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?

She’d get an IT job in the civil service and once you’re in you get a lot of support to move up & develop your career

I’d throw it into a pension. Pensions don’t count against UC.
She is already behind saving for her old age.

It depends how much she’s inheriting. If it’s £10,000, she should add it to her existing savings and beef out her emergency fund. If it’s £90,000 she should invest it and try to live off the passive income (assuming avg. 5% return, that’s ~£400 a month which is not bad to live on when you have no dependent and no rents and bills to pay). That would allow her to focus on hobbies, volunteering etc. and take a break from job hunting.

Sorry couldn’t quite understand - are you saying she’s applied for 50 jobs and had 1 interview? In two years - that’s nothing. Anyone point one of mine had a spreadsheet with several hundred applications listed - in a six month period. Or was that referring to someone else?

@UnexpectedlyRetired yes it was pretty brutal i went in the second wave. My team had 6 of my position and they cut us to 3 in February last year and the other three went in September. There were 9 of us in total and there are 2 left. The chemistry team were 6 they went down to 4 in Feb and now there's 1 remaining. Every one with Chief in their position remains ...

I was pregnant when I was made redundant so now on a career break and looking at options that fit in around my two children. I'm sorry that you have gone through similar. I had a frantic 6 weeks search for a job before being obviously pregnant and it was quite nice to step off the jobs treadmill.

Now can be a good time to reach out to researcher, some times they have money for short summer projects. It can be good to get a taste of what might be available.

She's not really into working with people.

Companies are desperate for AI skills right now. But they don't want someone who is just good at IT - they want someone who has some experience in the field of the company, as well as integrating AI into that field.

E.g. pharma companies want people with experience in some aspect of pharma, plus AI integration in that field. Same with insurance, etc etc.

Given her interest in IT, might be good to try to choose which area (eg pharma/ insurance/ etc - an area that has lots of money), and then search for AI integration jobs within that field. She can reach out to them on linkedin and even offer to do freelancing for a low fee to start off with while she gains experience.

I'm ND and that's what I've done, while many of my colleagues can't find worth either, the AI aspect gives me a big edge.

What type of IT work did she do? When she chose her Biology degree did she have a plan?
After the IT placement did she get feedback or just let go?

That was someone else, on a mumsnet thread.

@mcrlover I'll suggest that to her, but my IT friend who's now in a hotel was big on AI, but couldn't get an IT job after she lost hers.

30k layoffs worldwide from Oracle the other day. Meta reported as planning to drop 20% of staff. Amazon 11k. Dell 16k. Of course those are big players and there are still IT jobs elsewhere, but all these layoffs mean competition for jobs of course. https://www.ndtvprofit.com/technology/tech-layoffs-in-2026-oracle-amazon-block-meta-these-companies-have-cut-jobs-amid-ai-impact-11297846

Thanks to everyone who has made useful suggestions - she is working her way through these and we are discussing them at intervals.

As for the people with disparaging comments about her (now mostly removed), of course I have listed her problems in this thread as that is what we need to deal with, to get her out of the rut where she is stuck and help her find her way. But your comments in no way describe the daughter who I know and love.

I think the best things to do are:

• seek ND help for interviews but also general independence skills. It may be that whilst she is applying for jobs she is finding it hard to focus on the right things and using her time productively is hard (speaking from experience)
• my brother in law has asd and started in uni support services remotely and now does this alongside supporting ND students at the university.
• I would caution public services if suspected ASC. Burnout is real for NT people in the NHS but the added socializing and constant people may be too much.
• get her to do blogging/set up website describing/videoing her passions to keep skills up to date
• make sure her mental health is ok. The rejections, lack of friends and isolation will be having an impact that may be spilling over to interviews. Being happy is so much more than having a job and maybe focussing for 6 months on building her confidence and resilience up alongside doing hobbies may help.

She is lucky to have you- I am sorry no one has particularly said that yet. Being ND can be hard and the challenges faced are so much smaller when a supportive family help in the ways you are trying to do. X

Has she considered being Self Employed? I do dog boarding and doggie daycare and I haven't had a slow week for the 13 years I've been doing it. I'm always fully booked, and I earn a LOT. You probably don't want dogs in your home, but she could start a dog walking/cat visiting service. I bet she would get booked up in no time. It's quite exciting, thinking of a Company name, getting flyers printed and posting them through doors, starting a Facebook page, advertising on local websites etc. What has she got to lose?

@7catsforthewin thank you for that. More things to add to the list! I do worry very much for her mental health, though she is pretty resilient actually. This has pros and cons - she has an equable temperament, so not much phases her (both mentally and physically, like breaking bones , or, as last weekend, volunteering outdoors in snow and hail), but the downside is a lack of drive, which of course doesn't help....