I was foolish to thirst after a 15K inheritance. Here’s what it taught me about life and money

Meet my grandma

My nan was always the one that I felt understood me from a young age. It was an unconditional relationship. When I arrived at her two-up, two-down home she would put the radio on at a we-can-easily-speak-over-this level and instantly make me my tea the way I liked it (the colour of clay with no sugar). Her questions weren’t exactly groundbreaking — a conveyor belt of how are yous and how’s life — but her warmth and attention were unwavering.

When she fell ill, I was devastated. The feeling consumed me, but then something happened. A few weeks after the news, I was considering finances, as I often do, and landed on what I deemed an egregious thought: oh shit, what about my inheritance?

At first, I beat myself up

It’s a tough game being young today. We’re blamed for the death of a new industry every week, while our beloved avocado keeps creeping up by the pennies. The landlord won’t reply to our texts about the mould in the kitchen, and making it to the end of the month with a tenner of savings, for a lot of us, is a game of militaristic planning.

Let’s be honest, how many of you have caught yourselves thinking ‘I’ll be sorted when I get that inheritance from my grandad’? You may have even started to look forward to it and begun chiding yourself with a hateful internal monologue because who starts planning around when their beloved grandparent will pass away?

This was me. The idea that I could be coming into a lump sum took over my thoughts. I started calculating my nan’s house value, her car, and her possessions. It really felt like I was muddying my soul, but I couldn’t help it. I was in grief, yes, but also in a state of excitement.

Then I got really stupid about it

This is where I messed up beyond belief. I had landed on the amount I thought I was going to receive: £15,000, or so. This was scintillating to me. A deposit. Finally.

But the idea that I had money coming my way started polluting my thoughts. I stopped saying no to social events that I technically couldn’t afford. I had a boatload coming, man, I could afford to go a little further into my overdraft. As I tapped my Monzo card without hesitation, I told myself that it was cool in the grand scheme of things; I was essentially borrowing money from my future self.

The moment the penny dropped

My nan started to get relatively better after hanging in there for months. I couldn’t have been happier. But I also couldn’t hide from the fact that I had gotten to the very bottom of my overdraft with reckless spending.

My nan eventually passed, not too long after her miraculous bounceback. “This happens”, we were told in a sterile hospital waiting room, tepid machine-made coffee set before us. “She passed away peacefully, and you can’t ask for more”, the doctor said in an attempt to console us. I was crestfallen.

After processing the initial grief, I truly felt as if a part of me was broken. To take the news of someone I loved so much in their last weeks and not respect it the way I feel I should have; to be so careless with money and so frivolous with life. I always felt like I sullied the remaining weeks I had with my nan. I took every moment in, but there was a niggling background stress, an anxiety that begged the macabre question: will she pass away soon?

Time for the inheritance talk

A month after my nan passed away, my mum called me to tell me that she and her siblings were selling her house and would split the amount equally between them. Her amount came to £40,000. She would be keeping £10,000 of this and splitting the rest with my two sisters and I.

At this point, my mum was understandably sombre. She had just lost her own mother and was feeling the aftermath of that in totality. Each day was a battle; nothing wasn’t a reminder. But at least her children would be getting some help on their way to owning a home. This made the misery that bit easier, she told me.

So it was hard when I had to come clean about the debt I had picked up. I told her the whole story: how I had anticipated money coming in and used it recklessly on throwaway things like going out and buying that hoodie I wanted for months. She was angry. She couldn’t understand how I could be so callous. But, as mums do, she forgave me and made me promise to make a financial plan. So I did.

Clearing the debt

I had accumulated around £3,000 of debt. On top of my student overdrafts, this had me around the £6,000 total mark. I paid it all off immediately and felt a weird sensation. I was free from this grey-cloud-over-your-head feeling. But it felt bittersweet, too. I couldn’t run from the fact that this money wasn’t mine, really, it was my nan’s. It came from the home her and my grandad had lived in for 60 years. The home I had spent the millennium New Year's Eve in, performing a full-on musical production with my cousins. My nan sat there in rapture, encouraging all of our distinctly talentless efforts. It was a home of love and care — and now it’s gone.

My siblings and I with our grandparents

Hindsight is 20/20

Inheritance is a weird thing. When it first comes into your orbit, the idea of a lump sum is intoxicating. All your big plans become instantly achievable: travelling, mortgages, pristine furniture, cars. Whatever you wanted to do but couldn’t, you now can.

I don’t hate myself for my myopia when the inheritance got closer. Having graduated from university in financial trouble, my life was stressful. Overdrafts loomed, and the future seemed unclear. But there’s a responsibility with money as we age.

Spending the inheritance from my nan’s home felt hollow. I don’t have anything more than a steady bank account to remember her for. Of course, material possessions aren’t necessary to remember a loved one — your brain does that for you. But if I had another go, I would prefer to have my nan to thank for my own two-up, two-down, where I could make my own memories.

My sister and I outside of my nan’s home