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....

So, I thought I'd give an update on the situation.

She has finally, FINALLY, got a job. It's a zero-hours waitressing contract, so not a longterm solution, but it's some money, something on her CV, and something to get her out of the house. She's been doing it for about 3 weeks, and is doing around 4 shifts a week. Phew.

Meanwhile, her conservation volunteering suggested she lead some sessions. This would have been great experience, but I am not sure it will happen at the moment as she will find it difficult to commit to weekends.

We discussed other options that people have suggested. She had two interviews at Skills Development Scotland, which from what she told me were not terribly helpful. I don't think she told them about her ADD (which is on her), but they seemed to be basically, "What do you enjoy? What are you good at?" which are more appropriate for 14-year-olds than for someone in her situation. She is also poor at self-analysis, so finds it difficult to answer such questions, and there is really no point in saying, "I love cats," if there are no jobs working with cats. I was hoping they would give stronger guidance, along the lines of, "There is a real shortage of people in X,Y,Z areas, do any of those interest you?"

We discussed some of the career options that people of suggested, and she has been working her way through them. We wanted her to go to the local uni open day for radiography and related careers a couple of weeks ago, but she didn't (wasn't sure what she wanted to do apparently, but of course that's partly what open days are for). Frustrating, but you can't make adults do things.

Now that she has the waitressing job, she is taking a bit of a break from job hunting/career planning, which is fair enough I think as she has been at it so long. I hope that after a few weeks or months she will get back to long-term planning - and if she doesn't she will be getting a shove from me.

I'm so pleased there's some progress for her. Congrats.

Thank you.

Yeah she can't just go about putting it down a buy to let when she hadn't a penny to her name to even feed herself. That money won't last long but the only solution is finding a job. Use that money to live on while hardcore job seeking.

I’m so glad she’s found something, op! 😊

I’m starting to get worried for my own children’s futures. Looking kind of bleak.

Yes, the main story on the BBC today has been the record number of 16-24 year old NEETs. My DD is a little older but faces the same problems - not enough graduate jobs, not enough entry level jobs, not enough casual jobs...

She does have some money though, from savings and now from an inheritance. This is a mixed blessing, as it means she can't get benefits, and also can't access training schemes etc. for people on benefits.

(Not that I'm saying she should get a buy-to-let, we've ruled that out.)

Placemarking

It's true in a way it's mixed but ultimately she's fortunate as many don't ever get an inheritance that size. Putting some on an ISA is sensible.

I hope she finds work soon.

The funded training schemes that people on benefits can get aren't necessarily any better than ones she could afford to pay for. In fact probably quite the opposite.

Would she be interested in going back to uni and doing a Masters in IT? Or going to study a completely new subject like pharmacy? There are a lot of jobs where you don't need a lot of people skills. Could you suggest she uses chatgpt for ideas about a future career?

@TFImBackIn I'm not sure about a masters to be honest, especially in IT - it's a big investment of time and money with no guarantee of a job. There have been so many layoffs in IT over the last couple of years. Maybe she will consider something else though.

Op today on the news many young people said they have been turned down from 100 of job applications and one got the 500th job after 499 turn downs.

Does she let you look at her applications ?
Can you pay for her to get interview training ?

Anyway I would suggest you and she learn how to invest with this money as an income for her. Invest it into stocks and shares ISA

Totally agree with this. To work in AI, you don't need an IT degree - now, and more so very soon, it'll be easy to use AI without any particular training (a good analogy is like learning to become a Googling specialist when the internet first came out to the public).

If you're gonna spend money on education, better to get a degree in a different field, and then to be ultra-employable, specialise in using AI (training yourself up) within that particular field - I've done that in the healthcare industry, and there seems to be very very little job competition