Young adult inheriting money - what to do with it?

[UnexpectedlyRetired]

Hi everyone,

A bit of background here. DC is late 20s with a degree, but has been out of work for a couple of years and there seems to be nothing on the horizon. Every now and then she gets an interview (first these were in her chosen field, IT, but now it's more likely to be shop work etc.). She never gets the job. She has too much in savings to claim UC, so basically has zero income.

She is due to get an inheritance of a few 10s of thousand. What would you advise? Is there a way to improve her situation? She is really not entrepreneurial, and neither am I, so I can't help her there.

I've been thinking

• deposit on a buy to let - but it seems the time has passed to do this and everyone is now pulling out. I'm not sure if she would get a mortgage for this with no income, and near us you'd be looking at £200k+ to buy somewhere. She'd have the deposit though, if income wasn't required.
• investing the money in retraining - in what? It would need to be something with a high likelihood of a job afterwards in order to be worthwhile. Are there any fields with shortages now?
• invest the money in ISAs etc - simplest but probably the lowest return, and doesn't solve the overall problem of moving on with her life

Any ideas?

Does she declare her nurodivergence to the potential employers? If not would it help to do so?
I have a nd son at uni so will be in the same situation soon.

If she’s thinking about retraining anyway but would prefer to stick to IT, look into cyber security training. A vulnerability manager for a decent sized company earn about 75k so could definitely be worth it

I'm not sure about that one. She is not very assertive, and I can't imagine her in charge of a class of unruly teenagers!

I don't know about computing/maths teaching prospects, but a friend's daughter qualified as a biology teacher and although she did get temporary posts, it took till her 3rd year after graduation to get a permanent job.

Squirrel away 20K in an ISA. I'd also look into paying off the student debt or putting a deposit down on a starter home.

I wonder if IT is her thing, whether she’s looked into data analysis, AI innovation etc.? Maybe look at something like Multiverse AI who offer courses, apprenticeships etc.? As more businesses get to grips with the strategic capability AI can offer, they will be looking for people with those skills.

in terms of her inheritance, I wouldn’t rush into anything that would lock it away until she works out what it’s best use will be, so put it in an ISA or similar. It might be that it’s useful for retraining, a house deposit or even, once she has a job, topping up her missed years of private pension.

i’m sorry she’s finding it so tough, it’s shit that employers don’t reply to candidates or give feedback when asked. I’m a senior HR leader and it’s one of my non negotiables for my team.

Are there any employment services that can help with work experience placements or anything? Two of my indirect reports came to us via a government scheme for graduates years ago. Unfortunately I think it was scrapped because of unscrupulous employers, but we found permanent positions for them because they were great, Both ND, and they found interviewing hard. They have great jobs now.

Admin can also be a great way to get into all sorts of roles. Lots of people in our business, including myself, started in a junior admin role and have proved their worth and gone in to have very successful careers.

Good luck, I hope she finds her path soon.

She'd have to do the deposit as BTL I guess, to get the mortgage? As she has no income? Unless DH and I came up with the rest of the money - we are retired so it would have to come from our savings or pension funds.

If she was on UC she’d be expected to make a full time job of finding full time work - in anything not just something she is interested in. If she hasn’t been doing this then she’s not trying hard enough.

Can she drive / have her own car? If not, spending the money on this would be a great investment. There are delivery jobs with Amazon, Evri etc where you can use your own vehicle. A job like that will develop all sorts of soft transferable skills and provide a sense of purpose.

If she has IT skills why not set herself up as an in home trouble shooter for people’s home tech? There’s various people round here who do that, it’s great. Or tutoring - can be very lucrative.

Letting her be “private” about her job search isn’t doing her any favours in my view- she’s coasting and as you say the longer this goes on the harder it’s going to be to “launch”.

Thank you @WhatWouldTheDoctorDo

The obvious thing, as she’s living at home, would be to buy somewhere to live. Obviously that would require her to get a job so it might focus her mind to either take what she can get to pay the mortgage or regroup & retrain.

BTL is a crazy idea - she won’t get a mortgage, and she doesn’t have the financial resilience to deal with the potential expenses. I’m a landlord, trying to exit this market.

I’d put it in usas and other savings accounts.

is she getting Jobseeker’s Allowance?

Can she work in a charity shop to get retail experience?

Are you sitting and helping her apply for jobs? After two years with no luck, I wouldn’t leave it up to her. Go through her cv, look at Job sites, etc. it’s as simple as submitting your cv online . Make sure her cv shows strengths, skills etc. it’s not simply a list of employers anymore.

She would take anything, job wise! But she can't get anything!

If she’s an IT creative, such as a programmer then the best advice I could give her is to actually build something of her own so she has a portfolio of actual products she has made. These could be mobile apps or websites for example.

She needs to show potential employers that she has experience, even if it’s building her own products rather than in another workplace. When I hired programmers I always preferred candidates that had shown some initiative and proved that it was a subject they enjoyed by doing things in their own time.

As for the inheritance, the best financial minds would advise investing in passive index trackers, but make sure she fills her LISA each year (for her first home deposit) and maybe put some into her private pension each year for retirement.

As a ballpark she should hope for pension contributions to double each decade so £10k now would become £160k in 40 years time (likely worth half that so £80k in todays terms due to inflation).

As she has youth on her side she can afford to take more risk unless she wants to focus more on getting on the property ladder soonish, personal choice really in terms of priorities.

