AIBU to use inheritance to go part time and avoid burnout?

[redshirts]

I'm 27, single and own my house (with a mortgage). I work full time and am doing a part time course to retrain. I'm finding keeping on top of all that comes home ownership, a reasonably full on job and studying to be overwhelming at times. I have recently inherited £35k, some of which I will put towards my course fees. WIBU to consider using some of the money to go part time to 4 days per week until my course is finished next June? Or how do I avoid burnout? I don't have a lot of family support unfortunately.

Ignore all the martyrs on this thread OP. If that’s how you want to use the money, use it.

Im 52. Very happily married.

Have a lovely social life

One teenager at home, doesn't cause my any worries and my daughter has her own home

Why would I be jealous

Op hasn't said what she does, how many hours she works or what her studying involves

I couldn't be less jealous if I tried

The money would be better served paying off your mortgage

Whilst I agree with most of the people saying that at 27 you should be able to manage a full time job, some studying (most students at uni are also working almost full time and lectures arenor structured to ensure there are free days for students to work) and normal living (whether you rent or have a mortgage, running a house is basically the same bar a couple of adhoc things like replacing a boiler if it breaks which is hopefully once every 10 years!)

BUT the world is different than it was 20/30 years ago when we were young. There is so much stress, the world seems heavier and money does not stretch as far. I have loads more money than in my 20's yet it feels like I am much poorer (although 3 teenagers solves some of that mystery) but I was earning 10k in my first 'proper' office job in the 2000's - that wouldnt even pay rent nowadays. I think everyone is much more depressed and stressed than they were in the past. We are constantly bombarded with awful news from around the world that affects us yet we cannot do much about, social media glamour which whips up feelings of inadequacy because we are not all living in mansions and going on 10 holidays a year in designer clothes.

@BrieAndChilli "There is so much stress, the world seems heavier and money does not stretch as far"

i'm afraid that's an even bigger reason why it's important to make the most of your earning power while you are young and healthy. That money is going to be needed just to pay the food bills.

But honestly, I'm really alarmed at how much stress people seem to absorb from news

And again, I say this as somebody who has decades of personal experience with poor mental health. And that impacts on your physical health.

I'm really glad I didn't have my experience in a time where the narrative was so awful. It seems insane to say that I was better off hiding it, and being frightened that my professional colleagues would find out.

But I was better off!

mind you, the responses on this thread, and another one recently, have been quite heartening for me - perhaps some kind of balance is coming back. Especially with the amount of crazy you get on here.

Ugh people are being horrid on here. OP you should definitely do that in my opinion, until your course is done. Not everyone is the same and we struggle with different things. There's no prizes in life for going at it the hardest, you need to do what works for you. The "oooh, if you struggle now what will you do with kids" brigade - yawn. I struggled much harder doing everything alone in my 20s with poor mental health than I have ever struggled since I had kids.

@EmeraldRoulette I mean it's not that simple, is it? I have reduced my news exposure to minutes a day but it's still not possible (or desirable) to turn off caring about people out there losing their children to war or the destruction of the planet all our children will need to live on when we're dead. We're social animals. Of course these things are stressful.

@Thisle but if I sat down and focused on the state of humanity, I would've been weeping all day since I was about eight. adults would talk about what was happening to women in Iran and I used to wonder why we didn't use the UN to go in and rescue them. Like maybe an invasion…

There does come a point where you have to take some responsibility and step away from all the knowledge that is out there in order to get on with your life.

If the people responsible for our food supply are too upset to do any work, what happens then? Or the surgeon and her team who are fixing a broken ankle today?

and actually, the doctor and the nurse and the carer who lose a patient do wipe away their tears and see the next one.

All this focus on the troubles of the entire world is not doing anybody any good.

I might be finding it doubly surreal because having spent decades with depression and anxiety, I'm now marginally better, and apparently everyone else is falling down the hole! And if you know the classic story of the man in the hole, many want to ignore the advice of people who've been in the hole and got out!

alright, that's enough MN for me today.

@EmeraldRoulette I’m curious if when you were suffering from depression people also gave you the same tough love approach that you are fond of dishing out now?

Aww isn't mumsnet just so lovely and supportive to people who dare to admit they are struggling and don't cope with life the same way as others😘

But you could be kinder...

Personally, I don't think it's lovely and supportive to just say yeah, go ahead and fritter away the inheritance on whatever you like without at least highlighting that the OP might live to regret this later.

If there are specific circumstances which mean that the OP needs to spend the money on reducing her hours right now, then that's entirely her prerogative and of course she should do so, but she hasn't mentioned any such circumstances and so there is nothing wrong with advising her to exercise caution and think carefully about whether this would actually be the best use of the money.

