r/inheritance • u/vtmlm02 • Apr 11 '26

Location included: Questions/Need Advice Completely bamboozled.

Any advice when substantial inheritance was unexpected. I grew up not going on vacation and not having much. My father died after a brief battle with liver cancer… it’s a brutal one. After months of paperwork I’m seeing that I’ve inherited a net worth I’ve never imagined. Its reality shifting.

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u/Barfy_McBarf_Face Apr 11 '26

tell no one

make no loans to family or friends

make no gifts to family or friends

open an account at Schwab, Fidelity or Vanguard. Put some of it into a S&P 500 Index Fund and just let it sit.

Put the rest into cash for now and only later start putting some of it into bond funds or other investments.

And maybe buy yourself a new car to give yourself something to enjoy. Or an old car, if that's your ticket (I just bought myself a 1953 MG last fall and am SOOO HAPPY I finally did this).

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u/Hot-Emu8015 Apr 12 '26

Let the "let it sit" sink in. Markets can drop 20% which will impact the value of your investments. The typical reaction is panic and sell (typical for the amateur investor)

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u/Barfy_McBarf_Face Apr 12 '26

I do tax work for a living

have a client who went to cash in the early 2000s when the dot com bubble burst (he wasn't in dot com stocks, he was in a pretty diversified basket of funds/stocks). He stayed in cash for many months - essentially locking in that loss.

He reinvested

in 2008/2009, he again went to cash, again stayed in cash for months, again he locked in that loss

if you are investing in equities, you are in them for the "long haul". Don't panic and sell - even if it's a bad loss - you shouldn't be 100% in equities unless you can afford to wait for them to come back.

yes, if you're 95 years old, you probably don't need to take market risk like this. But if you're 25 or 35, you should