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What do you do when you suddenly inherit money? Are you supposed to run out and spend it like crazy? Are you supposed to put it all in the bank? Do you tell anyone you have your money and where you got it from? These are all questions that went through my head as I turned 18.
I was an overnight " rich" person. What was I to do? Ever since I can remember, my mother has been telling me, " when you turn 18 you are going to get the money your Daddy left for you. " For some reason I never really believed her. I thought that I would get about $ 2, 000 or something and be able to buy a nice computer for college or something along those lines. I never thought I would be able to buy a house.
I dont even want or need a house, but all of a sudden I am able to buy one. I did not grow up poor by any means, but I was not the kid on the street with money to toss out either. Now that I had money, what was I supposed to do with it? The first thing I did when I got my money was hug my mother really tight.
Ever since I was 2 she had been paying taxes on it, investing it, making sure it was safe, and tons of other things she really did not have to do. She did it all out of the kindness of her heart. When the judge in control of my funds would be a dork and send us a nice little letter saying that he " was sorry but had decided to move the money from a 10 % interest account to a 4 % account" , my mother would be talking to our lawyer and trying to get it back to the good interest rate. We would always be getting letters like that, so having dinner with a man who charged us $ 250 an hour was not unusual. Even then I never realized that I would be getting actual money. I must have been in some kind of a dream land, but it did not make any sense until one certain rainy Monday.
That Monday I had gotten called out of band by my lawyer, who to my suprise, was standing in my high school hallway. He handed me a stack of documents about 4 inches thick and instructed me to sign on various pages. I did so, and afterwards he gave me this big smile. " Congratulations, Beth. You now are in control of your money. " I asked him exactly how much I had to spend and he directed me to the bottom of the next to last page. I stared at an unbelievable figure $ 84, 000. Was my lawyer serious?
I actually had a bank account somewhere with my name on it that contained that much money? I could go out and by a new car and give each of my friends cars? I did not understand how overnight I had gone from my little dream world to reality. I now had a bunch of dilemmas to deal with, and I was not sure I even wanted them. Would having money change me? That was a major concern of mine for a long time after I got my money.
I did not want to become one of those superficial people that depend on money to make them happy. On the other hand, now that I could afford to get nice things, I wanted to take advantage of it. I could now go out and buy a nice computer for college, maybe buy a new car, and finally get some new clothes. The last time I had money to spare on clothes, I was in the 6 th grade, so I think I was a little overdue for a trip to the mall. Clothes, a computer, and a car seemed very shallow to me, so I decided to get some advice on what to do with my fortune. I did not want to spend all of my money and then wake up one day and realize it was all gone and I had to hunt for tuition.
That would be the last thing in the world I would ever want. Randy Baird worked for American Express at the time, although now he works for Prudential Securities, and he was more than willing to meet with me and discuss my financial future. He explained to me that although it seemed like I had millions of dollars to blow on whatever I wanted, I would actually need a budget to get through college. I could not believe it.
I thought I would be able to buy all I wanted and not have to worry about spending a little too much on a fancy dinner or buying one too many CDs. After our initial meeting, I sat down with a calculator and figured out exactly how much I could spend on a computer. Since I love computers to death and I did not want to have to upgrade during my Undergraduate education, I decided to buy a brand new 400 MhZ computer. The funny thing about my computer was that although I picked a very expensive setup, I had a friend of mine who worked with a local computer company buy the computer for me under his employee discount. Even having $ 84, 000 had not changed my " penny pinching" style. I felt so proud of myself that I even called up Randy and told him what I had done.
After he recovered from my $ 2000 computer bill he told me that I had made a wise decision and that he hoped it would be the first of many. With those words ringing in my ears, I went out and bought a brand new truck. It really makes me smile to myself to realize that although I have all of this money at my fingertips, when I chose to buy a truck, I got a Standard because it was cheaper, even when I did not know how to drive one. Those kind of things that I do for myself just crack me up. Feeling insecure was way too common when I was trying to decide exactly what to buy with my money and I was very grateful for my humble upbringing. Without it I probably would have gone spend-crazy and ended up with a Corvette and about 5 cents to my name.
Now that I had a computer, a car, and clothes, I was ready to make a big decision. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with the remainder of my money. After some long nights with my trusty calculator and a few dozen meetings with Randy, I decided to invest the entire thing. If I had the will not to touch the money for 4 long years, by the time I graduated I would have a considerable amount saved up. When I realized that I wanted to do that and not withdraw money every week to buy stuff with, I was left with a big dilemma. I needed to ask my parents to support me through college.
After I was throughly rejected by them, I decided to get a job and work my way through school. My mother decided that was a bad idea as well, and I settled on investing 3 / 4 of my money and using the other 1 / 4 for college expenses. It was really funny to realize that even though I was newly rich, I would have to pretend I was poor for 4 years and just ignore the money I was saving up. My financial advisor helped me make up a budget that was reasonable and my parents helped me understand how to stick to it. The hard part was over, I knew what I had to do. Finally college arrived and I found myself in a new town with nothing to do.
I thought of the thousands I had in my name and it was very hard not to drive over to the bank and withdraw some of it just so I would have something to do with my time. The thing I came to realize was that even though I did not want to spend it, it made me feel happy and secure to know that I had it saved away. That cushion would be there for the next few years and if there was ever some emergency, I could access it. That security just made most of my other college fears fade away. I do not think I am a superficial person at all. That fear of mine I can just throw away, because it will never happen to me.
I know what I want in life right now and I know how to achieve it. Getting a lot of money just kind of forced me to re-evaluate what I needed to do to grow up. Now that I look back on the last year or so, I can see that I am financially secure and even better, I am more mature than I was as a high school senior. I can only hope that I will be able to grow as quickly and have it turn out as well as I have in the past.
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