It's very easy to spend other people's money, of course, because you don't have to live with the long term consequences. However, I don't believe that those who think they are being kind by telling the OP to go ahead and spend like there's no tomorrow are necessarily doing her any favours.

Did you miss the fact that the OP has asked for other people's opinions? That she wants advice from adults, not just affirmation?

Do it OP. Ignore other people saying that they wouldn’t feel burn out with what you have on your plate - it’s not their plate, and they don’t have to carry it. Money is there to help us through life, use it however you want.

There are ways of telling people that and giving them advice aren't there, especially to someone who has said they are struggling. Fair enough advising that it's not the best idea if that's their opinion, but saying things like "god help us if someone is burnt out at 27" and "well I'd hate to see how you cope with kids if you can't even cope now" isn't exactly helpful is it. It's just mean

I could be a lot of things, slimmer, fitter etc

I am assuming when you say "next June" you mean June 27 and not this year?

Asking your employer to go part time to study to do something entirely different in life will send a signal that you are not serious about your job with them. You will potentially find yourself sidelined and first in line for redundancy. I wouldn't risk it in the current market.

That's a lovely financial safety net which as you say will allow you to cover your course fees without more debt, you could also buy more holiday from work if they run such a scheme which will slightly lower your income but is tax efficient and it would give you study/exam prep days you could use around deadlines?

You don't say what you are retraining for but a nest egg may come in extremely useful if you wanted to start your own business or find you need to do further qualifications to be really employable at a salary that matches your current.

So to echo others, you are 27 and some stress in life is normal. Find a balance so you are looking after your health but I'd get your head down for a year and make it work.

35k invested with average UK stock market returns will likely be 200k in 25 years eg 8-10k a year of pension.

35k invested in a global index tracker will likely be 421k in 25 years eg 16-20k a year.

I would put up with the slog and invested it 50/50 UK and global index trackers in a pension.

Agree, i lived in on my own in a flat (with mortgage) at 25, working full time studying on evening weekends. Only person i had to think about was me, not a lot fun studying & working but cracked on and got it done.

Giving an opinion is fine, but it’s the implication that she should be able to manage without cutting down her hours which isn’t particularly helpful just because others did the same whilst raising 10 kids/working 60 hours etc etc.

The OP is clearly considering it for a reason and I don’t think the suggestion of reducing a day at work is that outlandish.

I would ask them not to take DD out in that car again.

Things happen, like the belt being defective, kids taking belts off, etc but these things need rectifying as best as possible immediately.

It was a poor judgement call that you need to point out….if it happens again, that’s when I’d say no more.

Unfortunately you cannot dictate how other people respond to a post.

Thank god.

OP, I’ll give you an objective view because I think that some of the responses here are from people in very different situations from you and there’s a begrudging element from some.

I’m 43, no kids (I’m making an assumption that you don’t either, based on your post), and I now work part time (four days a week) following a significant inheritance (and decent income but it was inheritance that tipped the scales). Apart from mortgage-free home, I have other assets, investments, maximized pension etc.
I’m married.

In your shoes would I go part time?

Honestly, no. And for a few reasons.

£35k isn’t a life changing sum of money so please don’t change your life on the back of it. It’s a fantastic nest egg for savings, to bulk up your pension, or to reduce your mortgage. You really need to invest it because spending money to reduce your income isn’t a financially wise decision.

Additionally, at your age, you’re about to enter into peak earning optimisation territory. Obviously depends on the person, industry etc, but most people see the biggest advances in terms of their market value career-wise in their 30s and 40s. I wouldn’t do anything that reduces that window.

Lastly, and I don’t mean this in a snide way, but 27 is very young. If you’re feeling pressure now from work and home ownership, I hate to tell you but that pressure is likely to increase in years to come as you deal with an ageing house, ageing body, and more stress as life progresses. If you’re feeling very burnt out at 27, you might have to acknowledge that you may not be able to work long-term and may not have as many years to service a pension and investment as others. Therefore, your £35k may be best used now to help an older, more tired version of you in 20 years’ time.

How many hours is the course supposed to take per week?

I think it's reasonable to drop a day to make sure you're making the most of it otherwise you risk the investment in the course being a bit wasted. But if it's less than say 6 hours, I would definitely be trying to fit that in evenings and weekends, unless the role you're doing now completely dominates (IE teaching) and that's part of the desire to retrain.

Invest the inheritance. You never know what’s around the corner and you’ll kick yourself further down the line if you ever really need it.