjoyment you had hoped for?

Why did you stay in Mexico City so long if you didn't like it OP? I understand it was near impossible to get out of Mexico during covid but why not go to somewhere nicer like the Yucatan peninsula? I know you wanted cheaper places so the really touristy spots probably wouldn't have worked but Merida for example, considered the safest city in Mexico and not a huge tourist spot surely could have been an option. Mexico is one of my fave countries in the world but Mexico City holds no appeal.

I inherited 20 grand 25 years ago, not a huge amount but it allowed me to buy my first house which was an amazing opportunity.

@Staynow I didn't stay in Mexico city all the time. I did travel around Mexico. I went down to Puebla - it also had a lot of fights on the streets. I went over to the touristy spots. I went to Tulum, which while beautiful, was also really stressful. For example, the buses had all been stopped from running by the local criminal cartel. Even all the beautiful tourist spots have so much crime. I defo wouldn't go back!
I did go up to a town in the Yucatan peninsula for a while. The male staff in the hotel were really dodgy. There was a glass panel over my bedroom door. Very high up. The male staff used to bring a chair, stand on it and take photos of me. I had to leave. Awful place!.

I do understand your position .

My FIL was an extremely frugal man and lived on the minimum amount he could. He was elderly and not in brilliant health but absolutely refused any help . Two years ago he had a fall and never recovered . Due to his extremely frugal living he left quite a lot of money . My DH has no siblings so inherited it all.

For us it meant that my husband was able to take early retirement from a job he hated - and particularly at the beginning of the pandemic he had a lot of concerns as to how his company weee managing things . But yet he was grieving for his dad and we both feel some guilt that what happened has had positives in terms of our lives .

So yes OP it's a 'double edged sword'.

For you, it may have been better if you had had the opportunity to plan a bit more and make the most of your time away - but I can understand you feeling you needed to escape .

I inherited some money and used it to buy the council flat I live in with the money that was left over put in the bank. This took me off benefits but the money is dwindling fast and I suspect within 12 months I will be back on benefits.