Photo Illustration by The Globe and Mail. Sources: Getty Images
The beneficiary: Married without children, “Sandra” is a 50-year-old data analyst in Winnipeg. She’s the eldest of three children raised by her single mother, now 88, who’s been in and out of hospital for the last few years. “The cycle seems to be getting shorter and shorter,” says Sandra, meaning the three siblings are currently working overtime to manage their mother’s rapidly failing health.
“Constant, ongoing pressure,” she says, has made recent years “absolutely the biggest stress of my life.” As she prepares for the inevitable, Sandra’s thinking a lot about what a well-lived life looks like to her.
The inheritance: Long before her health declined, Sandra’s wise mother put all her financial affairs in order – including a will, power of attorney, personal directive, funeral plans (all prepaid) and her chosen executor – Sandra. She will be responsible for distributing an estate worth seven figures, saved one dollar at a time.
“My mom didn’t come from money and was not a high earner or a savvy investor; she’s just of that generation where everything was scarce and she held onto every dollar,” says Sandra. Upon her passing, Sandra is set to receive a third of the total inheritance, amounting to about $333,000.
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What she learned: Albeit not by choice, Sandra is enjoying a mid-life “double income, no kids” situation – an entirely different financial situation from her mother’s. “My mom was raised in the 1940s when everything was scarce, and that mentality never went away,” she says.
Her mother worked as a nurse and raised three children without financial support from her long-deceased ex-husband. When the siblings recently cleaned out her home, they found deep-freezers stocked with decades-old food. “That kind of saving, to me, represents a deep psychological trauma and a need for security that I’ll never understand.”
For the record, Sandra and her siblings tried to loosen that scarcity mindset. “When she was mobile and healthy, we tried to convince her to travel and meet like-minded seniors and spend her money being social, but she flatly refused.” (Easier to accept than unrealized bucket-list regrets, admits Sandra.)
In contrast, Sandra is comparatively well-off, she owns her home and spends comfortably. She doesn’t need the inheritance. “I have a deep appreciation of how long this took her to save and how quickly I could spend it if I’m not careful.” A new car, a few swanky vacations and a home renovation would quickly blow through what could be expendable income, but not for Sandra, whose inheritance “actually feels like a big responsibility and very heavy in terms of expectations.”
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What she’ll do with it: Initially, nothing. “I’ve decided that I’m first going to take a cooling-off period of at least a year to make sure I’m clear-headed,” says Sandra. In the meantime, she plans to invest the funds in a non-registered account to generate interest and dividends.
Sandra plans to let her mother’s invested money be the (untouched) principal while she guiltlessly enjoys the interest it accrues – ultimately landing right in the middle of frugal and frivolous. “On one hand, my mom taught me I should save money and would prefer I don’t spend any of it,” she says. “But on the other, she showed me that the time for living is now. Today is the youngest you’re ever going to be.”
With a new appreciation for financial security and good health while she has it, Sandra’s eyeballing something like retirement – provided it has meaning. “I don’t know if I’d call it ‘retirement,’” she says, “but I might call it ‘career transition.’” Coaching, teaching or a joy-driven business are all possibilities. Travel is also on her list – Japan is at the very top, while she can still climb the temple stairs.
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