I am about to receive around $300k from my deceased mother and grandparents. I need to learn to be frugal so no only does the money not go away quickly, but maybe I can make good investments and grow it.
Life has been challenging for a while for myself and my spouse with poverty, health problems and disabilities, etc. Now, in addition to the money I have inherited a decent-sized house that is dilapidated. It was uncared for years by my mother (she was poor and the money was in a trust to her from my grandparents, but she died before she received it.)
I have to spend money to make repairs on the house. The kitchen MUST be redone. The whole upstairs needs new flooring. We need new furniture as we are allergic to what is here and it smells like animal waste. The walls are covered with cigarette tar, so must be painted, including a room with really old paneling. We are not handy and, as I said, both disabled. We simply MUST pay people to do the majority of this work for us.
In addition we have been anywhere from direly impoverish and starving to lower-middle class for the past decade. We don’t own much in the way of clothes and winter is upon us, so we’ll need to get stuff for that.
We have a late model large car/small suv that needs to be looked at mechanically and might be on it’s way out. We are considering purchasing a used truck as an additional vehicle. Having a second, reliable vehicle would be good for us. Having a vehicle that could tow and haul would allow us to take frugal vacations by camping, haul out old furniture and garbage to the dump and bring in new furniture.
We were frugal by necessity for having been so poor, then my spouse got a raise so we started spending more. We are now at a point where we are eating healthy home cooked meals most of the time and choosing to have a date night out once a week.
We just canceled subscriptions we aren’t using.
I post all of this because I need broad general advice and tips and tricks. Anything to have a healthier financial lifestyle as well as some tips and tricks. There is so much that the money must get spent on and when you come into a sum of money it is easy to start excusing stupid purchases because there is so much money it feels like it will never go away. It becomes difficult to know what is important from discretionary.
Also any favorite YouTubers, courses or books would be appreciated. Thanks!
Edited for clarification.
October 24, 2021 at 08:48AM
