Mom Wipes Out Daughter's College Fund to Pay For Malibu Dream Home After She Blew Through Seven-Figure Inheritance

A 50-year-old widow took to Reddit and confessed she blew through her seven-figure inheritance in about four years because of poor decisions. In an effort to pay for a Malibu beach house she couldn't afford, she emptied her daughter's college fund. The woman asked the platform if she was in the wrong and commenters had plenty to say. In the subgroup, where people explain their position to readers and people chime in to decide who is wrong in the sticky situation, things heated up quickly and Redditors are fuming with the woman. 

Late Husband Would Never Let Her Live in Malibu, So She Bought a House There After He Died

Widow stated how she always wanted to live in Malibu, but her husband would never make the move, so she sold her house and bought a place in Malibu after he died.

"I decided to list our home of 12 years and received an offer too good to refuse. With the inheritance as well as the influx of cash from selling the house, I decided to move my daughter and I to Malibu because we always dreamed of a home next to the beach but my husband was exceptionally tight fisted and called homes there 'money pits.'"

The Daughter Was 'Excited" for the House

The woman explained in her post that her daughter is now 16, but she lost her husband four years ago, so, at that time, she was 12. "We found a beautiful home by the sea," she stated. "I never personally handled anything regarding buying a home before so I did not anticipate all the extra costs beyond the sticker price." She added, "But my daughter was so excited so I decided to go for it."

Woman Was Told To Trust Her Late Husband's Lawyer

The widow revealed that her husband told her to trust his lawyer, but she didn't and tried to handle things on her own, which didn't work out. "My late husband left me everything and told me to trust his lawyer. My husband had worked for 20 years as a doctor and did some minor investing so I inherited over 7 figures."

She went on to say, "My late husband's lawyer was furious at my decision so I decided stopped taking his calls. I ended up signing with a money manager who said that we'd be passively earning 90 percent of what surgeons earned per year."

The Money Manager

The woman shared that she stopped working with the lawyer and hired a money manager who didn't do well with her investments. "The money manager ended up tanking a lot of our investments. I took the dwindling money out and made my own investments which made it worse and long story short, because of all that I only have around $35k available to me now., not to mention our debts."

She Can't Afford the Malibu House or Monthly Expenses

After making bad decisions with the money, the woman isn't able to afford the beach house, so she took her daughter's college fund to pay for the home. "With the amount available to me, I am looking at only being able to pay 1 month of a mortgage/ upkeep and then I'm basically out of luck until my business gets clients."

She explained, "However, the place where we do have a significant amount of money is the fund my husband started for our daughter. With the money there, I could prevent our credit cards from being shut down, and not have to worry about the mortgage for many more months."

Daughter is "Furious"

The mother wiped out the college fund without telling her daughter beforehand. "So I ended up liquidating my daughter's college fund. I told her about it today and she was furious and said she cannot believe all her dad's work is gone. Shea said she won't be supporting me for retirement." 

Commenters Jumped to the Daughter's Defense

The post got over 3,000 comments on Reddit, and most of them state the mother is "selfish." One person wrote, "You decided not to listen to the lawyer, you decided to move to an extremely expensive place, and you decided to trust someone's shady advice. Now you're taking away your daughter's chances of being able to go to college loan-free. That money is not yours. You should be ashamed of yourself."

Another stated, "When I was 12, I tried to talk my dad into buying a horse that could live in the garage. I couldn't BELIEVE it, when he said 'no.' Darned common sense!" Someone else added, "And is blaming her daughter, aged 12, for being so excited about the beach house that they had to move." Another person commented, "It's funny that the daughter's input over moving to a beautiful beach house was important, but the daughter's input in her own college fund wasn't necessary for OP [Original Poster] to make a decision. Nice lol." 

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Tight-Fisted or Fiscally Responsible?

In the woman's post, she stated that her husband was too "tight fisted" to live in the popular California beach town, but commenters defended the doctor. "I think what was meant by "exceptionally tight fisted" was actually "fiscally responsible, and living within our means," one person wrote. Another commented, "Based on what OP did once he was gone my guess is that OP's late husband was simply responsible and pragmatic but OP saw it as "tight-fisted" because he stopped her from doing exactly the insane kind of things she went ahead and did when he was gone."

Someone else stated, "The sad part is this all could have been avoided if she'd listened to her husband's final wishes: trust his lawyer. Want a house in Malibu? Fine! I'm sure the lawyer could have given her a reasonable timeline to sell (likely not in the middle of a recession) and budget for a new house based on their savings and investments. Instead she made the worst possible decision at every turn, assuming she was that much smarter than everyone else. Poor late husband is spinning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken on Christmas Eve."