Inherited a windfall? Your first move should be to do nothing

September 29, 2026 — 4:00pm

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I’ve come into an inheritance and am anxious about what I should do with the money. I’ve never really had this much money to manage in the first place. I have a fully paid off home. I’ve also never worked with financial professionals, so I don’t know how to go about that. I worry about being taken advantage of. I don’t want to squander the money, but I don’t know how to make good use of it. How should I go about this?

It’s easy to spend a lifetime thinking that “if only I had more money,” your financial stress would disappear. However, it’s not the money alone that solves the stresses, it’s your confidence in your ability to manage the money you have. So, what’s the way forward?

Take the pressure off yourself to figure out what to do

Sitting on a lump sum of cash can be far more anxiety inducing than people expect. There might be a nagging anxiety to “do something” with the money, but you don’t know what.

A lot of less-than-ideal decisions are made from a desire to alleviate this anxiety, quickly. You want to stop feeling this pressure, so you rush the decision: you sign up with the first financial advisor your friend recommends, or follow your uncle’s well-meaning suggestion to buy a........

© Brisbane Times