She got JSA for 6 months but is not entitled to anything now.

She's worked in a charity shop previously, and has also done community cafe and conservation volunteering. I saw something on social media recently about a hospitality provider saying they get about 100 applications for every vacancy...

She won't let us help her apply for jobs, but after a long time of getting nowhere, we gave her some ultimatums and she let DH look at her CV. He says it's fine (he used to work in IT).

@VanCleefArpels yes she applies for all sorts. She had an interview last week for a hotel reception. She's also had interviews for cafes, for a pharmacy, for shops... She's really not sitting about being fussy.

Depends where the property is and the specifics on how much the inheritance is. I believe she could get a interest only mortgage if you signed as guarantor but then if she can't pay you become liable.

Be aware that any amount over £16k.will stop all entitlement to UC as it's means tested, and trying to find a way around that will most likely result in a deprivation of capital claim against her.

I'd look into 2 things, 1)career options, is there anything she can study or become qualified in that will help her going forwards? And 2) Property. Can this get her on the property ladder or significantly closer to it?

As an academic in a numerate field I would say she might be very useful in a university setting. Either in university admin or doing PG study. I wish some of my PG students were IT literate! Things like Data Science (not my field) or on the admin side, analysing admissions, running the university IT systems, timetabling. Universities can be very ND friendly.

Or civil service - my DH made a similar move. His office seems to understand reasonable adjustments.

It might be worth looking at skills bootcamps
https://www.skillsforcareers.education.gov.uk/pages/training-choice/skills-bootcamp

She might benefit from spending some of it on some professional coaching. I know people who have done this after long spells of unemployment and it's been literally a game changer. Both now employed, both work in the IT sector and both ND.

It's got to be worth a bash.

Do you mean she's done a degree in Comp Sci? You say she was looking at IT but most IT jobs don't require a degree and few unis offer a degree in straight IT. Experience is often more important than qualifications in IT IMO.

Does she do a lot of programming, have projects on Git Hub, have her own website she's built on her interests, a youtube channel where she teaches people how to program or about something else related to her field that she's interested in, have a mobile app she's built, have a really good Linkedin page, have a number of relevant moocs she's done, have relevant voluntary work if not paid work?

Does she have examples of teamwork and leadership that she can talk about at interview? Does she declare that she's autistic and ask if they will give interview questions in advance? Anything gov related almost certainly will ie civil service.

You have to be really competitive and have a lot of really relevant stuff to have a chance these days. Her CV will need to stand out. What would have been fine 30 years ago might not be now.

I would put the money in a high interest account for now and really work with her at getting relevant experience. If she's anything like mine (ASD too) she may not have an out going enough personality at interview to land a job in hospitality or retail. I'd focus in on the comp sci side of things and help her make herself competitive there.

Also worth considering The King's Trust. Might help build her confidence up again, she might be able to use her IT skills and also gain team working and leadership skills which are almost always asked about at interview. I'd also say she needs to practise interview questions in advance with you even if she hates it.

I have one with ASD doing an apprenticeship in software engineering and I do think it can be a great area for autistic young people to work in. Tbh it was me pushing him to do a lot of CV relevant things, writing his CV practically for him, running through as many possible interview questions as possible and practising them that got him the role - he actually got the interview questions in advance - and now he loves it and is a really good programmer.

Has she asked her uni careers service if they could help in any way or have any suggestions?

Second the public sector suggestions. Recruitment in IT is hard because pay is poor compared with the private sector.

Get her to look on Civil Service Jobs and Health Service Jobs.

I wouldn’t call late 20s a ‘young adult’. What does she want to do with it? Your question sounds like you’re dealing with an 18 year old.

@CeciliaMars she is young for her age. I never thought I would need to be this involved in her life, at this age, but here we are. She looks young too, and when people meet her they usually think she is a teenager, which can't do her any favours in her job hunt.

She doesn't really know want she wants. I think in an ideal world she would do something in conservation, but jobs in that are like hens' teeth and often based around fundraising or similar, rather than practical work.

I will go through some of the suggestions on this thread with her later, so thank you all. I really have doubts about IT as a career these days - 5 years ago it seemed a good option, but now the big companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon have all developed their own AI systems and are using them to replace staff and bring in mass layoffs.

If she's not working now she's putting nothing in an occupational pension and not getting NICs towards her state pension, which is a dangerous place to be. If you're retired you'll hopefully understand the importance of pension planning.

It's easy to overlook the distant future when current reality is shit, but the one thing she really does have going for her, in her late 20's, is time. If she has her expenses covered living at home and isn't going to miss it right now, even if she has no income she can put up to £3600 gross into a SIPP each tax year - that's £2880 of her own money and the tax man adds £720 tax relief (20% basic rate on the £3600 allowance.)

If she moves quickly, she can do this for the 2025/26 tax year before Sunday, and then again from Monday onwards for 2026/27. At an average rate of return from the stock market it should double just under every ten years: £5760 invested in the next week either side of the tax year change could be worth close to £60k in 30 years even if she never put another penny in, and would potentially make a huge difference to her living standards in retirement.

She also also make sure she's claiming UC, even if she gets nothing, because she should get NICs towards her state pension as part of it.

Thanks @InveterateWineDrinker, we've got her to do NICs and pension this tax year. Wish we'd thought of the pension last tax year. She can't get UC as she has savings - are you saying that even if she doesn't get UC payments they will pay her NIC?