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Thank You, Dear Departed, Father.

Debt Free

On March 27, 2017, my father passed away at the age of 81, and as a result, this triggered the process of finalizing his estate which resulted in $107,888.12, my inheritance, being deposited into my bank account yesterday. This inheritance will allow me to pay off every cent of our debts and have roughly $45,000 left over in savings to secure my family’s financial future after the financial nightmare of the past two years.

I’m not exactly sad that my father has passed, we never had a good relationship, there has been a lot of less than honorable actions taken by my father in the past, where those actions will remain, I’m not going to speak ill of the dead, but I will say that him dying was the best thing he could have done for us.

This whole process has been very long and drawn out, given the 6 1/2 months between the start of probate and the disbursement of funds. The process was drawn out even more by the inactions of my father’s landlord, holding up the process, almost driving us to the point of bankruptcy, when the funds arrived, I was just days away from defaulting on the first of many loans and credit card payments.

My late father’s landlord, John, decided he was going to take £1,815 in cash from my father’s room and deposit it into a personal bank account, then took £550 from those funds, before handing over the remainder to the lawyers, for a new bed for my father’s room, which he claims my father agreed to, which is something I can neither confirm or deny, circumventing the administration of my father’s estate.

John then refused to acknowledge my lawyer’s requests to provide a statement of costs incurred, which ultimately slowed the process down for over a month, I instructed my lawyers to proceed without this documentation as clearly, John was not going to provide the requested breakdown of his claimed costs.

The money from my inheritance, which came in the nick of time will go towards paying $26,000 in credit cards, $21,000 personal loan and $12,000 car loan, saving me close to $1,000 per month, which was financially killing us, approximately $350 of those payments was interest on the cards/loans.

I have my mother-in-law to thank for loaning me $2,000 to keep us in the black (so to speak, as we were actually $60,000 in the red). We only survived this long because of random monies from various sources and tax refunds, my income alone would not have covered our living costs, plus all the loans and credit card payments. It’s been a rough two years for us, living on a single income for almost half of that time.

When my wife returned to employment after four months unemployed, due to bullshit reasons, Kansas is a non-union free-to-hire state, I’ll leave it at that, I don’t want to turn this into a rant. I took out a personal loan to create a structured payment plan to get debt free in five years. A couple of months later, it happened again, my wife was let go as the new manager “wanted to bring in her own people”.

That was 8 months ago, and my wife has now just gotten a part-time position as a leasing agent, which she starts next week. Income from her new job will be money we could put into savings as my income is high enough to comfortably cover our everyday costs. The reason for the part-time position is so my wife can also pursue her real estate career, hopefully, sell some houses and further improve our finances.

For the first time in two years, we will be debt free and hopefully, stress-free. The past two years have taken an incredible toll on my mental and physical health. I didn’t know how to feel seeing my bank balance indicating $107,984 yesterday afternoon, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry with happiness, that helpless feeling finally lifted, the dark clouds parted and the sun was shining in my mind.

I have to say a big thank you to Wolferstans Solicitors of Plymouth, UK for handling everything back in the United Kingdom for me. Excellent service from Gemma, Rebecca and their team, administering my late father’s estate and pushing through the funds for me to avoid financial ruin in the past 10 days.

My 41st birthday is coming up in two weeks and this is the best birthday present anyone could have ever gotten me. Although I have to admit that I have been looking at some new toys for myself, such as a Canon 5D MkIV and a Sony RX100 V, whether I actually spend any money on myself, that’s up for debate.

3 thoughts on “Thank You, Dear Departed, Father.

  • James Millard
    October 13, 2017 at 07:57

    This is excellent news Jason. It has been obvious to me and so probably obvious to everyone close to you that your financial situation was bothering you. I have been really looking forward to you telling me you got your windfall.

    Delighted that you have chosen to use your money to clear all you debts. Hopefully life will start to deal a better hand and you can keep it that way. In my opinion debt is poison and easily causes stress and other issues affecting a persons health, you know me well enough to know that I know what it feels like. The only debt which is sensible, in my humble opinion, is debt against property which will appreciate in value over time (housing and land mostly). I guess the way student debt is handled in the UK makes that also worth while, in my view.

    Genuinely happy for you. Looking forward to chatting, id wager you’re a much happier person right now.


  • Tomas Thrainsson
    October 15, 2017 at 04:11

    Great to hear you’re getting out of debt mate. I know you well enough to be aware of your objections to taking out any kinds of loans at all, never mind being almost force fed the dire need to actually do it. Hope Erin finds a position she can hold without any bullshit for a few years, so you can enjoy the good life for a while. Just don’t spend all the money at once ;)

    I’m trusting that you’ll be having a mug of Supreme Court to celebrate soonish ;)


  • Tomas, I don’t think I could handle a supreme court, I am a lightweight these days, I drink so infrequently.

    Suffice to say, after the debts are paid off, I plan to hold onto as much of the money as I can (and add to it if possible), to cover our collectives butts, should employment not work out or other general disasters.


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