I wasted my inheritance at 22

On April 20, 2010, I finished my classes and went to the pub with a few of my roommates. I don’t remember anything about the evening, nor the time my phone rang. Another roommate of mine – and one of my closest friends to this day – was calling me to ask me to come home. I asked if everything was okay and heard their voice shake as they said, “Your mother is here, can you go home now?”

As I ran to the nearest bus stop, I tried to deny the truth that awaited me on campus. My father was seriously ill with cancer and I could only see one reason why my mother would have traveled, without notice, to see me. And that’s how I discovered, in my little room in the corridors, that my father was dead.

What followed was the usual fog of grief – a tangle of first-year exams, very long walks, and moments of all-consuming anger and sadness. At one point, I had conversations with my mother-in-law and a lawyer about Dad’s will, in which he had stipulated that he wanted me to receive financial support to complete my education.

After the probate process I received £10,000 inheritance. As a cash-strapped student, I found it hard to fathom such a large sum – at the time it was roughly the equivalent of an entire year’s maintenance loan – and for a while I I was afraid to touch it. I was 21 and none of my friends had experienced anything similar, so it was hard to imagine asking any of them for advice or guidance.

However, as my sophomore year of college progressed, I began to delve into it. I had already completely drained my student overdraft by £2,000 in my first year, so the balance had already been reduced to around £8,000, and this amount gradually reduced. I earned my own money – around £80 a month – by tutoring alongside my studies, which I managed to save separately.

Then, around the first anniversary of my father’s death, I researched and booked a solo trip to Bali for the summer, setting aside my tuition money as an expense and using a significant portion of what was left of my inheritance – around £4,000 – to pay for it. for flights and accommodation. I also booked a cheap holiday to Turkey with my friends, using the last money to move to a remote town in northern Italy, for the obligatory year abroad of my languages ​​degree. And like that, after a year, it was gone.

I don’t know how I imagined spending that money when it came into my account, but in reality it amounted to a year of running away. I guess I didn’t know what my father wanted me to do with it other than support myself while I studied, so I let it go.

I’m not sure how much advice, if any, I received from the parental figures who remained in my life. I think the best person to do this would probably have been my father, with his naturally frugal mindset, but he wasn’t there and he hadn’t had any conversations with me about it before he died. In fact – and this is a key detail of my grief – he didn’t want me to know at all that he was going to die. He had asked my mother-in-law and mother not to tell me that his cancer was terminal “yet,” and so they didn’t. But then he died much earlier and more suddenly than expected, leaving me with a loss that I hadn’t had the time or opportunity to prepare for, and my loved ones with a guilt that made it difficult for them to cope. question my carefreeness. financial choices.

I have no way of knowing what the response would have been if someone had suggested that I save or invest this money for my future, or at least wait a bit before deciding what to spend it on. Maybe someone did, and I waved them off. Maybe they were too relieved that I seemed to be functioning to think too deeply about the choices I was making.

For many years after I graduated, and especially when I later found myself in financial difficulty, I felt deep regret for the hasty way in which I disposed of the last gift Dad had given me. Not that I don’t think traveling has value, but I was as unhappy in Bali as I would have been at home. I was obsessed with the idea that it would heal me, but it only proved that there is no escape from this kind of heartbreak. I spent a long time feeling angry and ashamed. This dad would have been disappointed in me.

Looking back, almost fifteen years later, I see that I am much easier with my younger self. Dad’s wish was not that I keep this money for a property deposit or invest it long term, but that I use it to complete my studies – and I did so, in a roundabout way.

Maybe spending too much and obsessively fleeing the country isn’t the healthiest coping mechanism in the world, but I can imagine worse. I worked almost full-time throughout my senior year of college to survive, instead of the inheritance I could have lived off of during that short time. My student loan will be paid in January. I’ve paid my dues and I hope Dad understands that his money worked as intended, even if not in the way he might have imagined.

I sometimes wonder how, as a financial coach, I would approach a young woman in a similar situation, and all I feel is compassion. Money is a very poor substitute for a parent – ​​it’s normal to want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. It’s also okay to hold on to that money, never spending or investing it for fear of wasting it – we all react differently to traumatic events.

Inheritance – especially inheritance from a parent – ​​is as emotional as money in my opinion.

If I were to offer any words of wisdom, they would simply be to delay the decision on what to do with that money until the cruelty of grief has been erased by time, however long that takes. And then seek advice, either from a wise parent or a financial advisor, on what to do with it – when you’re ready.