yahoo!finance
By Christy Bieber
September 13th, 2024
Texas woman, 40, squandered $250K inheritance on travel and ‘fancy dinners’ — how she turned things around
Sarah Faith Jacobsen’s life spiraled out of control when she received a $250,000 inheritance from her grandmother — a windfall she had no idea how to manage.
Texas-based Jacobsen, now 40, came into the mega sum of money in 2021. At the time, she was working as a lactation consultant in Colorado and as her pay wasn’t great, she was depending on her family’s help to cover her rent.
She received a $175,000 lump sum from her grandma’s life insurance policy, which transferred straight into her bank account, as well as additional $75,000 from the will, which she received in multiple installments.
Overwhelmed by her new-found wealth, Jacobsen hired a financial adviser to help her develop a plan for the money — but things quickly went off the rails.
“I ghosted her because of my limiting beliefs about money and spent my inheritance pretty quickly,” Jacobsen told Business Insider. “I’m a ‘champagne taste on a beer budget’ kind of girl. I took a road trip to places I wanted to move to and spent most of my inheritance on that trip.”
Jacobsen is far from alone in squandering an inheritance or mismanaging a windfall. The good news is that she learned from her mistakes — and she shared her story to help others in the same boat.
Throughout the U.S., many people could soon find themselves in Jacobsen’s shoes, receiving large inheritances of their own that they don’t necessarily know how to handle.
An estimated 15% of adults responding to a New York Life study said they expect to receive an inheritance within the next 10 years. Cerulli Associates, a consulting firm, also estimates that $84 trillion worth of assets will likely change hands over the next two decades.
