What Should I Do With My Anticipated $10 Million Inheritance: Career Change or Business Venture?

No matter your age or income level, deciding what to do upon learning of an inheritance can be a real challenge. There is no real way to predict exactly how receiving an inheritance will go or when you might get it, but the hope is that once you do, you know how to protect it. 

In the case of one Redditor posting in r/inheritance, they grew up pretty modestly. But their parents invested well — so well, in fact, that they are looking at a multi-million dollar inheritance. Of course, there is something to be said for actually getting this money first and then trying to figure out what they should be doing. 

The Parents Saved Well

At 29 years old, this Redditor has no kids and admits to having grown up pretty middle class with their family. While growing up, they had one home, no fancy cars and only went on one annually, so very much a typical middle class family. 

However, where things get interesting is that the Redditor’s father sat them down recently and acknowledged that there is a little more wealth than they had let on initially. The parents had been investing a lot of their earnings over the years, and having recently retired, they are now in a position where their money is growing pretty well, allowing them to retire and live off $150,000 per year just from interest. In other words, this Redditor now believes, from the father’s words, that there is an inheritance coming in the future that is going to be somewhere between $10 and $15 million. 

The Redditor is already doing OK with their tech career. While they don’t love their job, they already have a net worth of around $300,000. At 29 years old, this is pretty good, so it’s good to know that this individual is already financially savvy, having saved around 60% of their current income. 

All of this said, the Redditor is not sure what they should do as the father indicated they might want to use the money to start a business, buy a house, etc., but the Redditor isn’t sure what to do next, but knows they want to do something. 

This Inheritance Isn’t Real, Yet

If I had to give one piece of advice to this Redditor, it would be that this money isn’t real yet, and counting on it is a silly move. There are so many things that can happen to this money between now and the time the parents pass away that counting on any inheritance is a fool’s errand. 

This is crass advice to be sure, but it’s something anyone in this position, especially with multiple millions on the line, needs to hear. There is a tendency in these situations to get complacent with their work and just keep their head above water while waiting around for this money to arrive. 

The problem is, there are also far too many situations where this money doesn’t arrive, and the Redditor, having spent years waiting for it, now finds themselves in a really tough financial situation. The bottom line is that until this money is in a bank account, it’s not real, and counting on it for anything isn’t something they should be doing. 

Here Is The Best Advice

To be fair, it doesn’t really matter at this point whether the Redditor is deciding between a career change or a business venture. Until the money actually arrives, this is all just an empty discussion based on the hope that one day, something will happen. However, let’s assume for a moment that this money does come, regardless of how much, this is the advice I would dole out to someone I know in a similar situation. 

Unfortunately, I’m not a financial advisor, but you will need one, and a fiduciary one at that. This is the person you need most, and they can guide you on investment strategies that can help you outline whether or not a business venture is the right move. You might want to ask them about low-cost index funds — such as the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA: VOO) | VOO Price Prediction — or ETFs that are long-term investment options that combine a basket of growth stocks and dividend payers — like the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEARCA: SCHD). 

That way, by the time the Redditor turns a certain age, it really is the generational wealth the parents are hoping it can be. 

It’s great to be planning and have an outline of exactly what the Redditor should do when this money arrives, which means there is plenty of time to get educated through books and or online reading.