I had a grandparent pass away recently, and all us grandkids got a small inheritance (equivalent to just over 500 US dollars).
I’ve never got anything like this before and I feel a little too sentimental to just blow the money (that set of grandparents helped my single mother raise me essentially). Ironically I could really use a cash injection as I have bunch of bills stacked up and well overdue - but on principle I won’t spend the last vestiges of the meagre savings my proletarian grandparents scraped together after a lifetime of labour just to settle some bills for some scumbag capitalists.
I had an idea that I would put the money in a term deposit, and every year redeposit it and spend the tiny bit of interest on a nice meal or a case of beer or something, so that once a year it would feel like they got me a little gift 🥲but apparently you need more money than that to open one of those accounts.
Maybe it’s best to just buy something that brings some joy to my life, but it feels a little gauche to spend your inheritance from beloved family members on a Xbox or some shit lol. Maybe I’m just being overly sentimental.
Buy a nice potted tree. Look after the tree. It will always be their tree and provided something particularly bad doesn't happen it will be there with you for decades. Something really sentimental for you.
Use the rest for something you need.
tbh I'd pay the bills. Grandparents probably wouldn't want you to worry about interest or collections or anything like that and to be out of debt.
Actually I'd also set aside like $100 and do something they'd like with it. Buy ingredients and make the cookies (or other food) they would make for you. Or go to a sports game they liked. Whatever kind of things they enjoyed. A little memorial, basically.
when I heard inheritance I thought quarter mil. $500? Pay your bills so they don't turn your shit off.
A few thoughts here:
Spend part of it on a framed picture of your grandmother. Put it somewhere you'll see it every day. If you are going to get a gaming console also consider the Steam Deck (runs Disco Elysium well). Alternatively you could hold onto it and before you know it life will present some bullshit (or maybe an opportunity) that requires a small chunk of money and you will be able to deal with it thanks to your grandmother and there might be some kind of meaning in that.
Maybe I'm just really feeling the slide into fascism today, but my first thought was "gun"
Spend it on something that will make you life easier.
Something that can help you cook is nice, especially if it helps you to cook healthier and easier.
A nice rice cooker or insta pot, a slow cooker, an air fryer, maybe a slicer like a Mandolin, or a fancy food processor
My sentimentality was to use some gift money to buy a used instrument of a kind I'd been eyeing for a while and really invest my hobby time in learning it to give it a second (or third) life of being played
do you have any creative / artistic inclinations? paints/brushes, musical instruments, drawing / art supplies. clay...
you don't have to be talented to practice and make something you like and beginner supplies are pretty affordable, so you would likely have $ leftover. just an idea.
Sorry for your loss.
Since $500 is substantial but not a ton of money these days, what I'd do is spend part on something that made me think of my grandparent — I'd probably take myself and a friend or a partner out for fried clams, since my grandma and I used to go out for fried clams together a lot. Or I'd get a hat in the style that my grandpa used to wear (big brightly-colored snap backs, like a tropical trucker (fortunately I'm a dyke so this fits right into my fashion)). If it were one of my grandparents I didn't have much relationship with, I'd probably get a couple packs of the mints they liked in the flavor they liked.
Then I'd spend the rest on bills tbh, my grandparents would like knowing that they were able to help me out again.
